Music Undergraduate Studies

Return to: Music Division

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. 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 111-112 — Ear Training I
• ETMUS 211-212 — Ear Training II
• ETMUS 301-301G — Advanced Ear Training for Singers
• ETMUS 311-312 — Ear Training III
• ETMUS 411-412 — Ear Training IV
• ETMUS 511X-512X — Ear Training IxIIx

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 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.

Prior to entering 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 100SR-200SR — Keyboard Sight-Reading
• KSMUS 111-112 — 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

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.

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 honors coursework (by advisement) for composers and other advanced students who wish to pursue a more intensive, academically rigorous program of study. The department also offers Music Studies courses for students in the Dance and Drama Divisions, drawing on the School’s rich musical resources.

• THMUS 111 — Theory I: Diatonic Harmony
• THMUS 111H — Honors Theory I: Aspects of Form and Structure
• THMUS 211 — Theory II: Principles of Form
• THMUS 211H — Honors Theory II: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis I
• THMUS 311 — Theory III: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis
• THMUS 311H — Honors Theory III: Chromatic Harmony and Analysis II
• THMUS 411 — Theory IV: At Tonality’s Edge
• THMUS 411H — Honors Theory IV: Counterpoint and Analytical Methods
• THMUS 511 — Theory V: 20th Century and Beyond
• THMUS 511H — Honors Theory V: Music of the 20th Century and Beyond

• THMUS 522E — Nationalism in 19th-Century Chamber Music
• THMUS 526E — Brahms and Wagner
• THMUS 528E — The Art Song: From Schubert to Rorem
• THMUS 529E — Schoenberg and Stravinsky
• THMUS 534E — Time-Benders: Stravinsky, Messiaen, Carter, and Others
• THMUS 540E — The Symphonies of Beethoven
• THMUS 541E — The Art of Tonal Counterpoint
• THMUS 543E — The Symphonies of Brahms
• THMUS 544E — Giacomo Puccini: Verismo and Expanding the Boundaries in Italian Opera
• THMUS 547E — Classicism in Music During the Romantic, Impressionistic and Early Contemporary Periods
• THMUS 551E — Transformation in Tonal Music
• THMUS 553E-554E — Advanced Counterpoint
• THMUS 555E-556E — Advanced Harmony
• THMUS 570E — Stravinsky in America
• THMUS 572E — Aspects of Neoclassicism

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 413 — C.P.E. Bach, Frederick the Great, and the Enlightenment Court
• MHMUS 414 — J.S. Bach: Major Vocal Works
• MHMUS 415 — Bach’s Cantatas
• MHMUS 419 — Music in the Age of Handel 
• MHMUS 438 — Beethoven: Life, Music, Myth
• MHMUS 439 — Mozart’s Narrative Art
• MHMUS 452 — Music on the Edge Since 1900
• MHMUS 453 — Modernism in Opera
• MHMUS 454 — The Early Music Revival
• MHMUS 455 — The Arts in the Third Reich
• MHMUS 459 — Musical Identity in the Modern World
• MHMUS 473 — History of English Music
• MHMUS 475 — Music in the Americas: A Cross-Cultural Perspective
• MHMUS 478 — The Music of Brahms
• MHMUS 480 — A Cultural History of Conducting and Orchestras
• MHMUS 482 — Introduction to Ethnomusicology
• MHMUS 489 — Music Across Media: From Orpheus to Nintendo
• MHMUS 490 — Music and Community

• MLMUS 301-302 — Guitar History and Literature

• MLMUS 133-134 — Piano Literature I
• MLMUS 233-234 — Piano Literature II
• MLMUS 333-334 — Piano Literature III
• MLMUS 511 — Juilliard PianoScope

• MSMUS 100 — Piano Topics
• MSMUS 100A — Alexander Technique
• MSMUS 211 — Basics of Conducting
• MSMUS 221-222 — Piano Performance Class
• MSMUS 303R-304R — Composition Practicum
• MSMUS 321-322 — Piano Performance Class III
• MSMUS 421-422 — Piano Performance Class IV
• MSMUS 445 — Practicum in Classroom Pedagogy
• MSMUS 446 — Practicum in Classroom Pedagogy
• MSMUS 503R-504R — Composers’ Forum
• MSMUS 511-512 — Orchestral Conducting (for Non-Majors)
• MSMUS 519-520 — Composition (for Non-Majors)
• MSMUS 531-532 — Orchestration
• MSMUS 560 — Introduction to Music Production
• MSMUS 573 — Opera Comp
• MSMUS 574 — Opera Comp Practicum
• MSMUS 576 — Essentials of Music and Video Technology for Performing Artists
• MSMUS 596C-597C — Chamber Music Community Service Seminar
• MSMUS 613 — Baroque Chamber Music

Return to: Music Division