Music History Major (B.Mus.) (124 credits)
Offered by: Music Research (Schulich School of Music)
Degree: Bachelor of Music
Program credit weight: 124
Program Description
The Bachelor of Music (B.Mus.); Major in Music History requires 124 credits. This program focuses on the place of music in different cultural contexts, the social conditions of musicians, the evolution of performing styles, and the different ways music can project meaning and reflect identity, including the parameters of different musical styles and musical syntax. Exposure to a wide variety of repertoire in the Western classical tradition as well as to jazz and popular idioms.
Music History provides excellent preparation not only for graduate study in musicology, but also for a considerable range of professional training programs including journalism, information sciences, arts administration, and teaching.
The Bachelor of Music (B.Mus.); Major in Music History program requires 92 credits (plus 32 credits for the Freshman requirement for out-of-province students).
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Program Prerequisites - Freshman Program (32 credits)
32 credits selected as described below, in consultation with the Program Adviser:
22 credits of Prerequisite Courses
4 credits of Large Ensemble
6 credits of Non-Music Electives
Prerequisite Courses
22 credits, all of the courses below:
Note: Students who can demonstrate through auditions, placement tests or equivalencies that they have mastered the material in any of the courses below will be exempt from them and may proceed to more advanced courses.
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUHL 186 | Western Musical Traditions. | 3 |
Western Musical Traditions. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A survey of Western music from the Middle Ages to the present. Emphasis on key musical concepts and genres in their historical context and aural recognition of style. | ||
| MUIN 180 | BMus Practical Lessons 1. | 3 |
BMus Practical Lessons 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Practical instruction on an instrument or voice. | ||
| MUIN 181 | BMus Practical Lessons 2. | 3 |
BMus Practical Lessons 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Practical examination in clarinet techniques. | ||
| MUPD 135 | Music as a Profession 1. | 1 |
Music as a Profession 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Music Professional Development: An introduction to information, resources, and skills related to physical, mental, and professional well-being for the musician and scholar. | ||
| MUSP 140 | Musicianship Training 1. | 2 |
Musicianship Training 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Rhythm and metre basic subdivisions and conducting patterns; intervals, chords, and scale patterns; non-modulating tonal melodies with treble and bass clefs; harmonic progressions emphasizing two-part outer voice structures. | ||
| MUSP 141 | Musicianship Training 2. | 2 |
Musicianship Training 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Rhythm and metre mixed divisions and syncopations; triadic and seventh chord voicings and disjunct pitch collections; chromatically embellished melodies adding alto clef; simple modulating harmonic progressions emphasizing two-part outer voice structures. | ||
| MUSP 170 | Musicianship (Keyboard) 1. | 1 |
Musicianship (Keyboard) 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Harmonic, melodic and rhythmic analysis at the keyboard through the study of rudiments, repertoire, chorale/score reading, transposition and harmonization. | ||
| MUSP 171 | Musicianship (Keyboard) 2. | 1 |
Musicianship (Keyboard) 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Building chordal fluency. Harmonic vocabulary including sequences, chromaticism and modulation. Chorale and score reading with transposing instruments and alto/tenor clefs. | ||
| MUTH 150 | Theory and Analysis 1. | 3 |
Theory and Analysis 1. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Diatonic chords and harmonic progressions, focus on outer-voice framework, cadences, embellishments, building chordal fluency in common-practice tonality, applied chords. | ||
| MUTH 151 | Theory and Analysis 2. | 3 |
Theory and Analysis 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Sequences and modulation, chromatic vocabulary, analysis of simple theme types (sentence, period, hybrids) and fugal techniques. | ||
Required Courses (23 credits)
History
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUHL 286 | Critical Thinking About Music. | 3 |
Critical Thinking About Music. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Examination of various periods and styles: e.g., central works from different traditions, the interaction of music and society, performance practice, and music's relation to other arts. | ||
Theory
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUTH 250 | Theory and Analysis 3. | 3 |
Theory and Analysis 3. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Compositional resources of late 18th and early 19th century music. Analysis of forms common to the period c. 1770 - 1840, including Classical sonata forms in several media. | ||
| MUTH 251 | Theory and Analysis 4. | 3 |
Theory and Analysis 4. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Expanded harmonic resources of the 19th century (e.g., advanced chromaticism including enharmonic reinterpretation and symmetrical division). Analysis of characteristic small and large forms. Writing and analytical skills with a goal toward perceiving how levels of musical structure interact. | ||
| MUTH 350 | Theory and Analysis 5. | 3 |
Theory and Analysis 5. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Exploration of 20th and 21st century organizations of pitch, rhythm, timbre etc. Written and analytical skills for the purpose of gaining insight into the compositional techniques and aesthetics of this repertoire. | ||
Musicianship
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUSP 240 | Musicianship Training 3. | 2 |
Musicianship Training 3. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Rhythm and metre mixed divisions and two-part work; additional chordal voicings and pitch collections; melodies modulating to closely-related keys adding tenor clef; harmonic progression including applied chords; two-part keyboard-style passages. | ||
| MUSP 241 | Musicianship Training 4. | 2 |
Musicianship Training 4. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Changing metres; chord voicings and atonal pitch collections; modulating tonal melodies and score reading of transposing instruments; harmonic progression including chromatic chords; two-part passages. | ||
Performance
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUIN 280 | BMus Practical Lessons 3. | 2.5 |
BMus Practical Lessons 3. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Practical instruction on an instrument or voice. | ||
| MUIN 281 | BMus Practical Lessons 4. | 2.5 |
BMus Practical Lessons 4. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Practical instruction on an instrument or voice. | ||
| MUIN 283 | BMus Concentration Final Examination. | 1 |
BMus Concentration Final Examination. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Assessment of student's progress in the practical area. | ||
Music Professional Development
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUPD 235 | Music as a Profession 2. | 1 |
Music as a Profession 2. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of the responsibilities and skills required of professions in music and of the varied career paths leading from a music degree. | ||
Complementary Courses (36 credits)
History
27 credits selected from Group I, II, and III, with a minimum of 6 credits from each group.
