Module overview
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Understand and employ critical vocabulary derived from cultural theory in the scholarly discussion of the arts
- Discuss critically the political affiliations and impact of various musicological methods, conventions, and discourse
- Describe and evaluate the range of critical approaches to Western music employed since the late 18th century
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Demonstrate critical awareness of how diversity and inclusion address in musicology.
- Explain the essential features of a specific piece of musical criticism
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- the applicability of different critical practices to different repertories
- the methodological and ideological frameworks of a range of recent scholarly writings on music
- exploring current critical practices in musicology.
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- navigate various forms of resources to produce an original work
- actively reflect and participate in debate about scholarly practices within a global context
Syllabus
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Teaching | 24 |
| Independent Study | 276 |
| Total study time | 300 |
Resources & Reading list
Journal Articles
Small, Christopher (1998). Prelude. The Meanings of Performing and Listening, pp. 1—18.
Kerman, Joseph (1985). “Introduction” and “Musicology and Positivism: The Postwar Years.”. Musicology, pp. 11—59.
Dreyfus, Laurence (1993). Musical Analysis and the Historical Imperative. Revista de musicologia, 16, pp. 407- 19.
Agawu, Kofi (1997). Analyzing Music Under the New Musicological Regime. The Journal of Musicology, 15(3), pp. 297-307.
Citron, Marcia (1993). Introduction. Gender and the Musical Canon, pp. 1—14.
Geertz, Clifford (1973). Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. The Interpretation of Cultures.
Smith, Bruce R. (2004). Listening to the Wild Blue Yonder: The Challenges of Acoustic Ecology. Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity, pp. 21-41.
Tucker, Sherrie (2008). When Did Jazz Go Straight? A Queer Question for Jazz Studies. Critical studies in improvisation, 4(2).
Samuels, David W., et al. (2010). Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, pp. 329-45.
Cook, Nicholas (1999). Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis. Rethinking Music, pp. 424-51.
Burke, Peter (2005). Performing History: The Importance of Occasions. Rethinking History, 9, pp. 35-52.
Bowen, José (1999). Finding the Music in Musicology. Rethinking Music, pp. 424-51.
Potter, Pamela (2007). The Concept of Race in German Musical Discourse. Western Music and Race, pp. 49-62.
Fink, Robert (1998). Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies At the Twilight of the Canon. American Music, pp. 135-79.
Middleton, Richard (2000). Musical Belongings: Western Music and Its Low-Other. Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, pp. 59-85.
Claude Palisca (1963). The Scope of American Musicology. Musicology, pp. 89-121.
Levy, Beth E (2001). ’The White Hope of American Music,’ Or, How Roy Harris Became Western. American Music, 19(2), pp. 131-67.
Frith, Simon (2004). What is Bad Music?. Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, pp. 16-36.
Jenkins, Keith, and Alun Munslow (2004). Introduction. The Nature of History Reader, pp. 1—18.
Covach, John (1999). Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology. Rethinking Music, pp. 452-470.
Treitler, Leo (1999). The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present. Rethinking Music, pp. 356-77.
Treitler, Leo (1989). Music Analysis in a Historical Context. Music and the Historical Imagination, pp. 67-78.
Duckles, Vincent and Jann Pasler. Musicology §I: The nature of musicology. Grove Music Online.
Everist, Mark (1999). Reception Theories, Canonic Discourses, and Musical Value. Rethinking Music, pp. 378-402.
Davies, James (2006). Julia’s Gift: The Social Life of Scores, c.1830. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, pp. 287–309.
Subotnik, Rose Rosengard (1996). Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening: A Critique of Schoenberg, Adorno, and Stravinsky. Deconstructive Variations: Music and Reason in Western Society, pp. 148-252.
Pinch, Trevor and Karin Bijsterveld (2004). Sound Studies: New Technologies and Music. Social Studies of Science, pp. 635-648.
Tomlinson, Gary (1984). The Web of Culture: A Context for Musicology. 19th Century Music, 7(3), pp. 350-62.
Dahlhaus, Carl (1983). The Significance of Art: Historical of Aesthetic?. Foundations of Music History, pp. 19-33.
Cusick, Suzanne G (1999). Gender, Musicology, and Feminism. Rethinking Music, pp. 471-98.
Solie, Ruth (1997). Defining Feminism: Conundrums, Contexts, Communities. Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 1, pp. 1—11.
Brett, Philip (1993). Britten's Dream. Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, pp. 259-79.
Taruskin, Richard (1995). “The Modern Sound of Early Music” and “Tradition and Authority.”. Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance, pp. 164-97.
Guck, Marion A (1994). Analytical Fictions. Music Theory Spectrum, 16(2), pp. 217–30.
Taruskin, Richard. Nationalism. Grove Music Online.
Taruskin, Richard (2005). Introduction: The History of What?. The Oxford History of Western Music.
Nettl, Bruno (1999). The Institutionalization of Musicology: Perspectives of a North American Ethnomusicologist. Rethinking Music, pp. 287-310.
Middleton, Richard (2000). Introduction. Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music, pp. 1—19.
Samson, Jim. Canon (iii). Grove Music Online.
Gabbard, Krin (1995). The Jazz Canon and Its Consequences. Jazz Among the Discourses, pp. 1—28.
Solie, Ruth (1993). Introduction: On 'Difference'. Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, pp. 1—20.
Assessment
Assessment strategy
• one position paper, critically engaging with one of the topics covered during the module • one essay summarising the major themes and debates surrounding one topic in the musicological literature covered during the semesterSummative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Position Paper | 40% |
| Essay | 60% |
Referral
This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Coursework | 100% |
Repeat
An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Essay | 60% |
| Position Paper | 40% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal & External