BA Music and Drama

Year of entry: 2024

Course unit details:
Approaches to Musicology

Course unit fact file
Unit code MUSC10511
Credit rating 20
Unit level Level 1
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Offered by Music
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

Approaches to Musicology is intended to give students an introduction to the many different ways in which music and its artistic, cultural and social contexts can be analysed and understood, and to provide a solid foundation for students’ own application of these methods and approaches to their study of music. The first block of lectures examines musicological and ethnomusicological approaches to the study of music, as well as the various study skills required at University. Two further blocks of lectures run concurrently apply those approaches and study skills to two discrete aspects of music history. The precise content of the latter two blocks changes from year to year, but previous topics have included the impact of music printing on music and society in the 16th century, Puccini’s La bohème, jazz and recording, minimalism before 1980, jazz and recording, the post-war avant-garde, and divas from Blues queens to Beyoncé.

Pre/co-requisites

Available as a free choice, but note prerequisite of A Level Music or Grade VIII Theory or equivalent.

Aims

  • To promote active and critical engagement with different musics and cultures;
  • To introduce a range of skills relating to researching, thinking and writing about music and its artistic, cultural and social contexts;
  • To provide a foundation for further study in the fields of musicology and/or ethnomusicology.

Knowledge and understanding

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Demonstrate an understanding of a range of different ways of approaching musicological study, and of the inherent problems in constructing a historical narrative;
  • Discuss a range of musics and cultures and the critical issues relevant to them.
  • Define and apply the appropriate skills required for University-level study, including research gathering, note-taking, critical reading and writing.

Intellectual skills

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Show a developing ability to engage critically with methodological problems in musicology;
  • Demonstrate an ability to evaluate historical methods as used in musicological discourse;
  • Analyse and evaluate written arguments in music scholarship.

Practical skills

By the end of this course students will be able to: 

  • Show that they can access scholarly writings and resources in a range of media, including electronic resources.
  • Draw together ideas from a range of sources, with developing skills in the organization, interpretation and synthesis of information.
  • Develop and sustain a coherent argument in both written and verbal forms.

Transferable skills and personal qualities

By the end of this course students will be able to:

  • Show a burgeoning ability to produce good-quality work independently with developing critical self-awareness;
  • Demonstrate a growing ability to communicate ideas and information clearly in written and verbal form.
  • Demonstrate increasing levels of intellectual curiosity and the potential to approach tasks in a systematic and creative way.

Employability skills

Analytical skills
Analytical skills (analysing texts, musical scores and other materials)
Group/team working
Working in a team (seminar and workshop discussions; developing group presentations)
Oral communication
Communication skills (oral and written)
Problem solving
Creative problem-solving (fulfilling a set task with the resources available)
Research
Digital skills (information searches in databases, catalogues and other online environments)
Written communication
Communication skills (oral and written)
Other
Time management skills (submitting material to fixed deadlines)

Assessment methods

Essay 50%
Exam 50%

 

Feedback methods

Feedback method

Formative or Summative

Oral feedback on seminar tasks and group presentation, and general advice given in seminars

Formative

Written feedback on essay and examination

Summative

Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)

Formative

 

Recommended reading

Each block of the course unit has its own reading and listening lists.  The following titles provide overall support for all three blocks: 

  • Beard, David and Kenneth Gloag, Musicology: The Key Concepts, 2nd edition (London: Routledge, 2016. 
  • Citron, Marcia, Gender and the Musical Canon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 
  • Clayton, Martin, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds.), The Cultural Study of Music: A Critical Introduction, second edition (London: Routledge, 2012).
  • Harper-Scott, J.P.E. and Jim Samson (eds.), An Introduction to Music Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 
  • Herbert, Trevor, Music in Words: A Guide to Researching and Writing about Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 
  • Kerman, Joseph, Musicology (London: Fontana, 1985).
  • Rice, Timothy. Ethnomusicology: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014).
  • Treitler, Leo, ‘The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present’, in Nicolas Cook and Mark Everist (eds.), Rethinking Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 356–377.

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Lectures 20
Practical classes & workshops 3
Tutorials 6
Independent study hours
Independent study 171

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Rebecca Herissone-Kelly Unit coordinator

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