Music Industry (MUSI)

MUSI 1204. Analyzing Popular Genres. (4 Hours)

Examines the role and function of various musical elements by analyzing examples from popular music. Examines structure, lyrics, and instrumentation in popular music. Offers students an opportunity to further develop ear training and sight-singing skills.

Prerequisite(s): MUSC 1201 with a minimum grade of D- or MUSI 1203 with a minimum grade of C

MUSI 1230. Introduction to Music Industry. (4 Hours)

Examines business-related areas of the music industry. Topics include music publishing, copyright, the function of performing rights organizations (ASCAP and BMI), talent agents, artist management, concert promotion, and royalties and contracts.

MUSI 1990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 2101. Demo Production for Songwriters. (4 Hours)

Offers students an opportunity to learn the necessary techniques to utilize current Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) and audio technology in the production of professional-quality song demos, including intermediate to advanced skills and concepts of MIDI, synthesis, multitrack recording, mixing, and sound processing. Covers musical approaches to the effective assembly and arranging of sound materials using professional digital audio workstations (DAWs). Focuses on techniques to import and export both MIDI and audio data to greater facilitate collaboration within the virtual classroom as well as using external collaborators (across a variety of DAWs and platforms). Songwriting skills are also critiqued.

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 2231. Music Licensing for Media. (4 Hours)

Examines a variety of music usages in film, advertisements, TV shows, and other media types or venues that require music licensing. Offers students an opportunity to examine licenses and agreements in an effort to enable them to customize boilerplate forms to reflect accurately the needed licenses with any and all customized terms. Stresses teamwork, defining roles within a team, and assertiveness in an effort to enable students to function at their highest level for the demanding team-based final project. The final project stresses resourcefulness, meeting deadlines, creative excellence, along with open and sustained communication between the production side and the creative side.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of D-

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 2232. Music Production and Recording 1. (4 Hours)

Introduces the modern commercial and popular music production process including music creation, editing, arrangement, and mixing. Emphasizes core techniques in operating industry-standard music production software, critical listening for assessment purposes, and mixing and editing audio. No prior production experience is required. Weekly practical assignments culminate in a final music production project, for which students may use their own creative work.

MUSI 2234. Festivals. (4 Hours)

Examines the multiple ways in which festivals affect musical life. Analyzes festivals both as music communities concentrated into limited temporal and geographic frames as well as social and cultural institutions situated within particular historical and cultural contexts. Studies what a festival does; what we can learn from the history of music festivals; how festivals have impacted social, cultural, economic, and aesthetic hierarchies; and what festival organizers consider when making artistic, financial, and administrative decisions. By the end of the semester, successful students should have a comprehensive understanding of both the business and the cultural contexts of music festivals, which they should be able to demonstrate through individual written, multimodal creative, and group assignments.

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 2235. Copyright in the Creative Industries. (4 Hours)

Explores the balance of interests at the heart of copyright law, including enhancing the public interest, supporting innovation, and protecting private property rights. Offers students an opportunity to gain an appreciation of the significance of copyright in the structure, operation, and customs of the creative industries. Focuses on the unique character of music-related copyright issues and addresses the music industries’ outsized impact on the development of copyright policy in the United States.

Attribute(s): NUpath Societies/Institutions

MUSI 2330. Performing Arts Administration. (4 Hours)

Introduces music management including the structure of nonprofit organizations (such as arts service organizations, arts centers, symphony orchestras, chamber orchestras, ensembles, opera companies, and university arts programs) and the structure of for-profit enterprises. Examines financial management, funding, and audience development.

MUSI 2331. Music Production and Recording 2. (4 Hours)

Explores modern commercial and popular music production processes including workflows, production chronology, and microphone techniques. Emphasizes intermediate techniques in operating industry-standard music production software and critical listening for assessment purposes. Weekly practical assignments augment a course-long production project.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 2232 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 2332. Music Publishing and Royalties. (4 Hours)

Focuses on music publishing, which plays a pivotal role in the music industry. Not only does this field generate billions of dollars worldwide in revenue, but it has become an essential part of the recording, live performance, and merchandising sectors of the music industry. Examines the concepts and current issues of music publishing as it pertains to recording, film, television, print, and other media. Topics include licensing, royalty collection, and the art of negotiating music copyrights.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

MUSI 2341. Music Supervision 1. (4 Hours)

