Spring 2026
Composition | Music Education | Music Theory | Musicology
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Composition
MUSIC 8895 — Seminar in Music: Musical Data Structures (AKA the "AI and Music" course)
3 credits
W 4:10–7:05 p.m.
Instructor: Tina Tallon
No prerequisites
Students will engage with computational methods for the analysis and generation of musical materials and structures to better understand how humans produce and interact with them. Topics covered include artificial intelligence, music representation and encoding, feature extraction and music information retrieval, corpus studies, analytical and generative machine learning techniques, data sonification, and multimodal human-computer interaction. These techniques will be considered in the context of many different aesthetics, styles, genres, theoretical frameworks, and societal contexts.
MUSIC 8895 — Seminar in Music: Building Systems for Electronic Improvisation
2 credits
Tue/Thu 4:10–5:05 p.m.
Instructor: Treya Nash
No prerequisites
Students will create systems for improvisation using open source software, hardware, acoustic instruments, and found objects. They will work with field recordings, digital signal processing, and live sound, developing and reinforcing fundamental technology skills applied through both solo and group improvisation. Through the improvisatory focus of the class, students will develop their own electronic language of sounds and interfaces, allowing them to autonomously create and explore tools that can be used in broad creative contexts.
Music Education
MUSIC 8877 — Seminar: Social Factors in Music Education
3 credits
M 4:10–7 p.m. | Timashev Rm 408
Instructor: Heather Lofdahl
In this course, students will explore social influences on music education and their relationship to primary and secondary music programs and practices. Students will critically consider the role of music and music education in societal and educational contexts.
Music Theory
MUSIC 4500.01 — Graduate Review of Tonal Harmony
Tu–Th 8–8:55 a.m. | Timashev 308
Instructor: Terrilyn Shepherd
This course offers a comprehensive review of foundational concepts in music theory and analysis for graduate students in music. Emphasizing tonal music in a broad sense, we will engage with a diverse range of styles including Western common-practice repertoire, pop and rock, jazz, and other contemporary idioms. Students will develop the analytical tools and theoretical vocabulary necessary to describe and interpret musical structure, enabling deeper musical conversations across styles and disciplines. Core topics include rhythm and meter, timbre and texture, melody and harmony, and formal design. The course aims to strengthen fluency in music theory while fostering critical listening and stylistic awareness.
MUSIC 7829.05 — Special Topics: Galant Schema Theory
MW 2:20–3:40 p.m. | Weigel Hall 108
Instructor: Terrilyn Shepherd
This course explores the compositional vocabulary of the 18th-century galant style through the lens of galant schemata—recurring melodic, harmonic, and contrapuntal patterns used first as teaching tools in the 17th century Naples conservatories and then by composers. Students will study key schemata and learn how these idiomatic patterns functioned as tools for invention, pedagogy, and improvisation during these periods. The course integrates analytical, historical, and practical approaches. Students will identify schemata in repertoire, analyze their expressive and structural functions, and apply them in compositional and improvisational exercises. Drawing on recent scholarship, the course situates schemata within broader cultural and cognitive frameworks, highlighting their role in shaping 18th-century musical thought and listener expectations.
MUSIC 5623 — Theory and Analysis: 20th century
Graduate section 010 (28967)
Tu–Th 4:10–5:05 p.m. | Timashev 410
Instructor: Sasha Drozzina
This course is part of a series of 5000-level course offerings in music theory that seek to further develop the analytical, critical, and writing skills. Students will apply theoretical concepts and analytical techniques to pitch, interval, motive, rhythm, and harmony, found in compositions from circa 1900 on, including works of their own choosing. Students will read and critically engage with relevant scholarship and will have the opportunity to develop their analytical writing skills through weekly assignments in various formats in preparation for their final project paper.
MUSIC 8820 — Music Theory Pedagogy
Tu/Th 2:20–3:40 p.m. | Timashev 508
Instructor: Anna Gawboy
This course is an introduction to the curricular considerations, materials, and techniques related to teaching undergraduate music theory and aural training. Its primary objective is to prepare current graduate students to become future faculty. Students will understand how music theory curricula differ depending on institution type and student population, familiarize themselves with the advantages and pitfalls of the most commonly-used materials, plan a trajectory of student learning over the course of a term, develop strategies to assess student learning, prepare a lesson plan, and be able to formulate their own goals and philosophy of teaching music theory. MUSIC 8820 fulfills the “Required Discipline-Based Teaching Course in Home Department” for the Graduate Certificate in College and University Teaching.
