MUSIC 1140 Cover Band/Rock Band

In this Creative and Performing Arts Elective course that is situated within the Chaos Thread, students will develop skills necessary to learn how to play an instrument or sing, and to create their own arrangements and compositions within small student-led groups. This course is designed for students with little to no formal musical training to learn how to create their own music using informal music learning methods – methods that are not always acknowledged as having merit both in process and in genre, especially within the area of academic music. The teacher will act as a facilitator of space and at times a coach, mentor, or apprentice as appropriate so that students drive the learning and the creating of their own music to the end of performing and/or recording it. The assigned readings, class discussion, and students’ musical creations will focus on the radical differences between the formal music learning practices done in classrooms and the informal music learning practices used by many musicians outside of the formal classroom setting. There are no pre-requisites to take this course. Students will be learning to play instruments and using electronic software; students can use their own instruments and electronics as appropriate to the course projects, but materials will be provided as needed.
(Normally offered each spring semester.)