Courses Offered in Spring 2026 (114AY 2S)

Course Overview and Objectives

This course has two objectives:

1. To strengthen the integrated musical and intellectual abilities of incoming students whose background in harmony and musical form may be relatively weak, so that they may better adapt to other courses in the Institute of Music.
2. To prepare students for the realization of a fully developed musical experience—one that integrates theory, practice, and creation.

This course is divided into two parts:

The first part concerns the basic theory of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century tonality, including harmony and analysis. Students will be guided to focus on voice-leading and to analyze tonal music from the perspectives of structure and prolongation. The goal is for students to stop viewing tonal music as a series of isolated chordal connections, and instead to investigate its meaning and function, understanding the whole as an organic unity.

The second part concerns style writing. It highlights and provides experience with Western art music and some of its major concepts, using these concepts as a basis for creative realization. These concepts include:

1. Ways of presenting thematic material, such as sentence, period, and others.
2. The idea as the embodiment of totality and its discourse.
3. The indispensable functional roles of structural events in sonata form, including thematic statement, development, contrast, conclusion, and others.
4. Figuration, the prolongation of a single chord, and the prolongation of structural harmonic progressions.
5. Figuration as sign, as style, and as topic.
6. The concepts and techniques of developing variation.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course aims to introduce the development of Western music from 1877 to the modern era, with a focus on developments and changes in the following areas:

1. The establishment of and responses to musical traditions in the second half of the nineteenth century.
2. Modernism in music.
3. The divergence between art music and popular music.
4. Musical developments since World War II in 1945 and the use of electroacoustic technology.

The weekly course schedule will be adjusted according to the actual progress of the class.

This course has 0.5 contact hours.

Prerequisites or Required Background

◎ Students of the Institute of Music have no prerequisites. Students from other institutes who wish to take or audit the course should consult with the instructor in advance.
◎ Students are expected to preview and review basic knowledge of keyboard instruments on their own, and to listen to harpsichord music.
◎ The repertoire range at the beginning of the semester is as follows:
◎ J. S. Bach: Prelude and Fugue
◎ Mozart: Symphonies Nos. 38, 39, 40, and 41
◎ Scores may be consulted on the IMSLP website.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course invites domestic and international scholars and experts to deliver special lectures at the Institute of Music. It aims to enrich students’ knowledge and perspectives in the fields of music composition, performance, research, and other related disciplines, while inspiring multifaceted exploration of music from technical, intellectual, and critical perspectives.

課程概述與目標：

The first half of this course will devote to a series of re-examinations of the idea of the author, his/her influence, and recent debates re: Werktreue. In the second half of the semester, we will discuss the idea of globalism, Brecht’s theory of drama and its impact on music, and Kant’s philosophical approach to aesthetic judgment. We will conclude with a brief introduction to the ways to “decipher” a critical edition in music.

Course Overview and Objectives

Concert of IMU “Tunes of Bamboo” focuses primarily on the new works presented by students in the Composition and Technology Division of the Institute of Music in the “Chuyun Concert” each semester. In addition to analysis and discussion of musical composition, the course also includes experimentation and rehearsal in the practical aspects of musical performance, providing more comprehensive preparation and guidance for the semesterly music presentation.

Through a progressive introduction to contemporary music and the study of works to be presented, this course aims to provide students in the Composition and Technology Division and the Performance Division with more time to develop mutual understanding in the process of musical creation, ultimately achieving the best possible performance and interpretation of each work.

This graduate course introduces research methods, as well as the strategies and the “language” of writing about music to performance majors. We start with a brief review of the basics of research venues, tools, and crucial issues in and ethics of academic writing. We continue with a series of sample writings hand in hand with these principles. We will see how the authors focus on different aspects of perspectives in their discussion of music and how they develop and sharpen their arguments.

The aim of this course is to offer graduate music majors necessary tools and directions to engage in an intelligent discussion of their repertory, skills that they may apply to their term projects, thesis writing, and lecture recitals. We will have two invited music scholars coming to discuss the ways that they phrase they theories arguments. The selected sample writings will enable us to see the variety of ways that an author may use to approach a music work.

Each week, students will take turns performing in groups, while the teacher and other students provide feedback and share their experiences through observation and discussion. This aims to enhance practical performance skills, address technical and pedagogical challenges, and ensure that students have a strong foundation in teaching methods for their future careers in music performance or teaching.

The topics of this seminar include literature reading, music analysis, and performance practice. Through multiple methods the students will be able to research the performance of music styles from the 16th to 18th centuries and explore the art of Authentic Performance. 

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides practice in the graphic design objects and program interface design of Max/MSP, combined with sound interaction. It further extends to Jitter for advanced image processing and the design of real-time interactive audio-visual synthesis.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course aims to help students explore improvisational vocabularies suited to their own artistic voice through various improvisational techniques and concepts. It develops students’ skills in solo and ensemble musical improvisation, while deepening their understanding and experience of sound and music.

The course takes twentieth-century concepts of sound as its primary stylistic vocabulary for improvisation.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course is designed with the aim of cultivating composers of contemporary avant-garde music. It organizes a range of topics related to contemporary music composition, approaching them from different perspectives in order to help students learn compositional techniques in contemporary music. These topics include: 1. the design of pitch materials, 2. the exploration of timbre, 3. changes in texture and layers, and 4. the design of space and layers, among others.

