Musicology/Music History Major

Musicology is essentially about telling stories, true stories about composers, their music, and cultural environment in which they flourished.  A musicologist conducts research to uncover truths about music, the most ambiguously beautiful of all the arts.  Topics might include, Beethoven’s Immortal Beloved, Schumann’s progression towards insanity, Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet, Charles Ives’s musical borrowings, Philip Glass’s film scores.  Musicology is unique in the context of a liberal environment because it is one of the few disciplines in which one learns not only to research the life of a composer, but as a music major, one also learns to play the music and compose your own.  Indeed, all musicologists play an instrument and find great satisfaction working through a musical problem on the piano or another instrument.  Here is an example of a final project in Music History 162:

Unique to Lewis and Clark College is an interdisciplinary approach to musicology.  Students are encouraged to understand music through the lens of its sister disciplines, such as art history, literary criticism, and philosophy.  For instance, students may study the representation of musical instruments in the work of Michelangelo or musical metaphors in Virginia Woolf’s prose.  At Lewis and Clark College, students interested in concentrating in musicology take the required courses for music majors: theory, aural skills, piano, performance ensembles.  Students also complete a senior thesis.

In addition to the courses required of all music majors, students in musicology are required to take MUS 361, Music and Language, and it is strongly recommended that they complete MUS 362 and 363, Topics in History and Music I and II.

Musicology students are also encouraged to participate in the London Overseas program, offered by the college every other spring.

Requirements for all Music Majors (see music major requirements for specific classes) 

Additional Required courses for Students who concentrate in Musicology

MUS 361 4 Cr. Music and Language

MUS 490 4 Cr. Senior Thesis

Recommended Courses

MUS 362  4 Cr. Topics in the History of Western Music I

MUS 363  4 Cr. Topics in the History of Western Music II

MUS 499  4 Cr. Independent Study

Recommended Elective Courses

ART 101  4 Cr. History of Western Art: Ancient to Medieval

ART 111  4 Cr. History of Western Art: Renaissance to 20th Century

MUS 276 4 Cr. Opera, Mantua to Beijing

Senior Thesis in Musicology 

MUS 490 Senior Project

Students typically complete their senior thesis during the spring term of their senior year.  The thesis is a research project whose subject is chosen by the student in consultation with their advisor.  Examples of past projects include: the life and music of Alma Mahler, the work of Doreen Carwithen, Jimi Hendrix’s late style, Shostakovich’s Testimony, and Pink Floyd’s The Wall.  Student theses run between 30 and 50 pages and contain complete bibliographies and footnotes.  Students meet with their advisor once a week to monitor the progress of their work and submit drafts for review.  Once the complete is draft is done, it is sent to two other members of the music faculty for their comments and suggestions, which the student incorporates into the final draft.  The student will present their findings to an audience of their peers and faculty at a colloquium set up in the music department.  The colloquium is generally 30 minutes in length.  Students may also wish to do a lecture/recital.  Students interested in writing a thesis in musicology are encouraged to take an independent study (MUS 499) with their professor the semester prior to taking MUS 490 to begin research on the thesis topic.  This will ensure the student ample time to complete their project.