COMM 335 Music as Media
This course examines recorded music from cultural, theoretical, and historical perspectives with an emphasis on the law and culture of the U.S. music industry. What is the future of streaming audio? How have recent court cases affected creativity for sample-based musicians? Why are live performances so popular in a media saturated culture? This class will seek answers to these questions and many more by examining topics such as liveness, piracy, the spectacular crash of the music industry in the post-CD era, the ontology of digital and analog sound, the ethics of sampling, and the meaning of music formats. The class has a production element through which students participate in sound design and analysis.