From the Faculty

Welcome to the Music Theory Department!

The Music Theory Department comprises a diverse faculty, including professional music theorists, composers, scholars, and performers. We are united by our shared desire to teach our students every aspect of musicianship through a thoughtful and holistic approach.

The educational mission of the NEC Theory Department is to help students experience the close connections between musical understanding, creation, and performance. We believe that this mission is best achieved by honoring and nurturing the diverse perspectives, interests, and strengths of our faculty, and recognizing each of our students as individuals with unique interests and needs.

Our students aspire to be excellent performers, composers, scholars, and teachers, so our courses are designed to promote creative learning through which they will gain extraordinary insight into the music they perform and love.

Music Theory Curriculum

Undergraduate Level

At the undergraduate level, you will take courses that are designed to help develop every facet of your musical abilities through intensive training in sight singing, part writing, ear training, keyboard harmony, and music analysis. Since performance is enhanced by musical comprehension, you will learn the nature of tonality and musical languages, how to analyze musical form, and how music is organized in time.

Fundamentals

This one-semester course assists you, if you were not able to learn basic elements of music prior to beginning college. You will learn scales, intervals, triads, key signatures, and the like through notation, ear training, and keyboard harmony. You must pass this course, through a departmental exam, before continuing to Harmony I and Solfège II.

Solfège

This four-course sequence develops essential music skills. You will attain fluency in sight singing and sight reading through a fixed-do pedagogy, where the focus is on problem solving in performance instead of memorizing materials. Solfège and rhythmic development are measured by sight singing drill and practice in class, and exams. Appropriate clefs are used to negotiate various transpositions. Aural development is measured through daily drill and exams. Competence in each semester is demonstrated by passing a departmental exam.

Harmony

A three-course sequence introduces the concepts and practices basic to the Common Practice period. You will develop facility and fluency with music of the 18th and 19th centuries through four complementary approaches: part writing, ear training, analysis, and keyboard harmony. Music of the tonal masters is incorporated into the sequence from the beginning, and ear training is a major component of the sequence.

You will take Solfège I and, if necessary, Rudiments during the first semester. Students who 1) pass the Rudiments entrance exam or the Rudiments course final and 2) pass Solfege I enroll in Solfege II and Harmony I in the second semester. The second year builds on skills developed in the first. Students take Solfège III and IV, along with Harmony II and III.

Electives

Specialized courses are offered for the third and fourth years. You will take two 300-level courses, with at least one focusing on a 20th-century topic. Courses focus on 19th- and 20th-century musical languages, harmony, form and analysis, specific styles, periods, and composers. In addition, electives are available in 16th- and 18th-century counterpoint, improvisation, advanced solfège, solfège for singers, and microtonal music.

Graduate Level

Our graduate electives cover a vast array of theoretical topics, compositional practices, and skills relevant to the increasingly demanding level of contemporary performance, composition, scholarship, and pedagogy. While thoroughly examining the repertory and analytical methods that pertain to the Western Canon, our electives extend to the classical traditions and performance practices of cultural areas as diverse as India and Ghana. An exceptionally strong feature of our graduate curriculum is its commitment to exploring the frontiers of contemporary musical thought in theory, composition, and pedagogy. We are proud to offer one of the widest selections of courses on 20th and 21st century topics among conservatories in the United States, and we constantly strive to stay at the forefront of developments in our individual fields of expertise.

For more information about our course offerings, please view the Academic Catalog.

Interested in applying? Click here for information about our Application Process.