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Virginia Tech

MUS-2026: European-American Music Theory

Description: Fundamental elements of music and conventions of genre and style in a global context. 2025: pitch & harmony, rhythm & meter, timbre, texture, and movement. Emphasis on rote learning of pitch notation, intervals, key signatures, chords vs non-chord tones, and pitch collections. Methods to analyze harmony, phrase structure, and meter. Develop vocabulary for timbre and texture. Basic skills of score reading and transposition. 2026: form, as well as more complex harmonic and rhythmic processes, such as harmonic rhythm, syntax and metric dissonance. Increase complexity of score reading to include larger ensembles. In-depth study of genre, considering elements of harmony, rhythm & meter, and form in European and North-American classical, jazz, and popular musics.

Pathways: N/A

Course Hours: 3 credits

Prerequisites: MUS-2025

Required By: MUS-3025, MUS-3045, MUS-3174

Corequisites: N/A

Crosslist: N/A

Repeatability: N/A

Sections Taught: 6

Average GPA: 3.28 (rounds to B+)

Strict A Rate (No A-) : 27.33%

Average Withdrawal Rate: 1.19%

Caitlin G Martinkus202334.5%47.6%15.7%1.1%1.1%0.0%3.144
Wallace E Easter201957.7%26.9%15.4%0.0%0.0%0.0%3.451
Edward Knoeckel202467.9%21.4%3.5%0.0%0.0%7.1%3.681

Grade Distribution Over Time

1234GPA
Spring 2019Spring 2020Spring 2021Spring 2022Spring 2023Spring 2024Term050% W