Spring 2027

Musica Practica 1

Musica Practica 1 covers strategies for composing, understanding, and writing about music.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 8

Past student reviews · Brian Hyer

The course assumed students knew basic theory, including singing melodies and accurate hearing, making the initial learning curve tough for those without previous experience.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Identify chords and intervals, identify chord function in a progression, and locate and analyze basic harmonic cadences.

  • Identify key signatures, play at the piano and sing major and minor scales, understand basic elements of music notation, and apply that knowledge to singing and playing basic melodies.

  • Understand Roman-numeral analysis and figured-bass symbols, and how to apply both to analyze a piece of diatonic, tonal music.

  • Describe the basic elements of species counterpoint and be able to apply that knowledge to compose based on the principles of first- through fifth-species counterpoint.

Source: UW Guide

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
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AB
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

Declared in Music, Music: Performance or Music: Education

  • Declared in Music, Music: Performance or Music: Education
MUSIC 121 used by

“Used by” includes alternatives; linked courses may have other requirements. This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree
  • Declared in Music, Music: Performance or Music: Education

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

BRIAN HYER is recorded teaching in Fall 2006, Fall 2007, Fall 2009, Fall 2010, Fall 2011, Fall 2012, Fall 2013, Fall 2014, Fall 2015, Fall 2016, Fall 2017, Fall 2018, Fall 2019, Fall 2020, Fall 2021, Fall 2022. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

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SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · Brian Hyer

Students described Brian Hyer as extremely knowledgeable and helpful, with one reviewer noting he was clear in what he wanted and how he teaches.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.73 GPA, 83.8% A/AB (n=80 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.83 GPA, 89.1% A/AB (n=92 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.62 GPA, 85.9% A/AB (n=64 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · Brian Hyer

The course assumed students knew basic theory, including singing melodies and accurate hearing, making the initial learning curve tough for those without previous experience.

Past student reviews · Brian Hyer

Some students found it difficult to know what the professor wanted on papers, while others noted he tended to believe his analysis was correct and dismissed counter-arguments.

Topics

  • Harmony: chords, intervals, chord function, and cadences
  • Theory basics: key signatures, scales, notation, and melody
  • Analysis: Roman numerals and figured bass in tonal music
  • Composition: species counterpoint (first through fifth species)

Skills

  • Identify chords, intervals, chord functions, and harmonic cadences
  • Identify key signatures, play/sing scales, and read music notation
  • Apply Roman-numeral analysis and figured-bass to tonal music
  • Compose using first- through fifth-species counterpoint

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "e53f5433428ab54619903126fce93d27b1897dde574e6b08586383363d0c2ef2",
  "requirements_status": "needs_review",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}