Course Syllabus

star Syllabus: Introduction to Music

MUS 3, Lec D, course code 04030
UC Irvine, Summer Session 2, 2022
Instructor:
Michael Dessen
Teaching Assistants: Chieh Huang, Atticus Reynolds, Steven Lewis, William Fastenow
Contact Info and Zoom Office Hours for Instructor and TAs

lightbulb Course description and learning areas

Welcome! This course will expand and deepen your relationship with music through a variety of lectures, readings, videos, writing assignments, and sound collages. We'll explore technical aspects of musical craft alongside broader cultural questions, drawing on diverse examples, both ancient and contemporary. The course is focused on four interrelated learning areas:

  1. Understanding fundamental music terms and concepts
    What does it mean to say that a piece of music is in a key? What is rhythm? Do tuning systems vary across cultures? We'll explore concepts from both Western and non-Western music traditions, not merely defining terms but also asking what they reveal about our experience of music.
  2. Thinking and writing critically about music's relationship to culture
    Through diverse case studies, you will gain practice analyzing music's relationship to society. In addition to studies of specific musical works and artists, topics might include the use of music in treating dementia patients, intercultural collaboration through music, music as a form of political protest, the economics of streaming platforms, or debates about authorship and intellectual property.
  3. Listening closely to music, with attention on subtle details
    Many of us are surrounded by music throughout the day, but rarely listen to a piece of music with the singular concentration we might bring to reading a novel, or to having an important conversation. This course will give you opportunities to practice focused listening, improving your awareness of sonic details in both familiar and unfamiliar music genres.
  4. Acquiring basic digital audio skills, and using them to create original work
    A series of sound collage assignments will introduce basic concepts in digital audio and music production, giving you experience working with sound in time and increasing your awareness of the craft of composing. No prior musical experience is required, and most of these assignments give you freedom to make your own creative choices, while also including constraints and suggestions to help guide you.

talk  Course format and engagement

This course is fully online. You will use Canvas to view lectures and other materials, complete assignments, and engage with other students, and you are not required to attend synchronous meetings. However, you are encouraged to attend the weekly Zoom office hours held by the Prof. Dessen and TA(s).

It is crucial that you set up your Canvas Notifications so that you receive Messages, Announcements and Submission Comments immediately (not in digest form), because we will use these tools for communicating with you.

book-open  Types of coursework

Assigned lectures, readings, and videos are the core of each unit, and you are expected to set aside time each week for focusing careful attention on them. Most materials will be available for free, and there is no textbook.

Quizzes will cover the assigned lectures/reading/videos, so you should take the quiz after completing them. Quizzes are timed but are open book/notes. The questions are not difficult as long as you have completed all of the assigned materials from that week's Module.

Writing Assignments (WA) address different topics each week, and are typically two or three paragraphs in length. You will also complete two peer reviews for each one. All WAs include a revision option, detailed below.

Sound Collages (SC) with digital audio software require no previous music training, and will introduce you in a hands-on way to working with sound in time. We will use a free, cross-platform software program called Soundtrap. Most SCs include two peer reviews, and all SCs include a revision option, detailed below.

calendar  Weekly due dates and timing

Each of the five weekly Modules will open by Monday morning (or earlier). You must complete the work in each Module by two weekly deadlines:

Due 5pm each Friday (starting in week 1):

  • Quiz
  • This week's Writing Assignment
  • Peer Reviews from the previous week's Writing Assignment
  • A revision of the previous week's Writing Assignment, if needed

Due 5pm each Tuesday (starting in week 2):

  • This week's Sound Collage
  • Peer Reviews from the previous week's previous week's Sound Collage (Note: SCs 1 and 5 do not include Peer Reviews)
  • Revision of previous week's Sound Collage, if needed (Note: The final SC 5 will have an earlier revision deadline)

When grades are released:

  • WA scores are posted by Tuesday evening
  • SC scores are posted by Friday evening
  • Quiz grades are posted on Mondays

Note about extra assignments in weeks 3 and 4:

Most weeks include only one WA and one SC, but there are two exceptions: In week 3 there are two required SCs, and in week 4 there are two required WAs.

Suggestion: Use the Canvas Calendar!

This is the simplest way to see all assignment submission due dates. Click on Calendar in the main Canvas menu, and make sure this course's calendar is checked. Click "Calendar Feed" if you'd like to add this calendar to your own.

 bullseye-arrow  Grading

Quizzes are multiple choice, and are graded automatically by Canvas.

Writing Assignments and Sound Collages are graded as Complete/Incomplete, based on a rubric included with each assignment which details the criteria for a Complete grade. If you submit a complete version of an assignment by the deadline, but it does not fully meet all those criteria, you will be able to submit a revision (see details below).

Peer Reviews are graded Complete/Incomplete and must be completed by the deadline (details below).

How your course grade is calculated:

  • Writing Assignments: 35% (6 total, one Incomplete grade dropped)
  • Sound Collages: 25% (6 total, one Incomplete grade dropped)
  • Peer Reviews for WAs and SCs: 10% (10 total, two Incomplete grades dropped)
  • Quizzes: 30% (5 total, no grades dropped)

Number to letter grade conversion follows the EEE/Canvas default grading scheme.

pencil  About revisions

Why are revisions allowed? Writing about music (WAs) and creating collages with sounds (SCs) are new experiences for many students. Revisions for these assignments give you an opportunity to improve the quality of your work and learning, in response to feedback. We include the revision option so that students who are fully engaging with the assignment are not penalized due to lack of experience.

