Module MUSI1151: THE ANALYSIS AND PERCEPTION OF MUSIC

Department: MUSIC

MUSI1151: THE ANALYSIS AND PERCEPTION OF MUSIC

Prerequisites

• A-level Music.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To teach students to reflect on links between the structure, representation, and historical context of musical sound.
• To improve students' ability to read musical scores.
• To furnish students with a variety of analytical methodologies.
• To supply students with analytical skills which they can apply across the full range of practical, compositional, and musicological subjects across all three years of the degree programme.

Content

• The course is built on a number of prescribed scores stretching from the medieval period to the present day, and will be sequenced chronologically so as to foster an awareness of style-change.
• Scores will draw from a variety of genres, including: isorhythmic motet, polyphonic mass, chanson and madrigal, prelude and fugue, classical sonata form, string quartet and symphony, free atonal piano pieces, serial and post-serial composition, and minimalism.
• These scores will be studied according to analytical methods appropriate to issues of contrapuntal and motivic texture, tonal coherence, and formal design in different stylistic contexts.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will learn to apply a range of analytical methods with historical sensitivity to music from the medieval period to the present day.
• Students will become acquainted with the broad outline of Western music history.

• Students will become familiar with a number of set scores encompassing a wide range of compositional styles.

• Students will be able to employ analytical tools for the purpose of discursive argument.

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, listening, and score-study.
• Lectures will target particular scores exemplifying specific analytical techniques.
• These techniques will be rehearsed in regular formative exercises focusing on extracts from the scores.
• Seminars and tutorials will enable students to present their work to the class, exchange ideas, and receive personal guidance from their tutor.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will submit regular analytical exercises based on set scores, and will give oral presentations in seminars and tutorial groups.

■ 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