<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Zae (and list),<div>We have a similar situation at Charleston Southern. All are BA in music, with most majors taking fundamentals (or testing out) plus 4 semesters of theory & aural skills. Our Music and Worship Leadership majors, however, jump out after level 2 to take jazz/commercial music theory and arranging. No one gets a "truncated" program, but because of the different courses taken in semesters 3 & 4, there are two main exit points for students in the standard theory and aural skills curriculum.</div><div><br></div><div>Yale, where I did my graduate studies and teaching, has another sequence similar to yours. One semester of fundamentals was followed by two semesters of pre-major theory and aural skills. Those classes covered all of diatonic harmony and voice-leading, as well as tonal chromaticism and an intro to form in common-practice music. There were lots of non-music majors in those courses who stopped after (or sometimes during) that sequence. After passing those courses and being admitted to the major, music majors moved on to upper-level studies in theory, history, etc.</div><div><br></div><div>The challenges at CSU have been (and still are) getting the worship leadership folks through what they need in year 1 to be ready for their year 2, while keeping everything at a sane pace and in a coherent sequence for everyone. I've made use of some things we used at Yale that help accelerate the teaching of diatonic harmony and voice-leading: namely, using species counterpoint to introduce voice-leading prior to harmony (rather than teaching them together), then using Ian Quinn's functional-bass system for teaching diatonic harmony and reinforcing voice-leading principles in keyboard style. We're also able to do a fundamentals review at the beginning, some basic formal analysis (using Caplin's formal functions), and a pop/rock unit that centers primarily on form (building off of Caplin's sentence model and Everett's related SRDC model) in that first year.</div><div><br></div><div>Getting all that in the first year means doing a few things out of my ideal order and dropping a couple things I'd otherwise like to do (like model composition beyond the phrase length). However, it also has the advantage of leaving the whole second year to do chromaticism, large-scale classical form, 19th-c. art song, and a few 20th-21st-c. topics, all with a heavy emphasis on analysis and writing. I've done some of that with the current second-years (who didn't get my first year, since this is my first year here), and it's been rewarding to spend a lot of time with a few key genres and do a lot of analysis. So perhaps your last semester could be a "form and analysis" class or a "model composition" class that allows for more in-depth, contextual exploration of things covered in the two-semester crash course on music theory.</div><div><br></div><div>I don't know if that is helpful. And, honestly, being in my first year full-time and the only theorist at CSU, I wouldn't mind feedback on what we're doing from any others in a similar situation. Good luck in your program development!</div><div><br></div><div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; font-size: medium; "><div>Kris Shaffer<br>Assistant Professor of Music Theory<br>Charleston Southern University<br><a href="http://kris.shaffermusic.com">http://kris.shaffermusic.com</a><br><br><br>Prof. Kris Shaffer<br>Charleston Southern University<br>Horton School of Music<br>9200 University Boulevard<br>P.O. Box 118087<br>Charleston, SC 29423-8087<br>(843) 863-7964<br>kshaffer@csuniv.edu</div></span>
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<br><div><div>On Feb 16, 2012, at 2:31 PM, Zae Munn wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>I am seeking models for a Music BA in which the theory requirement is <br>limited to one semester of fundamentals plus 2 semesters of theory, <br>while the Music BM (Music Ed) would require fundamentals plus 3 <br>semesters of theory. So all music majors would proceed together for <br>the first 3 semesters, then the Music Ed students only would continue <br>on to a 4th semester.<br><br>This is a new and somewhat worrisome concept to me, but I have a <br>directive to develop such a program. I would appreciate hearing from <br>those of you who have experience with such differentiated programs, as <br>well as from those of you who have either positive or negative views <br>of the concept itself.<br><br>I am not convinced that I can create a reasonable 3-semester sequence <br>beginning at "this is a whole note" and ending with some sort of <br>knowledge of 20th c. analysis. And, even if that is possible, what <br>would the 4th semester group move on to?<br><br>Please reply to me: Zae Munn, <a href="mailto:zmunn@comcast.net">zmunn@comcast.net</a><br><br>If there is sufficient interest I will be happy to summarize responses.<br><br>Thanks, Zae Munn<br>Saint Mary's College<br>Notre Dame, IN<br><a href="http://www.zaemunn.com">www.zaemunn.com</a><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br><br>_______________________________________________<br>Smt-talk mailing list<br>Smt-talk@lists.societymusictheory.org<br>http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org<br><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></body></html>