Group I
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUHL 377 | Baroque Opera. | 3 |
Baroque Opera. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. History of opera from its origins in the musical, literary, and philosophical models available to the Florentine Camerata to the end of the baroque. The development of opera will be studied from the perspective of artistic style and in the light of historical, political, social, and economic conditions. | ||
| MUHL 380 | Medieval Music. | 3 |
Medieval Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The medieval style - an intensive study of one or more selected topics from the repertoire. Possible subjects include liturgical chant, Notre Dame, the medieval motet, secular developments, and instrumental literature. | ||
| MUHL 381 | Renaissance Music. | 3 |
Renaissance Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Sacred and secular musical genres of the 15th and 16th Centuries. Various phases of imitative practice, cantus firmus and parody techniques. The emergence of homophonic textures in peripheral areas of the repertoire. Selected problems in the fields of theory, bibliography and aesthetics. | ||
| MUHL 382 | Baroque Music. | 3 |
Baroque Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A detailed examination of several selected areas of Baroque music. Topics will be drawn from different geographical regions (e.g., Italy, France, Germany, etc.) and encompass church, chamber and theatre music, as well as performance practice. Each topic will be related to general musical developments of the period. | ||
| MUHL 383 | Classical Music. | 3 |
Classical Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The period covered will be from approximately 1740-1828, from the schools of the Italian keyboard composers, opera buffa and seria, and composers centred at Mannheim, Paris, London, Berlin and Vienna, through the Viennese Classic period of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, to the death of Schubert. | ||
| MUHL 591D1 | Paleography. | 1.5 |
Paleography. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The theory and practice of musical transcription for the period 1100 to 1600. Black modal notation, Franconian notation, French and Italian Ars Nova notation, Mannerism, white mensural notation, proportions, and lute and keyboard tablatures will be studied. | ||
| MUHL 591D2 | Paleography. | 1.5 |
Paleography. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. See MUHL 591D1 for course description. | ||
| MUPP 381 | Topics in Performance Practice. | 3 |
Topics in Performance Practice. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of the techniques, methods, and problems of historical performance. Topics covered include theoretical matters involving source material, treatises, organology, 17th-century views of rhetoric and emotion, 18th-century composition methods, rhythmic interpretation, embellishment and ornamentation, tuning and temperament, and basso continuo. | ||
| MUTH 426 | Topics in Early Music Analysis. | 3 |
Topics in Early Music Analysis. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Music from before 1700 is analyzed using recently developed techniques as well as materials gathered from treatises contemporaneous with the music. The implications of analysis for performance are considered. | ||
Group II
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUHL 366 | The Era of the Fortepiano. | 3 |
The Era of the Fortepiano. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Survey of the repertoire for keyboard 1750-1850: the instruments, Empfindsamkeit, gallant style, London, Paris, Vienna, the Czech school, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, sonatas, variations, character pieces, "high" and "low" salon music, virtuosos and the virtuoso repertoire, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, early Liszt. | ||
| MUHL 384 | Romantic Music. | 3 |
Romantic Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The Romantic style as traced by an analysis of works by the major composers of Lied, symphony, symphonic poem, chamber music, and opera. | ||
| MUHL 385 | Early Twentieth-Century Music. | 3 |
Early Twentieth-Century Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Development of European, Russian, and American music from the 1890s until the early 1940s, tracing its roots in late 19th-century Romanticism and following its evolution in central Europe, France, and the United States. The music of major innovators such as Debussy, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ives, and Varèse will be discussed. | ||
| MUHL 387 | Opera from Mozart to Puccini. | 3 |
Opera from Mozart to Puccini. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Mozart's operas and the seria, buffa, and Singspiel traditions. Ottocento opera, grand opera, and cross-fertilization between France and Italy. German Romantic opera. Wagner. Eastern European opera. Verismo and fin-de-siècle opera in Vienna and Paris. Sociology of opera. Emphasis on critical understanding of music's role in articulating drama. | ||
| MUHL 388 | Opera After 1900. | 3 |
Opera After 1900. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Major early twentieth-century works by Debussy, Strauss, Schreker, Bartók, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. Opera in Europe between the Wars including operas of Berg, Milhaud, Krenek, Hindemith and Weill. Politics, sociology, and literature in relationship to musical style. Approaches since 1945 in selected works by Britten, Henze, Zimmermann, Ligeti, Somers and Glass. | ||
| MUHL 389 | Orchestral Literature. | 3 |