Musicology
Music 7740 — Studies in Music before 1600
M/W 12:40–2:04 p.m.
Instructor: Graeme Boone
This course provides an introduction to the advanced study of historical musicology through the lens of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance music. The approach will necessarily be topical rather than comprehensive, reading scholarship and studying all kinds of primary sources on a limited number of research topics, which serve to evoke broader music-historical panoramas. Most often, students in the course will have already taken an introductory survey course in medieval and Renaissance music, but it is understood that different students will have different kinds and levels of understanding, and that many students will not consider early music to be a focus for their future research careers. Music 7740 will therefore help students to anchor, as well as develop, their understanding of this essential arena of musicological scholarship.
MUSIC 6895 — Colloquium in Musicology
M 3:55–5:45 p.m.
Instructor: Katie Graber
Musicology Student Colloquium is a repeatable 2-credit course for graduate students to develop musicological research, writing, and pedagogy. This workshop is based around the Ohio State Lectures in Musicology series and other topics of interest to participants. In conversation with the instructor, students will define their own pedagogy or writing projects, such as teaching statements, syllabus development, grant proposals, conference presentations, or articles. Students will engage in peer review and discussion about recent theories, methods and writing styles in music scholarship and teaching.
MUSIC 6786 / 4555.06 — Music Research Methods and Bibliography
Tue/Thu 9:35–10:55 a.m.
Instructor: Alan Green
An exploration of the resources and techniques needed for graduate studies in all areas of music. Students will learn to examine and critically evaluate music resources in both traditional and electronic forms and will develop research strategies that can be adapted to many different areas of study. Students will learn to use the major music research databases and other significant research tools (e.g., bibliographies, indexes, thematic catalogs, and critical reports of historical music editions). They will also learn about the different types of music editions. Students will also gain an appreciation of scholarly methods and documentation in music research, through the completion of projects designed to develop bibliographic skills and qualitative judgment.
ARTSSCI 6000 — Career Exploration for Graduate Students (in Musicology)
First 7-week session: IN PERSON, Tue 8:35–10:20 a.m., Class no. 28888
First 7-week session: ONLINE, Tue 3:30–5:15 p.m., Class no. 36515
1 credit, S/U grading
Instructor: Danielle Fosler-Lussier
What might you do after graduate school? This one-credit course, tailored to the needs of graduate students, introduces skills for discovering a variety of career paths; assessing fit; cultivating necessary skills and networks; and entering a profession.
You have skills, aptitudes, interests, and values that can be matched to a variety of careers. We will find several possible paths that align with your personal profile. We will practice informational interviewing; identify skills you need to build for the chosen path; and start taking steps toward achieving your goals.
MUSIC 8950 — Seminar in Musicology: Sonic Epistemologies
Tue/Thu 2:20–3:40 p.m.
Instructor: Katie Graber
How do we know what we know, and how do we decide what knowledge is legitimate? How does music, noise, sound, and silence produce knowledge or allow us to experience something in a new way? In this course, students will consider how sonic practices and listening habits may enhance or hinder our understanding of the world. We will engage literature from Sound Studies, Subaltern Studies, Ethno/musicology, and related disciplines in order to ask how we could listen and who we could listen to in order to reevaluate our own epistemologies and enact epistemic justice. Students will write weekly response papers and a final research paper to apply these questions to a topic of their choice.
MUSIC 7780.20 — African Performing Ensemble
T 5:30–6:50 p.m.
1 credit
Instructor: Jason Buchea
Ensemble dedicated to performing African-derived music. Prereq: Admission by audition, or permission of instructor. Repeatable to a maximum of 12 cr hrs or 12 completions
SPA/MUS 7780.22 — Andean Music Ensemble
W 5:30–7:35 p.m. | Timashev Room N410
1 credit
Instructor: Michelle Wibbelsman, Spanish and Portuguese
This course embraces Andean traditions of participatory music making to learn how to perform music from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina; sing in Spanish, Quechua, Kichwa and Aymara; explore Andean musical and performance aesthetics; and learn about the cultural background and social significance of the songs. We experience instruments like zampoñas or sikuris (Andean panpipes), tarkas (Bolivian festival flutes), quenas/kenas (notched mouthpiece flutes), charangos (Andean string instruments), guitars, bombo (Andean bass drum), chakchas (goat hooves rattles), cajón peruano and quijada (Afro-Peruvian percussion). There are no auditions and no requirements for prior musical experience or language proficiency.
