Courses

This course explores artistic expression through musical responses to poetry, dance, painting, film, photography, and other art forms. Through guided listening, viewing films and discussion, students learn to integrate the arts by preparing a performance. The class experiments and creates pieces to realize a synthesis of the arts. Artists to be examined include Paul Klee, Gunther Schuller, John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Mark Morris, Yo Yo Ma, and more. Collaborations among music students, dancers, writers, and visual artists are encouraged.

Humanities Topics courses enable students to choose from a variety of course themes that change each semester. Humanities topics courses are generally interdisciplinary and focus on the intersection of different approaches to studying a topic, culture or geographic region. Individual course descriptions are available to registering students at www.berklee.edu/liberal-arts.

This course provides film scoring majors and other students interested in sound for visual media with an introduction to how film makes visual and narrative meaning through the language of film, which includes camera, frame composition, lighting, production design, acting styles, editing, dialogue, plot, genre, themes, sound, and point of view. Students will learn to read and analyze film from a film studies perspective, and understand digital, 360 degree cinema, and virtual reality immersive experience within the context of film history. Written assignments and in-class activities will reinforce writing, reading, and oral communication skills, with the goal of strengthening students' abilities to communicate with directors.

In this course, students explore wellness practices that help nurture the potential for inspiration in performance. The course is both a laboratory for stepping out of the box with confidence in performance and a study of established wellness techniques. Students learn practice and wellness; how to demystify improvisation; they explore the science of sound impact on the body and they learn theories and practices of healthy performance. Students explore the following topics: embodying rhythm; authentically connecting with an audience; overcoming performance anxiety; and relaxing using Reiki, toning, and other forms of musical self-care. Students also develop skills that will enable them to explore the sources of their inspiration and creative expression.

The Professional Development Seminar provides an opportunity for students in their sixth semester to reflect upon their academic and professional experience at Berklee, prepare to complete their Berklee programs, and transition from college into the professional world and/or graduate school. Students evaluate their knowledge, skills, abilities, and interests as they develop and/or refine college and career goals. Students also explore their own identities and their professional and personal relationships as they reflect on the role of the artist in society generally and their role as a musician in their community specifically. Students learn business, entrepreneurship, legal, and communication skills, and address issues of business ethics. Additionally, students refine and redirect their Berklee College of Music electronic portfolio towards a professional model and explore issues of presentation and critique. The Professional Development Seminar provides a creative and reflective atmosphere that encourages students to participate in their own learning while preparing for their future.

The motto of Berklee College of Music is Esse quam videri, a phrase from Cicero's essay On Friendship" which translates as "to be rather than to seem." This course gives students the opportunity to focus and reflect upon the differences between seeming and being and think deeply about existence self and image. Organized around three interrelated themes: seeming vs. being; performance on stage and in everyday life; and the power of images and illusion in contemporary culture the seminar requires students to consider real world issues by exploring in depth the great works of philosophy literature and psychology. The course includes the reading and discussion of Plato's Republic Machiavelli's The Prince Shakespeare's Hamlet and Cervantes' Don Quixote. Funded by a National Endowment for the Humanities Enduring Questions grant LHUM-P410 is a unique opportunity for serious seminar-style exploration of a foundational issue in human thought.

This course blends theory and practice in an exploration of digital narrative: how stories can be told with digital and new media technologies. Students work critically and creatively with linear and nonlinear narratives in a range of media such as writing, graphics, animation, games, multimedia, virtual worlds, interactive media, immersive media, and mixed reality. The overall theme of the course focuses on moving image narratives—both linear and nonlinear—that explore ideas about storytelling, time, presence, embodiment, agency, and memory. In particular, students consider how interactivity changes narrative, and whether there are new kinds of digital narratives and aesthetics emerging. Students create projects including interactive fiction, games, movies, virtual reality, augmented reality and/or concepts for new realities; comment on their creative work using the critical concepts they learn; and experiment with coding, graphics, and 3D and 2D content creation software programs.