Humanities, University of Southampton

This module is premised in the notion that most, if not all, musical works are dependent in part for their existence on extant models-viz., that music is made from music.

Module Co-ordinator: David Nicholls

 The aims of this module are to:

• Identify the principal means by which ‘new' musical works are derived from existing models
• To develop students' analytical and cognitive skills, in order that they may better be able to isolate and comment on distinctive, shared, technical features found in disparate examples drawn from the musical literature

 Objectives (planned learning outcomes)

        Knowledge and understanding

            Having successfully completed the module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of: 

• the principal means by which ‘new' musical works are derived from existing models
• the links that exist between apparently disparate musical objects drawn from a wide repertoire

     Cognitive (thinking) skills

      Having successfully completed the module, you will be able to:

• use your investigative skills to identify links between apparently disparate musical objects

 Practical, subject-specific skills 

      Having successfully completed the module, you will be able to:

• compare and contrast musical objects from a wide variety of periods, places, and usages

             Key transferable skills

            Having successfully completed the module, you will be able to:

• draw informed conclusions concerning the relationships between complex sets of data

This module is premised in the notion that most, if not all, musical works are dependent in part for their existence on extant models-viz., that music is made from music. Accordingly, in a series of weekly tasks, each involving a degree of detective work, students will research and comment on the links they are able to establish between various items of musical evidence, presented to them by the module tutor the week previously. In summative terms, students will assemble a series of case studies of the various processes by and through which creators of music base their creations on extant models.

Teaching methods include

• weekly seminars (maximum student entry to module: 20)
• regular opportunities for one-to-one discussion with the module tutor

 Learning activities include

• regular, structured, self-study, based in the tasks set each week
• preparation of a portfolio of the work resulting from these weekly tasks
• authorship of a formal essay that attempts to analyse the connections that exist between a set of ‘unseen' musical examples

 Innovative or special features of this module

•  the requirement that students undertake weekly musical detective work, in order to attempt to identify the common processes underlying the musical samples distributed in advance of the seminar class

None-other than the necessity of listening and reading as widely as possible in music history and repertoire, and of thinking deeply about the processes that underly musical creation.