Course Content and Outcomes Guides (CCOG)

CCOG for MUS 105 Winter 2025


Course Number:
MUS 105
Course Title:
Music Appreciation Through Listening
Credit Hours:
4
Lecture Hours:
40
Lecture/Lab Hours:
0
Lab Hours:
0

Course Description

Introduces the aesthetics of music and their relationship to companion art forms. Covers main Western style periods including Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Twentieth Century, and contemporary genres. Surveys musical form, instrumentation, composer biographies, and music in national cultures. Includes works by women composers and non-Western artists. Contains a substantial amount of critical listening. Prerequisites: WR 115, RD 115 and MTH 20 or equivalent placement test scores. Audit available.

Intended Outcomes for the course

Upon completion of the course students should be able to:

  1. Analyze musical works for form, texture, and content through listening.
  2. Discuss the artistic, historical and sociopolitical contexts for the major developments in Western music.
  3. Distinguish musical works by composer and/or style through critical listening.
  4. Describe the role that women have played in the development of music and how non-Western and non-traditional composers have impacted the music of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Integrative Learning

Students completing an associate degree at Portland Community College will be able to reflect on one’s work or competencies to make connections between course content and lived experience.

General education philosophy statement

The study of music provides students the opportunity to experience the art form as learners, listeners, and practitioners. Students will cultivate a deeper understanding of music as an expression of culture developed from rich traditions, social structures, and technological innovations, each with unique aesthetic and artistic values, all reflected through organized sound.

Outcome Assessment Strategies


Methods used to evaluate student progress and the criteria for assigning a course grade should be made clear by the instructor at the beginning of the course. The individual instructor will determine the method of assessment. Assessment methods may include:

  • Qualitative and/or quantitative examinations based on readings and listening examples
  • Concert reports
  • Critical listening assignments
  • Research projects
  • Class participation

Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)


Basic Fundamentals of Listening

  • Melody Contour - conjunct, disjunct, rising, falling, wave-like
  • Rhythm -  beat, meter, syncopation, simple, compound, polyrhythm
  • Harmony - consonance, dissonance, diatonic, chromatic, chord, interval, tonality
  • Texture - monophonic, polyphonic, homophonic, heterophonic, contrapuntal devices
  • Form - binary, ternary, variation, sonata-allegro, rondo, strophic, through-composed, motive, phrase, ostinato
  • Tempo and dynamics
  • Tone color - soprano, alto, tenor, bass, instruments of orchestra

Music of the Middle Ages

  • Sacred music - monophonic chant, mass, organum, motet
  • Secular music - troubadour, trouvere, minniesinger, meistersinger, bard, estampe
  • Ars Nova - polyphony, early instrumental music

Music of the Renaissance

  • Arts in the Renaissance - instruments of the renaissance
  • Sacred music - motet, mass, reformation, counter-reformation
  • Secular music - court life, chanson, madrigal, instrumental dance

Music of the Baroque

  • The Baroque Spirit - religious, secular, monody, harmonic structures, style, women, rise of virtuoso, doctrine of affections, internationalism
  • Vocal music - opera, cantata, oratorio, motet, madrigal
  • Instrumental music - baroque instruments, concerto, suite, overture, fugue, sonata

Age of Enlightenment

  • Rococo - Age of Sensibility, changing opera and musical styles
  • Development of forms

Eighteenth Century Classicism

  • The arts - patronage system, concert life
  • Chamber music- string ensembles, serenades, divertimenti
  • Symphony - classical orchestra
  • Concerto
  • Sonata
  • Vocal music - opera, choral forms, solo song
  • Transitional period

Nineteenth Century Music

  • The Romantic Movement - arts, society, style traits
  • Art Song - German lied, song structure (strophic, through-composed), song cycle
  • Piano and its literature - lyric piano piece, sonata
  • Program music - symphony, tone poem, nationalism
  • Romantic Symphony
  • Romantic Concerto
  • Music in America
  • Choral Music
  • Opera
  • Ballet

Twentieth and Twenty First Century Music

  • Impressionism and Post-impressionism
  • Expressionism
  • Primitivism
  • Serialism
  • Neo-classisim
  • Aleatoric
  • Third-stream
  • Electronic
  • Modernism
  • Minimalism

COMPETENCIES/SKILLS
The following skills are to be achieved to successfully meet the minimum requirement ("C" or "Pass") for the course:

  • Describe the basic elements of listening: melody, rhythm, harmony, texture, form, tone color and their related terms.
  • Recognize musical style periods from recorded or live performance examples.
  • Recognize musical textures from recorded or live performance examples.
  • Identify and discuss important composers, their musical contribution and how it relates to the social period of their time.
  • Apply understanding of music to critically evaluate a symphonic work.