Module MUSI1171: MUSIC IN CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Department: MUSIC

MUSI1171: MUSIC IN CULTURE AND SOCIETY

Prerequisites

• A-level Music.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To study music in its cultural and social context.
• To draw on approaches from the social sciences, anthropology, ethnomusicology and aesthetics to consider music as both social fact and as cultural artefact.
• To stimulate critical interpretative skills.
• To create a foundation for further, more advanced study in subdisciplines like ethnomusicology, sociology of music and aesthetics in Years 2 and 3.

Content

• This module studies music primarily from the perspectives offered by ethnomusicology, sociology and aesthetics of music.
• It takes the position that musical structures are also part of the social structures within which they were created, and need to be understood accordingly.
• Approaches are introduced to investigate the impact of the social and cultural on musical practice and ways of thinking about music.
• Examples are drawn from Western and non-Western musics, and from folk and popular musics, discussed within the context of traditions of art music, sacral music, and popular musics.
• An important area of debate is also the relation to commerce and the global music industry.

Learning Outcomes

• To become familiar with a range of musics from different cultural and ethnic contexts.
• To become familiar with key ethomusicological concepts.

• Ability to employ interdisciplinary theoretical approaches to the understanding music in specific social contexts.

• To develop informed critical perspectives.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of the module

• The module consists of 19 lectures, 3 seminars and 3 tutorials.
• The teaching takes place through weekly lectures with accompanying directed reading.
• The reading takes the form of seminar texts to be discussed in tutorials, culminating in papers given in larger seminars.
• This format is designed to ensure the active participation of students in the learning process, offering opportunities for discussion and the development of critical thinking.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will be required to deliver a draft of their literature review as a seminar paper.

■ Attendance at all activities marked with this symbol will be monitored. Students who fail to attend these activities, or to complete the summative or formative assessment specified above, will be subject to the procedures defined in the University's General Regulation V, and may be required to leave the University