Covers the field of music supervision, which has become an in-demand field due to the increased use of songs in TV shows, films, live events, advertisements, websites, and other forums. Discusses the whole process, from choosing the perfect song/lyric to strategies for securing licensing with artists and publishers. Offers students a hands-on opportunity to make music selections fit a variety of media and also to structure licensing/contract deals for composers, publishers, and record companies. Final project involves networking with Green Line Records and external rights holders to license and place music into a series of scenes and advertisements.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 2973. Special Topics in Music Industry. (1-4 Hours)

Focuses on various topics related to the music industry. May be repeated twice for up to 12 total semester hours.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

MUSI 2990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 2991. Research in Music Industry. (1-4 Hours)

Offers an opportunity to conduct introductory-level research or creative endeavors under faculty supervision.

MUSI 3332. Artist Management. (4 Hours)

Provides an in-depth investigation of the field of musical artist management. Explores the artist-manager relationship, the management contract, artist evaluation, image formulation, the artist’s development team, achieving a recording contract, merchandising, endorsements, sponsorships, touring, and financial management.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

MUSI 3333. The Record Industry. (4 Hours)

Examines the domestic and international record industry. Topics include industry structure, business and legal affairs, the recording contract, royalties, manufacturing, distribution, promotion, publicity, advertising, licensing, and piracy. Offers students the opportunity to explore major record labels and independent labels. Addresses the past, present, and future.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 3338. Music Industry Marketing and Promotion. (4 Hours)

Provides a thorough examination of the principles and applications of marketing and promotion within the music industry. Students explore how music companies successfully conduct product, pricing, distribution, and communication management. Approaches music marketing issues using readings, specific music marketing case studies, lectures, guest speakers, and projects.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

MUSI 3340. Concert Promotion and Venue Management. (4 Hours)

Provides an in-depth exploration of the principles and practices of concert promotion and venue management. Focuses on areas such as concert promotion, venue advertising, talent buying, contractual requirements, insurance, government regulation, American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP)/BMI licenses, personnel management, and concert production and administration.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Analyzing/Using Data, NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 3341. Music Production and Recording 3. (4 Hours)

Focuses on the final stages of the modern commercial and popular music production process: mixing and mastering. Emphasizes advanced techniques in operating industry-standard music production software and advanced critical listening for making decisions about levels, equalization, dynamics, time-based effects, and spatial positioning when mixing and mastering. Weekly practical assignments in listening and analysis are designed to augment hands-on practice using both students’ current productions and current professional music productions.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 2331 with a minimum grade of D-

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 3351. Music and Social Justice. (4 Hours)

Introduces theories of ethics, morality, and equality and strategies to advance social justice—to ensure equality and human dignity for all people—through music. Explores the music industry as both a microcosm of society and amplifier of our collective ethics. On stage, on the record, and through direct action, musicians worldwide use their art and renown to serve social movements. Many also face equality and equity challenges within the music industry. As future professionals, students may either challenge or reinforce the injustices they encounter in their professional and personal lives.Through critical discourse on professional ethics in the music business and service-learning projects requiring direct community engagement, seeks to empower students to make a lifelong commitment to ethical decision making and advancing social justice.

Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Ethical Reasoning

MUSI 3360. Global Music Industries in Context. (4 Hours)

Offers students an opportunity to obtain the cultural curiosity and adaptive dexterity needed to analyze diverse global music industries in their historical, cultural, economic, and political contexts. Through the labels, scenes, and digital spaces that form the professional settings for today’s global music professionals—explored in course readings, creative case studies, and summative research projects—identifies the many ways in which diverse industries consolidate music production, distribution, and consumption. Students encounter and analyze diverse professional practices and creative products and critique music’s value—financial, social, political, ideological, and personal. In addition, students practice critical reading and observation and identify traditions within the social sciences and cultural criticism that provide valuable theoretical lenses for the interpretation of global music industries in context.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Difference/Diversity, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive

MUSI 3401. Hip Hop in the Music Industry. (4 Hours)

Focuses on black popular music as art, activism, and commodity from the post–Civil Rights era to today. Studies the immediate musical, historical, cultural, and industry-based precedents for rap music, which emerged in opposition to the music industry—and many other institutions that perpetuated the inequalities against which early hip-hop artists were protesting. The contemporary moment provides a unique opportunity for refocusing on the origins of hip-hop and black protest music as they relate to the industry’s embrace and commodification of certain aspects of hip-hop culture. Explores the dynamic tensions between rap music as aesthetic object, countercultural expression, social commentary, and industry commodity, engaging with current expressions of all of these in the Boston area.

