Music Since 1960
MIT OpenCourseWare offers this survey of Western classical music since the 1960s, tracing how composers, performers, and listeners responded to a decade the course treats as a genuine dividing line. Lectures and materials cover the impact of rock in the 1960s and 70s, post serial and neotonal writing, minimalism, new age styles, the globalization of Western musical traditions, new recording and production technologies, and the rise of music video and video game scores as multimedia forms. Study is organized around close listening to specific works spread evenly across the four decades after 1960, including pieces by MIT composers. The course includes MIT's syllabus, readings, and assignments as published through OCW, free to access with no certificate offered. It suits listeners who want a structured path through late twentieth century concert music rather than a survey of pop charts.