Orchestral Literature. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Study of the literature for orchestra alone, composed since the early 18th Century. The material will be divided as follows: 1) orchestral music to the time of Beethoven; 2) orchestral music from 1800 to 1860; 3) orchestral music from 1860 to 1900; 4) orchestral music of the 20th Century. | ||
| MUHL 390 | The German Lied. | 3 |
The German Lied. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Survey of the German Lied from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century, focusing on songs and song cycles by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. Topics include text, musical form and text-music relationships, melodic style and harmonic organization, accompaniment, and performance practice. | ||
| MUHL 391 | Canadian Music. | 3 |
Canadian Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Survey of music in Canada from the 16th Century to the present. Current musical organizations and institutions, and contemporary Canadian music will be stressed. Time permitting, brief reference will be made to the folk music of indigenous and immigrant groups. | ||
| MUHL 392 | Music since 1945. | 3 |
Music since 1945. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Appearance and evolution of such post-war phenomena as total serialism, "chance" music of various kinds, and electronic music as seen in major figures such as Boulez, Stockhausen, Cage and others in Europe and the United States. Important developments during the 1960s. Rise of "minimalism" and "neo-Romanticism" during the 1970s and 80s. | ||
| MUHL 396 | Era of the Modern Piano. | 3 |
Era of the Modern Piano. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Survey of keyboard repertoire from 1850 to the present: instruments, the crisis at mid-century, character pieces, Brahms, late Liszt, national schools, commercialization - the concert hall, music for the bourgeois - salon music, Scriabin, the Second Viennese School, Impressionism, Neo-Classicism, Neo-Romanticism, serialism, the sonata in the 20th-century, North American composers. | ||
Group III
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUHL 314 | Women in Music: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. | 3 |
Women in Music: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A cross-cultural exploration of women's musical achievements in various historical periods. Develops understanding of both music and the social, political, and cultural forces shaping it. Music includes: sacred, love songs, opera, contemporary instrumental composition, and improvised genres with study organized around topics like authorship, genius/virtuosity, voice, body, power and technology. | ||
| MUHL 330 | Music and Film. | 3 |
Music and Film. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The modern genre of music for films, and its changing styles (symphonic, jazz, pop compilation) from the silent era to today. Includes study of major film composers in North America and other traditions; analysis of the role of music in cinematic narrative, expression and symbolism. | ||
| MUHL 362 | Popular Music. | 3 |
Popular Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. History, criticism, and analysis of twentieth-century repertoires of popular musics. Detailed examination of special topics. These include genre and style in 1970s rock and soul, history of the Broadway musical, approaches to the transcription of pop music, and/or constructions of race and gender in music video. | ||
| MUHL 370 | History of Recorded Music. | 3 |
History of Recorded Music. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. The history of recorded music from cultural, social, and technical perspectives, including: the roles of producers, engineers, artists in recordings in a wide variety of genres and historical contexts; the effect of sound recording on listening and audiences; and how the various participants interact with technology to produce recorded music. | ||
| MUHL 375 | Introduction to Ethnomusicology. | 3 |
Introduction to Ethnomusicology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Central themes and methods in contemporary ethnomusicology. Music and its meanings in several contrasting cultural regions and groups. Topics include: colonialism, politics, globalization, and the impact of technology. Techniques of transcription, ethnography, and fieldwork. | ||
| MUHL 393 | History of Jazz. | 3 |
History of Jazz. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. A study of the history and development of jazz through listening, reading, video viewing, lectures and discussion. The central goals will be to learn how to hear jazz critically and to understand the values, meanings, and sensibilities of jazz as a social practice. | ||
| MUHL 529 | Proseminar in Musicology. | 3 |
Proseminar in Musicology. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Study of selected methodologies in musicology through critical examination of significant texts. Topics may include approaches to historiography, biography, editing and source studies, as well as aesthetics, literary criticism, semiology, feminist musicology, and ideology critique. Works by Adler, Adorno, Dahlhaus, Kerman, McClary, Meyer, Nattiez, and Subotnik, among others, will be addressed. | ||
| MUHL 592 | Popular Music Studies. | 3 |
Popular Music Studies. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An overview of scholarly methods used in the study of popular music. Topics will include a broad range of issues related to music analysis, including technical-stylistic approaches as well as ideas about analytical pertinence, aesthetics, and semiotics. Introduction to approaches associated with the sociology of music, sound studies, media studies, gender and critical race studies. These topics will be explored through a range of readings, and the analysis of selected recordings. | ||
Theory
3 credits from courses with a prefix of MUTH at the 200 or 300 level.