Prerequisite(s): ENGW 1111 with a minimum grade of D-

MUSI 3973. Special Topics in Music Industry. (4 Hours)

Focuses on various topics related to the music industry. May be repeated twice for up to 12 semester hours.

MUSI 3990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 4530. Music Entrepreneurship. (4 Hours)

Designed to provide students with the knowledge, skills, and abilities necessary to plan, finance, develop, and operate a new music venture. Topics include attributes of music entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial careers, evaluating opportunities, writing business plans, financing the venture, and long-term management and planning.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C ; (ACCT 1201 with a minimum grade of D- or ACCT 1209 with a minimum grade of D- ); ECON 1116 with a minimum grade of D-

MUSI 4601. Seminar in Music Industry. (4 Hours)

Presents a capstone course for music industry students. Offers advanced students the opportunity to explore contemporary events and issues in the music industry. Allows students to reflect upon, distill, and apply knowledge accumulated in prior courses and previous experiential learning. This reflection and application occurs through substantial writing assignments and classroom discussion. Fulfills the college’s experiential education requirement for music industry majors.

Prerequisite(s): MUSI 1230 with a minimum grade of C

Attribute(s): NUpath Capstone Experience, NUpath Societies/Institutions, NUpath Writing Intensive

MUSI 4990. Elective. (1-4 Hours)

Offers elective credit for courses taken at other academic institutions. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 4992. Directed Study. (1-4 Hours)

Focuses on independent work in a selected area of music under the direction of a member of the department. Enrollment is limited to qualified students by special arrangement with the supervising faculty member and with the approval of the department chair. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 4994. Internship. (4 Hours)

Offers students an opportunity for internship work. May be repeated twice.

Attribute(s): NUpath Integration Experience

MUSI 5220. The Independent Performing Songwriter: Creation, Commerce, and Well-Being. (4 Hours)

Explores the evolving terrain of the independent music industry for songwriters who write, perform, and release music independently. Examines songwriting, production, performance, and how to navigate the digital music landscape effectively. Covers the business side of music including rights, royalties, and branding strategies. Studies best practices to manage one's own career. Emphasizes the artist's well-being, exploring mindfulness, time management, and resilience to maintain a sustainable and fulfilling career. Offers students an opportunity to enhance artistic skills and obtain a holistic understanding of the music industry.

Attribute(s): NUpath Creative Express/Innov

MUSI 5973. Special Topics in Music Industry. (3,4 Hours)

Focuses on various topics related to the music industry. May be repeated up to two times for up to 12 total credits.

MUSI 6360. Investigating Global Music Industries in Context. (4 Hours)

Supports graduate students’ development of the investigatory and explicatory acumens necessary to put their new knowledge to work. Students encounter and compare diverse global music industries in their historical, cultural, economic, and political contexts. Explores the professional practices of and cultural contexts for today’s global music professionals in course readings, creative case studies, and summative research projects. Identifies the ways in which diverse industries consolidate music production, distribution, and consumption. Analyzes diverse creative products and critiques music’s value—financial, social, political, ideological, and personal. Students practice critical reading and interpretation and apply theories within the social sciences and cultural criticism for the interpretation of global music industries in context.

MUSI 6700. Advanced Licensing Techniques for Music Management. (4 Hours)

Identifies and explores advanced licensing strategies, techniques, and transactions for various intellectual properties, including music publishing, sound recordings, trademarks/service marks, and likeness/publicity rights. Examines complex or hybrid licenses that cover more than one aspect of IP in the same license and approaches, strategies, and tactics (both successful and unsuccessful) that have been applied to licensing. Offers students an opportunity to develop a dynamic and effective licensing methodology and practice.

MUSI 6964. Co-op Work Experience. (0 Hours)

Offers eligible students an opportunity for work experience.

MUSI 7976. Directed Study. (1-4 Hours)

Offers independent work under the direction of members of the department on chosen topics. May be repeated without limit.

MUSI 7980. Capstone. (4 Hours)

Offers students an opportunity to integrate their course work, knowledge, and experiences into a capstone project. Offers students an opportunity to work in partnership with local, state, or national leaders to produce an operational music company. This is a faculty-guided project for students completing course work in music industry leadership studies.