Music Research and Cultural Studies

The Music Research and Cultural Studies (MuRCS) Area supports the research and analysis of music in its historical, cultural, and social contexts. The area comprises musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, and aural skills faculty and students in the Bachelor of Arts in Music (BA) and Master of Arts in Music (MA) degree programs. MuRCS faculty have specialities in aural skills pedagogy; Classical/early Romantic Viennese composers; music and politics in 20th century American art music; alternative tuning and metric systems, live interactive performance with computers, and musical cryptography; and intersections of race, gender, and sexuality in contemporary American popular music. 

Meet the faculty

MuRCS faculty offer courses on a variety of topics. In addition to Western music history, music theory, and aural skills, we offer courses on the following special topics:  

  • Music of the African Diaspora

  • Global Hip Hop

  • History of Film Music

  • American Music and National Identity

  • Gender, Sexuality, and Music

  • Music and Culture of Hip Hop

  • Black Music in the U.S. 

  • Off-Grid Meters and Scales

  • Art Music and Borrowing

  • Musical Theater and American Society

  • Strauss, Mahler, and Maximalism 

  • American Music from Civil War to Civil Rights

  • European Folk Music and Dance

We also offer WMU Essential Studies (WES courses) on the following topics: 

  • American Music

  • Rock Music: Genesis and Development 

  • Music Appreciation 

  • Explorations in World Music

  • The Symphony

The BA in Music is a liberal arts-style degree for students interested in rigorous academic study and analysis of Western music, popular music, jazz, music technology, global music cultures, and other musical traditions. Approximately one-third of the coursework is in music, including music history, music theory, global music studies, and some performance. The remainder of the curriculum includes general education, a minor in another field, a world language requirement, and electives. Students seeking the BA complete an original capstone project in their final semester. Recent capstone projects include examinations of Kalamazoo’s DIY music scene; vocal biology and functionality; the musical influences of Wilhelmine von Bayreuth and Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia; and Benjamin Britten’s Op.22 (1940) settings of seven sonnets by the Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarotti. 

We also offer a Master of Arts degree in Music, which can be done as an accelerated graduate degree along with a BA or some other undergraduate degree in Music in a combined 5-year program. Recent MA students are working on or have completed projects on music in video games; themes of sexual violence in the choral works of Ted Hearne; graphic notation and the work of Wadada Leo Smith; the Latin American villancico; aesthetic implications of computer music; and teaching collegiate music theory using heavy metal. Recent graduates of the MA program have been accepted into PhD programs at Princeton University, the University of Florida, University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Boston University, and Kent State University.