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RC Music Program









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RC Music Program

SELECTED COURSES:

RCHUMS 250: Chamber Music
This course provides students who have at least intermediate level instrumental ability with the
opportunity to participate in small instrumental ensembles such as duos, trios, quartets, or mixed
string, piano, wind, and brass ensembles.

RCHUMS 251: Topics in Music History.
Topics may vary from 200 years of Popular Song in America, to Socialist-realist Music of the Soviet
Union to Opera. Recent topics have included Music, War, and Propaganda, a look at 20th century
manipulation of public opinion during wartime, Women in Music, a historical survey from medieval
times to the present with women as composers, patronesses, and performers and Social Issues in
Musical Theater from 1945 to the Present, dealing with, for example, the inter-cultural/racial issues in
West Side Story.

RCHUMS 252: Improvisation
This course utilizes improvisation (not genre-specific) as the catalyst for creating and performing
music. Throughout the term, students work on self-directed solo and group projects. Students must
provide their own instruments, which may be acoustic, electric, found and/or vocal. Those using
electric instruments will need to provide their own amplification. Laptops and turntables are also
welcome.

RCHUMS 252: Afro-Cuban Drumming and Styles
This course teaches the basics of conga playing, clave and other percussion instruments associated
with Afro-Cuban music.

RCHUMS 253: Choral Ensemble--Mixed Chorus
The RC Singers rehearse and perform four-part works from a variety of musical genres. The choir
meets twice weekly. Vocal skills, sight-singing, basic musicianship and ensemble singing are
stressed. No prerequisites, but a commitment to the group and musical growth within the term are
required. No audition is necessary.

RCHUMS 350 & 351: Creative Musicianship and Lab
This music theory-composition course gives students the skills needed to create, notate, and
understand music. It covers the three basic elements of music (rhythm, melody and harmony) through
analytic listening and scoring progressively more complex compositions. Students create music in
many different styles and idioms, using this opportunity for personal expression. The accompanying









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Lab is designed to increase the reading, writing, sight-singing, listening, and analytic skills.

RCCORE 205, 305, & 405: Independent Studies in Music
This structure provides an opportunity for a student to learn a new instrument (e.g. an experienced
drummer who begins piano for composition purposes), to learn to play an instrument for the first time,
or to continue lessons at a more advanced level.