Musicianship
2 credits from:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUSP 324 | Musicianship for Strings. | 2 |
Musicianship for Strings. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Fundamental musicianship issues in the context of performance with an emphasis on intonation accuracy, rhythm, articulation, voice-leading and sound texture for strings. | ||
| MUSP 346 | Post-Tonal Musicianship. | 2 |
Post-Tonal Musicianship. Terms offered: Summer 2025 Extended tonal and post-tonal harmonic and contrapuntal structures, rhythmic practices of the 20th and 21st century, score reading. | ||
| MUSP 353 | Musicianship for Voice. | 2 |
Musicianship for Voice. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Fundamental musicianship issues in the context of performance with an emphasis on intonation accuracy, rhythm, voice-leading and sound texture. | ||
| MUSP 354 | Introduction to Improvisation and Ornamentation. | 2 |
Introduction to Improvisation and Ornamentation. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Principles of improvisation and ornamentation for music before 1800, including harmonic progressions and voice-leading and contrapuntal patterns for instrumentalists and singers, along with examples of ornamented vocal and instrumental works from 17th and 18th century sources. | ||
| MUSP 355 | Musicianship for Percussion. | 2 |
Musicianship for Percussion. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Fundamental musicianship issues in the context of performance with an emphasis on polyrhythm. | ||
| MUSP 361 | Topics in Musicianship. | 2 |
Topics in Musicianship. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Advanced ear training challenges in rhythm, pitch, harmony, form, or timbre. | ||
| MUSP 363 | Topics in Global Musicianship. | 2 |
Topics in Global Musicianship. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Musicianship skills from one or more global musical practice(s), with specific challenges and approaches corresponding to the selected topic. | ||
| MUSP 381 | Singing Renaissance Notation. | 2 |
Singing Renaissance Notation. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Choral sightsinging of mensural notation, with a focus on white notation c. 1420-1600. Development of basic fluency in the notation, interpretation of values in triple meter, addition of accidentals given the contrapuntal context as perceived aurally, Renaissance solmisation. | ||
Performance
Basic Ensemble
4 credits from:
| Course | Title | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| MUEN 563 | Jazz Vocal Workshop. | 2 |
Jazz Vocal Workshop. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Vocal workshop for jazz musicians. | ||
| MUEN 572 | Cappella Antica. | 2 |
Cappella Antica. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An ensemble of 8 to 12 voices specializing in early music. N.B. This ensemble may substitute as a Basic Ensemble in programs that specify Choral Ensemble, with Departmental approval. | ||
| MUEN 573 | Baroque Orchestra. | 2 |
Baroque Orchestra. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Open to singers and instrumentalists, this ensemble specializes in chamber music primarily of the Baroque era. | ||
| MUEN 587 | Cappella McGill. | 2 |
Cappella McGill. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. An ensemble of 16 voices performing challenging repertoire from the Renaissance to the present day. Since the expectation is a level of performance equivalent to a professional chamber ensemble, singers wishing to join this group should have had considerable ensemble experience, and advanced vocal and sight-reading skills. | ||
| MUEN 590 | McGill Wind Orchestra. | 2 |
McGill Wind Orchestra. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Large ensemble for wind instruments. | ||
| MUEN 592 | Chamber Jazz Ensemble. | 2 |
Chamber Jazz Ensemble. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. This ensemble will deal with the extensive repertoire of music which exists for small jazz orchestra (9-13 instruments). | ||
| MUEN 593 | Choral Ensembles. | 2 |
Choral Ensembles. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Students enrolling in Choral Ensembles will be assigned to one of the above groups. | ||
| MUEN 594 | Contemporary Music Ensemble. | 2 |
Contemporary Music Ensemble. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Ensemble for contemporary music - instruments and voice. | ||
| MUEN 595 | Jazz Ensembles. | 2 |
Jazz Ensembles. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Ensemble for jazz - instruments and voice. | ||
| MUEN 597 | McGill Symphony Orchestra. | 2 |
McGill Symphony Orchestra. Terms offered: this course is not currently offered. Ensemble for orchestral instruments. | ||
Elective Courses (33 credits)
9 credits of non-Music courses.
24 credits of courses to be chosen freely (excluding those with MUAR prefix)