Under what conditions are revisions allowed? Revisions are only allowed if you submit the assignment in complete form by the due date. If your initial submission does not reflect a full engagement with the assignment, then your final grade for the assignment will remain Incomplete and you will not be allowed a revision. This would happen, for example, if you submit only a brief sentence or two demonstrating very little effort, in response to a WA assignment that asked for a thoughtful, 2-3 paragraph response. To put it more bluntly: The revision policy does not allow you to submit something quick and superficial as a placeholder, in order to have more time beyond the deadline.

How do I submit a revision? If you receive a grade of Incomplete on an SC or WA, start by going to the assignment page (where you submitted the work) and reading the TA’s comments, so that you know what needs to be addressed. If you have questions about their comments, it is better to message them directly (using the Canvas Inbox) rather than using the comment box on the assignment page. When you have completed your revised work, you submit it the same way as you submitted it previously, by uploading it on the same assignment page. (Canvas will keep both versions and make the difference clear to us.)  For Sound Collage revisions, you should upload new versions of both the audio and text file, unless the TA specified that one of them did not need to be changed. Do not submit your revised work as an attachment in the “comments” field. (If the regular "submit" option is not available to you, it means you have missed the revision deadline.)

When are revisions due? Revisions are usually due one week after the due date. Each assignment, in addition to a due date, also has an "available until..." date, which is the deadline for submitting revisions. Note that if you received an extension on an assignment due to illness or emergency, your assignment due date and/or "available until..." date should reflect what was approved.

When will my revision be graded? The TA will grade assignment revisions after the revision deadline for that assignment has passed. If you do not see a revised grade within one week after that date, you can message the TA to ask about it.

discuss  About Peer Reviews

Where do I find Peer Review assignments? If you submit a Writing Assignment or Sound Collage by the due date, then once that due date passes, Canvas will automatically assign you 2 peer reviews by providing links to 2 other students' submissions. Those links are sent to you in a notification message, and you can also find them listed on the assignment page for the WA or SC that is being peer reviewed.

Will I be assigned a Peer Review if I don't submit that WA/SC assignment? No. If you do not submit a WA or SC assignment by the initial due date, you will not be assigned a Peer Review for that assignment, and will not be able to complete it. However, as noted above, two Incomplete Peer Review grades are dropped at the end of the course, a policy designed to account for the Peer Reviews associated with the one SC and one WA that are dropped.

How do I complete a Peer Review? To complete the peer reviews, you should leave a paragraph in response to your peers' submissions, using the "comment" box on the students' assignment page. You do not need to evaluate whether their work meets the assignment criteria, which is the job of the TAs. Instead, you should share what you found interesting in their work, or any other questions or viewpoints they might consider. We expect you to carefully review their work and leave a thoughtful response of a few sentences. You will not receive credit for a short response such as "Great job."

Do all WAs and SCs include Peer Reviews? Peer Reviews are required for all the WAs, and for all but the first and final SCs.

office-hours  Late policies

For Quizzes, late submissions will be penalized by 10% per day. Canvas adds these penalties automatically, based on the submission time.

For Writing Assignments and Sound Collages, no late submissions will be accepted, but the lowest grade in each of these 2 categories will be dropped. You should not use this policy to simply skip an assignment, because it is intended to allow for assignments missed due to minor illnesses or one-time errors.

If you wish to request an exception to these policies due to illness or a genuine emergency, you should send a message via Canvas to Prof. Dessen as soon as possible, and include documentation (such as paperwork from a doctor's visit). 

You are strongly encouraged to start weekly work early, and to avoid submitting assignments and quizzes in the final few hours before they are due. In general, you will not be given an extension due to a failed internet connection at the last minute. Similarly, if you have any trouble during the week accessing online materials or working with Soundtrap, starting the work early will enable you to request technical help in time.

star  Academic integrity and Turnitin

All your work for this course must be entirely your own, and must conform to UCI's policies on academic integrity. You may not collaborate with others on any assignments (Quizzes, Writing Assignments, Sound Collages or Peer Reviews), and must not represent anyone else's work as your own. 

You must avoid plagiarism by properly citing all sources, published or unpublished. Among other things, this means fully citing sources whenever you draw on others' work, even if you're paraphrasing it in your own words, and using quotation marks to indicate when you use another person's words verbatim. The Welcome module that begins the course includes a link to further reading about the nature of plagiarism, in case you need it.

The Turnitin integration in Canvas will be used for all Writing Assignments to help us identify cases of plagiarism, including copying from materials found on websites like Course Hero. Plagiarism and any other violations of UCI's academic integrity policies will affect your grade and will be reported. More than one academic integrity violation may result in a course grade of F.

question  Help and accommodations

If you have any trouble with the course, it is important to seek help as early as possible. When contacting Prof. Dessen or the TAs, please send messages through Canvas and write in complete sentences. Here are the ways to get help:

  • For accommodations due to illness or emergency, as noted above under "Late Policies," please send all requests directly to Prof. Dessen, and include documentation.
  • For questions about course policies, you can either post in the Discussion "Ask general course questions here!" or send a message to Prof. Dessen.
  • For questions about a specific assignment submission/grade, send a message to the TA who graded it.
  • For more general questions about the assignments or materials, please message either Prof. Dessen or the TA who has been grading your work.
  • We also encourage you to drop in on the weekly Zoom office hours held by the Prof. Dessen and the TAs.

If you have a disability that affects your performance in this course and requires special arrangements, you must document it through UCI's Disabilities Services Center, ensure they send the Prof. Dessen your contract at the beginning of the quarter, and contact Prof. Dessen in the first week of the course to confirm any accommodations.


Thank you for reading the entire Syllabus. We look forward to working with you and hope you enjoy the course!