Music Undergraduate Studies

Faculty

Standards of Achievement and Evaluation

All undergraduate students in the Music Division are reviewed by the Scholastic Standing Committee at quarterly intervals throughout the academic year. A high level of accomplishment is expected in the major studies and performance ensembles at all times. Students are encouraged to feel that they are in a professional as well as educational environment and that the goal of their training is their growth as young artists and informed members of our society. Classroom departmental studies, specialized studies, and liberal arts requirements must meet minimum standards. At the close of the second year of training, a student whose overall achievement is judged to be significantly below his or her potential, or that of the class as a whole, may not be invited to continue in the School. Further details regarding satisfactory academic progress, attendance, juries, and examinations may be found in the Standards and Regulations  section.

Note: Supplementary English instruction may be required for undergraduate programs, based on the results of the TOEFL exam.

Programs

The Bachelor of Music (B.M.) degree program is the principal undergraduate program in music, and nearly all of the undergraduate musicians are enrolled in it. It requires students to supplement their music studies with a prescribed number of courses in the Liberal Arts Department.

The B.M. degree program normally requires four years to complete. The minimum residency is two years for qualified and approved transfer students (three years for Voice majors). All requirements for the degree must be completed within seven years of a student’s original enrollment in the B.M. program.

• Bass Trombone, BM
• Bassoon, BM
• Cello, BM
• Clarinet, BM
• Composition, BM
• Double Bass, BM
• Flute, BM
• Guitar, BM
• Harp, BM
• Horn, BM
• Jazz Studies, BM
• Oboe, BM
• Organ, BM
• Percussion, BM
• Piano, BM
• Trombone, BM
• Trumpet, BM
• Tuba, BM
• Viola, BM
• Violin, BM
• Voice, BM

The Diploma program is a three-year program of study for the few very gifted undergraduate musicians in keyboard, orchestral instruments, and voice, who for personal or professional reasons must pursue a non-degree course of study concentrating almost exclusively on performance. New students may enter this program only upon recommendation of the dean and the Admissions Committee. Currently enrolled students may transfer into this program only upon approval of the Scholastic Standing Committee.

NOTE: Important statistics and disclosure information on all non-degree diploma programs are available on the Juilliard Web site.

• Bass Trombone, Diploma
• Bassoon, Diploma
• Cello, Diploma
• Clarinet, Diploma
• Composition, Diploma
• Double Bass, Diploma
• Flute, Diploma
• Guitar, Diploma
• Harp, Diploma
• Horn, Diploma
• Jazz Studies, Diploma
• Oboe, Diploma
• Organ, Diploma
• Percussion, Diploma
• Piano, Diploma
• Trombone, Diploma
• Trumpet, Diploma
• Tuba, Diploma
• Viola, Diploma
• Violin, Diploma
• Voice, Diploma

Courses

The aim of the ear training program is to equip students with thorough skills in rhythm, pitch, and musical structures in order to promote confident, fast, and accurate learning. Through a guided series of precision exercises, students come to understand their roles as soloists, as collaborators in small or large ensembles, and as creators in transmitting to an audience the emotional content of the music. The fixed-do system — primarily because of its systematic approach to both tonal and atonal music — is employed to develop all pitch-related skills.

• ETMUS 111-2 — Ear Training I
• ETMUS 211-2 — Ear Training II
• ETMUS 301 — Advanced Ear Training for Singers
• ETMUS 311-2 — Ear Training III
• ETMUS 411-2 — Ear Training IV

The Keyboard Studies department aims to raise the level of keyboard facility and musicianship skills for all music students at Juilliard. The department is primarily comprised of two courses of study: Secondary Piano and Keyboard Skills. 

Secondary Piano is required of all non-keyboard music majors. It is designed to enhance students’ understanding of Music Theory and to develop basic keyboard skills of use in their future careers as performers and teachers. Its two-year curriculum trains students in the rudiments of piano playing, including scales, arpeggios, basic keyboard harmony, and sight-reading, while maintaining the study of repertoire, ranging from pedagogical pieces to Classical-era sonatinas, simple piano accompaniments to vocal and instrumental repertoire, and keyboard reductions of score excerpts.

Keyboard Skills is required of all keyboard majors. Its two-year curriculum is designed to sharpen specific practical skills that are necessary for all keyboard players. It covers sight-reading, keyboard harmony, transposition, and score-reading. The final semester of the Keyboard Skills sequence offers a variety of advanced electives on a rotating basis, including improvisation. 

Prior to entering into the Keyboard Skills sequence, students are required to pass a sight-reading proficiency exam. In support of this requirement, a two-semester Keyboard Sight-Reading course taught by graduate teaching fellows is offered in the student’s first year.

• KSMUS 001-2 — Keyboard Sight-Reading
• KSMUS 111-2 — Keyboard Skills I
• KSMUS 141 — Piano Class I
• KSMUS 142 — Piano Class II
• KSMUS 211 — Keyboard Skills II
• KSMUS 222 — Advanced Keyboard Skills
• KSMUS 241 — Piano Class III
• KSMUS 242 — Piano Class IV
• KSMUS 501-2 — Practical Techniques for Service Playing

The Music Theory and Analysis department helps students to develop and refine their natural musical instincts. The core curriculum offers a broad introduction to musical syntax, structure, and styles from the Renaissance to the present day. For Theory V, each section has a different repertoire or thematic focus, as reflected in the subtitles.

Advanced elective courses (offered in a wide variety of subjects, on a rotating basis) allow students to focus in-depth on repertoire tailored to their special interests as well as to pursue sophisticated analysis projects. Vocal Arts majors are required to take only one elective, which must be from the Analytical Writing category. All other majors must take two electives, one from the Analytical Writing category and one from the Genres category.

The department offers a separate honors track (by advisement) for composers and other advanced students who wish to pursue a more intensive, academically rigorous program of study. Students who have completed the honors track must complete two additional electives, one from each category. In some cases, such students may petition for special permission to substitute a Graduate Studies music theory core seminar.

The department also offers Music Studies courses for students in the Dance and Drama Divisions, drawing on the School’s rich musical resources.

• THMUS E567 — Beethoven: Symphonies in Context
• THMUS H111 — Honors Theory I: Aspects of Form and Structure
• THMUS H211 — Honors Theory II: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis I
• THMUS H311 — Honors Theory III: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis II
• THMUS H411 — Honors Theory IV: Counterpoint and Analytical Methods
• THMUS H511 — Honors Theory V: Music of the 20th Century and Beyond
• THMUS 111 — Theory I: Diatonic Harmony
• THMUS 211 — Theory II: Principles of Form
• THMUS 311 — Theory III: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis
• THMUS 411 — Theory IV: At Tonality’s Edge
• THMUS 511 — Theory V: 20th Century and Beyond

• THMUS E522 — Nationalism in 19th-Century Chamber Music
• THMUS E523 — Counterpoint Organic Line
• THMUS E526 — Brahms and Wagner
• THMUS E527 — Introduction to Text-Music Relations in German and English Art Song
• THMUS E528 — The Art Song: From Schubert to Rorem
• THMUS E540 — The Symphonies of Beethoven
• THMUS E541 — The Art of Tonal Counterpoint
• THMUS E543 — The Symphonies of Brahms
• THMUS E545 — The World of 20th/21st-Century, Tonal Music
• THMUS E546 — Developing Variation: From Beethoven to Schoenberg
• THMUS E547 — Classicism in Music During the Romantic, Impressionistic and Early Contemporary Periods
• THMUS E550 — Late Surge: Janáček’s Last Decade
• THMUS E553-4 — Advanced Counterpoint
• THMUS E555-6 — Advanced Harmony
• THMUS E569 — The Music of Stravinsky
• THMUS E570 — Stravinsky in America

The music history curriculum is designed to foster the music student’s knowledge of his or her art and its cultural significance overall; it also promotes the development of students’ communication skills, critical thinking, and the application of knowledge to real-world circumstances. Classroom instruction advocates historically informed performance practice, not only for music written before 1800, but for every type of music, including non-Western and popular music.

Students take MHMUS 111 in the spring semester of their first year, MHMUS 211 and 311 in their sophomore year, and three music history electives during their third and fourth years.

• MHMUS 111 — From Antiquity to 1700
• MHMUS 211 — From 1700 to 1850
• MHMUS 311 — From 1850 to the Present

• MHMUS H446 — Music and the Cold War, 1945 – 1990
• MHMUS 409 — Medievalism and Music
• MHMUS 414 — J.S. Bach: Major Vocal Works
• MHMUS 427 — Music and Revolution
• MHMUS 439 — Mozart’s Narrative Art
• MHMUS 446 — Beethoven in the Age of Napoleon
• MHMUS 452 — Music on the Edge Since 1900
• MHMUS 453 — Modernism in Opera
• MHMUS 455 — The Arts in the Third Reich
• MHMUS 458 — New Currents From Asia
• MHMUS 459 — Musical Identity in the Modern World
• MHMUS 464 — The Requiem
• MHMUS 475 — Music in the Americas - A Cross-Cultural Perspective
• MHMUS 477 — Faust in Music
• MHMUS 482 — Introduction to Ethnomusicology
• MHMUS 485 — Music Born in Crisis
• MHMUS 490 — Music and Community

• MLMUS 101-2 — Organ Literature
• MLMUS 301-2 — Guitar History and Literature

• MLMUS 133-4 — Piano Literature I
• MLMUS 233-4 — Piano Literature II
• MLMUS 333-4 — Piano Literature III
• MLMUS 511 — Juilliard PianoScope

• MSMUS R303-4 — Composition Practicum
• MSMUS R503-4 — Composers’ Forum
• MSMUS 001 — Alexander Technique
• MSMUS 100 — Piano Topics
• MSMUS 110 — Piano Performance Class I
• MSMUS 211 — Basics of Conducting
• MSMUS 221-2 — Piano Performance Class II
• MSMUS 321-2 — Piano Performance Class III
• MSMUS 421-2 — Piano Performance Class IV
• MSMUS 445 — Practicum in Classroom Pedagogy
• MSMUS 446 — Practicum in Classroom Pedagogy
• MSMUS 505 — Career Development Seminar
• MSMUS 511-2 — Orchestral Conducting (for non-majors)
• MSMUS 513 — Improvisation
• MSMUS 519-20 — Composition (for non-majors)
• MSMUS 531-2 — Orchestration
• MSMUS 560 — Introduction to Music Production
• MSMUS 573 — Opera Lab Seminar
• MSMUS 574 — Opera Lab Practicum

• GRMUS H680 — Women Composers Before 1800