Module MUSI3291: MUSIC AND MEANING

Department: Music

MUSI3291: MUSIC AND MEANING

Prerequisites

• Historical Trends and Issues in the 19th and 20th Centuries (MUSI2591) OR Theory and Analysis (MUSI2611)

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To teach students to conceptualize musical structure according to models borrowed from literary criticism, and the social and cognitive sciences.
• To foster interdisciplinary perspectives on music.
• To enhance students' analytical skills.
• To introduce students to a range of readings in the semiotics and psychology of music.

Content

• The course explores modern approaches to meaning-construction, associated with the semiotics and psychology of music.
• It will explore questions such as 'Is music a language?', 'What is musical emotion?', 'What is the nature of the musical mind?', and will draw on a number of topics, such as: Linguistics and generative models of music.
• Musical sign types.
• Cognitive principles of categorization and conceptualization.
• Structuralist and post-structuralist approaches, including deconstruction.
• Theories of musical narrative.
• Emotion and music: Music and metaphor.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will learn a range of analytical methodologies, focussing on cognitive and language-models of music.
• Students will become familiar with a set of readings in a number of disciplines bearing on music analysis.
• Students will be able to verbalise critical insights discursively.

• Students will achieve new notational skills in music analysis.
• Students will acquire advanced levels of abstraction on musical structure.

• Critical and analytical skills will be developed through the module.

Modes of Teaching, Learning and Assessment and how these contribute to the learning outcomes of 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 selected readings, and musical works which exemplify semiotic analytical techniques or theoretical issues.
• These issues will be rehearsed in regular formative exercises or essays.
• Seminars and tutorials will enable students to present their work to the class, exchange ideas, and receive personal guidance from the tutor.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Students will submit regular essays/exercises based on readings and on analysis of musical works. They will give oral presentations in 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