Autumn 2025
Music Education
MUSIC 7838 — Music Psychology
3 credits
Th 4:10–6:45 p.m.
Instructor: Eugenia Costa-Giomi
Overview of the field known as psychology of music. The leading questions of the course center on the perception and cognition of music and how our minds and bodies construct, experience, and respond to music. We will discuss the psychoacoustical basis of sound, the differences between sound communicative systems including music and language, the evolutionary function of music, the effects of music engagement on behavior, the development of music skills throughout the lifespan, the process of music enculturation, and the interpretation and creation of musical structure and meaning in the contexts of listening, learning, composing, and performing.
Music Theory
MUSIC 5622 — Theory and Analysis: 19th Century
Graduate section (36937)
W/F 4:10–5:05 p.m.
Instructor TBA
This upper-level course focuses on the analysis of instrumental and vocal music of the Western European tradition from the 19th century. Students will engage with representative works through their formal, harmonic, rhythmic, and voice-leading design, while thinking critically about the implications of a work's structure on its potential meanings. Course readings will introduce students to theoretical concepts in semiotics, hermeneutics, musical narrative, and text-music relations. In-class activities and assignments will have students apply these concepts through analysis and interpretation—with the ultimate goal of understanding a 19th-century musical work through both structural and semantic lenses.
MUSIC 5801 — Analysis of Video Game Music
Graduate section (39635)
Tu/Th 3:55–5:15 p.m.
Instructor: Jeremy Smith
This course focuses on the theory and analysis of video game music, focusing on topics such as functions of game audio, interactivity and immersion, game history and technology, comparisons between game music and film music, musical meaning and tropes, genres and styles, as well as fandom, song covers, and nostalgia. Each week students will read articles or book chapters and analyze some video game music in relation to the weekly topic. We will engage directly with video game music through close listening, watching others play games, and playing games ourselves.
MUSIC 6840 — Research Methods in Music Theory
Graduate section
3 credits
MW 2:20–3:40 p.m.
Instructor: Anna Gawboy
This course introduces students to current trends, epistemologies, and research methods in music theory. Students will understand recent disciplinary history, engage with a broad cross section of current research, and position their own research interests in a rapidly expanding field. Students will craft an original research project on a topic of their choice, and will be able to meet generic expectations for common research documents such as an abstract, conference proposal, or grant proposal.
Musicology
MUSIC 6672 — Introduction to Ethnomusicology
Seven-week course — Session I
3 credits
Tu/Th 2:20–3:40 p.m.
Instructor: Katie Graber
This course is a historical introduction to the ways scholars have studied “world music.” Beginning with Comparative Musicology in the late 19th century, the course moves through successive periods of Ethnomusicological disciplinary orientations and cross-disciplinary affiliations to the present; and, more globally, from the colonialist foundations of (ethno)musicology to the recent decolonial critiques of the discipline(s). The course aims to give students a broad overview of the methods, theories, topics, people, and places that have defined “Ethnomusicology” over (roughly) the past 150 years.
MUSIC 8886 — Theories and Methods
Seven-week course — Session II
3 credits
Tu/Th 2:20–3:40 p.m.
Instructor: Katie Graber
This course is an intensive and immersive seminar on current trends, directions, ideas, and orientations in ethnomusicology. In this class, students will read, reflect on, and discuss a series of recent monographs in the discipline, books which challenge, reimagine, and seek to further develop (or critique) what it means to do a variety of musical traditions around the world today.
MUSIC 8950 — Historical Methods for Studying the Performing Arts
3 credit hours
M 12:55–3:40 p.m.
Instructor: Danielle Fosler-Lussier
This course takes a hands-on approach to accessing and interpreting performing arts of the past. We will use a variety of primary sources, including written and audio sources from archives, newspapers and other media. We will become familiar with old and new methods historians now use for analyzing and showcasing their data, including digital humanities strategies and tools. We will examine and practice writing for public and scholarly audiences. By the end of this course students will be able to plan a historical research project; find relevant source material; and use that source material to build a convincing historical argument that serves readers well.