The course begins with the developmental logic of sound, and gradually incorporates writing exercises centered on pitch, timbre, texture, and space. Through this process, each topic is explored systematically. The course aims to guide students in learning important compositional techniques developed since the twentieth century from a practical perspective, while also encouraging them to bring forward ideas encountered during their creative practice for discussion.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course focuses on the orchestration techniques of modern composers. Through three main approaches—a brief introduction to orchestral instrumentation and orchestration, the observation and reading of score excerpts, and practical orchestration performance exercises—the course builds the orchestration and orchestral knowledge and concepts required of graduate students.

The first two weeks begin with an overview of orchestral instrumentation and orchestration, followed by extensive study and observation of composers’ scores. Midterm and final assignments include orchestration writing exercises for students in the Composition Division, observations on performance interpretation for students in the Performance Division, and analytical observation reports for students in the Musicology Division. These assignments are designed to help students quickly develop the observational, interpretive, and sound-blending perspectives central to orchestration, while also providing different modes of presentation at the midterm and final stages so that students may expand their learning according to their own fields.

The course is conducted in lecture format. Each week, a selected excerpt from one work is used to explore its compositional approach to orchestration. In addition to allowing composition students to examine a large number of orchestration cases within a short period of time, the course also helps performance students better understand the relationships among parts in ensemble playing.

The score examples discussed in class begin with the basic use of strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion, and extend to mixed applications in small chamber music, large chamber music, and orchestral works. The repertoire studied covers orchestration styles from the Classical period to the modern era.

The course emphasizes guiding students to read a substantial body of existing score literature in order to strengthen their experience. Given the relatively limited number of class hours, students are expected to prepare thoroughly before class. For the midterm and final presentations, students in the Performance Division will perform short orchestration works created by students in the Composition Division, and all participants will offer feedback. This process is intended to stimulate students’ awareness of problems they may encounter in practice and to develop their ability to think independently and solve problems.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course is co-taught with Hans W. Koch, a full-time professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in Germany. From the perspective of philosophical aesthetics, we will explore sound installation as an art form and analyze creative case studies by various artists. The course aims to broaden students’ understanding of the constituent elements of installation, and to build knowledge of creating sound art without the use of loudspeakers.

Through this process, students will explore and develop the tasks and objectives of their own project concepts. This course is taught in English.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course is co-taught with Hans W. Koch, a full-time professor at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne in Germany. From the perspective of philosophical aesthetics, we will explore sound installation as an art form and analyze creative case studies by various artists. The course aims to broaden students’ understanding of the constituent elements of installation, and to build knowledge of creating sound art without the use of loudspeakers.

Through this process, students will explore and develop the tasks and objectives of their own project concepts. This course is taught in English.

Course Overview and Objectives

This is a foundational course in recording and mixing. Its applications are broad: it may serve as a course that helps performers document their own performances, up to chamber music works for five performers, or complete musical productions through separate multitrack recording sessions. The course emphasizes learning and becoming familiar with audio equipment and studio production techniques.

The course is divided into three main learning stages:

1. Understanding and becoming familiar with audio and recording system hardware, as well as DAWs.
2. Practical recording work with different instruments.
3. Effects processing, mixing, and final production.

Course Objectives

1. Initial objective: To ensure the safety of personnel and equipment during the recording process, as well as the quality of the recorded product.
2. Final objective: To cultivate the professional competence of a recording engineer and enable students to produce high-quality works.
3. Long-term objective: To develop students’ taste and listening ability in relation to recording and musical works.

Course Overview and Objectives

Students are divided into groups according to instrument type, with instruction provided by one to three instructors.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides professional guidance in composition, training and enhancing students’ technical, conceptual, and aesthetic abilities in the creation of modern and original art music.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides professional guidance in composition, training and enhancing students’ technical, conceptual, and aesthetic abilities in the creation of modern and original art music.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course explores compositional techniques through classic works from Eastern and Western traditions as well as modern electronic music, while stimulating students’ imagination in the creation of new works.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course explores compositional techniques through classic works from Eastern and Western traditions as well as modern electronic music, while stimulating students’ imagination in the creation of new works.

Course Overview and Objectives

This semester focuses on the integration of sound media and the structure of musical composition, the understanding of twentieth-century modern musical vocabulary, and the application and exploration of dramatic tension in music.

Course Overview and Objectives

From the independent development of contemporary music to its encounters and integration with modern technology and various fields, this course explores the nature of artistic creation and the pursuit of individual artistic ideas. Topics range from Kagel’s instrumental theatre, derived from Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, to postmodern “theatre without actors.”

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Offered each semester. Students must pass the proficiency examination before enrolling. Applications must be submitted before Week 5 of the preceding semester. For this semester, please submit the application and indicate the examination subject by October 3, 2024. Please email xjfu@nycu.edu.tw.

Students taking individual music instruction courses are required to pay the individual music instruction fee. Please refer to the implementation guidelines for the regulations on sequential course enrollment.

The regulations for the instrumental proficiency examination for the 2020 Interdisciplinary Program are as follows. At present, the available instruments are limited to piano and violin.

On the day of the proficiency examination:

1. Written materials should include:
   1. Music-related background, such as learning history and teachers studied with.
   2. Repertoire previously studied.
2. Piano:
   1. One work or movement by J. S. Bach, or one étude.
   2. Two contrasting pieces or movements.
3. Violin:
   1. J. S. Bach: one movement from an unaccompanied sonata or suite.
   2. One piece of the student’s choice, at least five minutes in length.

In principle, the proficiency examination will be held in April. The detailed schedule will be announced separately.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.

Course Overview and Objectives

This course provides one-on-one instruction tailored to each student’s individual learning progress. It focuses on improving performance technique, interpretation, and expressive delivery, with the goal of achieving a performance outcome that reaches a professional concert standard while reflecting the student’s individual artistic qualities.