About the Music Studies course block
In the Music Studies course block you develop a deeper understanding of the rich variety of musical traditions in regional, national, and global contexts. You explore musical performance, transformation and recontextualization as musical traditions develop and move to new performance sites and listeners. Through the lens of musical performance and traditions, you study different cultures and the influence of variables such as religion, gender, politics and ethnicity. The courses also help you examine and understand the many ways that globalization influences the economic and cultural structures underlying musical production in the 21st century.
Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences degree courses in the Music Studies course block are offered on an accelerated (8-week) schedule. Courses in the block are largely asynchronous with some optional synchronous sessions to be scheduled by the instructors.
All Penn LPS Online courses offer academic credit.*
*Academic credit is defined by the University of Pennsylvania as a course unit (c.u.). A course unit (c.u.) is a general measure of academic work over a period of time, typically a term (semester or summer). A c.u. (or a fraction of a c.u.) represents different types of academic work across different types of academic programs and is the basic unit of progress toward a degree. One c.u. is usually converted to a four-semester-hour course.
The Music Studies course block prepares you to:
- Analyze musical performance to learn more about different global cultures
- Understand how musical genres and styles transform across time and space
- Learn to use multiple perspectives including religion, gender, politics, and ethnicity to analyze musical traditions
- Understand the global economic context of musical production and music industries in the 21st century
