Music Department Plans Music and Movies Course

By Daniel Heitshusen

Concordia will be offering a new course, Music and Movies. It will focus on the use of music in movies and how it has changed over time.

Adjunct music faculty Dr. Adrienne Dickson will teach the course. Dickson says this class will be geared toward non-music majors to fulfill their fine arts credit and that the class will look at how music and movies have progressed together.

“I thought an enjoyable and interesting class for non-music majors might be the study of music in the movies,” Dickson said in an email interview.

The class will look at the progression of  how movies have used music in several genres and will also study how music affects the story.

The formation of the course began when Dr. Kurt von Kampen, music department chair and professor of music, emailed music adjunct professors with a survey about adding a class for non-music majors.  

“The full-time music faculty reviewed the proposed ideas for the new class, (and) movie music seemed interesting as well as a topic that might be interesting to many students,” Dickson said.

Dickson hopes students will gain an appreciation of music in films through this class.

“(Students will learn) how important music is in our lives as well as how powerful the language of music truly is,” Dickson said. “Without any words, music can move us, tell us the story, (and) build up suspense.”

It has not been decided when the course will be offered, but all students will be able to take it as a fine arts credit.