MUSIC 6895 — Colloquium in Musicology
M 3:55–5:45 p.m.
Instructor: Katie Graber
Musicology Student Colloquium is a repeatable 2-credit course for graduate students to develop musicological research, writing, and pedagogy. This workshop is based around the Ohio State Lectures in Musicology series and other topics of interest to participants. In conversation with the instructor, students will define their own pedagogy or writing projects, such as teaching statements, syllabus development, grant proposals, conference presentations, or articles. Students will engage in peer review and discussion about recent theories, methods and writing styles in music scholarship and teaching.
MUSIC 8850 — Performance Practice
Tu/Th 12:45–2:05 p.m.
Instructor: Graeme Boone
Music 8850 is a graduate-level course, intended for master's or doctoral students who have an interest in historically-informed performance practice. Following the emphases of performance education in the School of Music, the course is oriented to classical-music repertories in the Western historical tradition, though we explore other areas of music (including music theater, popular music, folk and ethnic music, world music) depending on student interests and on our available time. It tends to privilege the lesser known, earlier historical eras (Antiquity to the 19th century), rather than the most recent ones (20-21st centuries) though students are free to pursue research in their areas of interest.
The course experience is grounded in reading, discussion, research, and presentation. Students are expected to study the assigned readings, culled mostly from two textbooks, but also from monographs, journal articles, historical treatises, and other sources, and they should be prepared to discuss them in class. In addition, students are each assigned a few focused topics for presentation, which require research and thoughtful organization; these include one presentation on a historical treatise and one on a historical instrument, vocal practice, or other topic of the student's choice. Finally, while there will be no tests in the course, students are expected to write a research paper of at least 15 pages’ length, based on a serious investigation into some concrete aspect of historical performance practice. Due at the end of term, this paper should display a firm grasp of the topic, including the relevant modern and historical bibliography. It is understood that students will have variable or limited knowledge of foreign languages, which affects research, bibliography, and scholarship; and that online access to research sources is not always possible. As instructor, I am there to help with these as other course-related issues.
MUSIC 7780.20 — African Performing Ensemble
T 5:30–6:50 p.m.
1 credit
Prereq: Admission by audition, or permission of instructor.
Repeatable to a maximum of 12 credit hours or 12 completions.
Instructor: Jason Buchea, PhD candidate
Ensemble dedicated to performing African-derived music.
SPA/MUS 7780.22 — Andean Music Ensemble
W 5:30–7:35 p.m.
1 credit
Instructor: Michelle Wibbelsman, Spanish and Portuguese
This course embraces Andean traditions of participatory music making to learn how to perform music from Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Chile and Argentina; sing in Spanish, Quechua, Kichwa and Aymara; explore Andean musical and performance aesthetics; and learn about the cultural background and social significance of the songs. We experience instruments like zampoñas or sikuris (Andean panpipes), tarkas (Bolivian festival flutes), quenas/kenas (notched mouthpiece flutes), charangos (Andean string instruments), guitars, bombo (Andean bass drum), chakchas (goat hooves rattles), cajón peruano and quijada (Afro-Peruvian percussion). There are no auditions and no requirements for prior musical experience or language proficiency.
ARTSSCI 6000 — Career Exploration for Graduate Students
1 credit
First seven-week session: Tu 9:10-10:55 a.m.
Second seven-week session: M 9:10-10:55 a.m.
Instructor: Danielle Fosler-Lussier
18th Ave. Library, room 270
This course introduces strategies for discovering a variety of career paths; assessing how a job might fit one’s interests, skills, and values; cultivating networks; and entering a profession. The course is suitable for graduate students at any stage, with any career goal. Weekly assignments required, graded S/U.
Performance
MUSIC 7715 — Structure and Function
3 credits
M/W 8–9:25 a.m.
Instructor: Katherine Rohrer
This course explores the primary anatomy involved in sound production, including:
- The skeleton and major muscles related to posture (shoulders and upper body)
- The respiratory system
- Laryngeal anatomy
- The oral cavity and tongue/facial muscles
While the course content has applications for singers, it is by no means limited to them — it is relevant to musicians of all kinds, particularly those who use their bodies or voices in performance.
No prerequisites are required.