MUSIC AND DRAMA

The Department of Music and Drama includes courses in both the musical and dramatic arts with special focus on how these relate to Bardism and Druidic practice.

MD 101. Individual Music Lessons

Course which may be taken more than once for credit. Individual music lessons in various instruments. Those most likely to be offered are harp, pipes, flute, drums, guitar, fiddle.

MD 102. Celtic Sessions

Course which may be taken more than once for credit. Students of various instruments and voice will join together to play, improvise, and share their love of music.

MD 103. Introduction to Musical Composition (3 cr).

This course will address the basic skills of composing melody, especially those suited for insturments of limited range and pitches (e.g. pennywhistle and folk harp). Emphasis will be on writing good melodies always respecting, as exemplary bards should, the suitablity of the music for voice. Students enrolling in this course should play an instrument or sing and have a basic knowledge of how to read writen music.

MD 104 Intermediate Musical Composition: Diatonic Harmony

Prerequisite: MD 103.

MD 105 Vocal Composition

Prerequisite: MD 104.

MD 106. Introduction to Celtic Music

An introductory course looking at traditional music from Scotland, Ireland, and Britain and the popular Celtic music style.

MD 201 Ancient Greek Ritual and Drama (3 cr).

Reading and performance of Ancient Greek tragedies and comedies. Discussion of the art form's development from ritual drama. Discussion of the Eleusinian mysteries. Includes workshop on making and using masks on stage and in ritual.

MD 202 Shakespeare the Bard

Study of the plays and poetry of Shakespeare, "The Bard of Avon" and as one of the great exemplars of dramatic writing in English. Particular emphasis will be placed on the magical themes in several of Shakespeare's works and upon the use of pagan deities and the cultural attitudes towards witchcraft in Elizabethan culture. In addition students will be asked to consider the dramatic representations of pagan Rome and Britain in some of Shakepeare's tragedies. Among the works covered will be A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Macbeth, Coriolanus, and King Lear.

MD 203. Irish Playwrights (3 cr).

Special emphasis on Shaw, Wilde, Yeats, Lady Gregory, Synge, O'Casey and the history of the Abbey Theatre.

MD 301. Costuming (3 cr).

Considerations of design and technique in the production of plays and rituals. Historical Celtic and Druidic costume and modern interpretations will be discussed. Applications to the play under production in a given term.

MD 302. Stage Performance and Production (3 cr).

Students enrolled in this class will audition and apply for the theatrical production ongoing in a given term. Those not cast in acting parts may work in costuming, set construction, stage management and properties.

MD 303. Lighting and Set Design (3 cr).

Design of settings and lighting for ritual drama and other forms of dramatic presentation.

MD 401. Writing Ritual and Mythic Drama (3 cr).

A workshop in which students will compose their own ritual or mythic dramas to be performed in the amphitheater or in the grove circle.

MD 402.  Music and Magic (3 cr).

The use of music in spellcasting, glamoury, and therapy.  Ancient bardic arts of enchantment through use of voice and instrument.  Casting spells over audiences.