Module MUSI42230: Music, Mind, and Culture

Department: Music

MUSI42230: Music, Mind, and Culture

Prerequisites

• None.

Corequisites

• None.

Excluded Combination of Modules

• None.

Aims

• To prepare students to carry out interdisciplinary research addressing music as both cultural and cognitive activity
• To familiarise students with theoretical approaches that regard music either as cultural or cognitive activity or as a combination of both, including ethnomusicology, psychology and neuroscience
• To develop critical thinking on the fundamental issues that such interdisciplinary efforts raise in music scholarship (the role of learning, origins of music, epistemological issues, etc.)

Content

• The seminars will engage students as a group on a range of themes that have an extensive literature on psychological and cultural aspects, and will concentrate on areas of overlap and contrast between the disciplines concerned. Seminars will focus on a small number of key topics, which will be addressed from different perspectives in multiple sessions. Such topics may include, but are not limited to:
• Entrainment (coordination) in music as biological, psychological and cultural process
• Cultural and psychological perspectives to emotional and affective experiences of music
• Potential universals of music and their interplay with culture

Learning Outcomes

• Advanced understanding of key issues in interdisciplinary research on music that simultaneously address topics from cognitive and cultural perspectives
• Critical awareness of epistemological and methodological concerns of ethnomusicology and psychology, and their overlap.
• advanced knowledge of relevant musical repertories from a range of historical periods and geographical locations
• advanced knowledge of relevant creative and performative praxes.

• An advanced ability to write on current issues in interdisciplinary music research in a way that demonstrates critical engagement with relevant scholarly literature.
• an advanced ability to engage critically with theories and methodologies pertinent to the academic study of ethnomusicology and psychology
• an advanced ability to describe and analyse music from a range of musical repertories, informed by an understanding of the socio-cultural matrices from which they emerged and of their specific formal and stylistic features
• an advanced ability to draw upon appropriate theoretical perspectives and methodologies to study music while simultaneously deriving independent intellectual and creative insights from this activity
• advanced competence in musical literacy
• advanced competence in engaging with musical materials of different kinds, whether as physical objects (e.g. scores) and or in electronic formats (e.g. recordings, audio-visual materials)

• An understanding of pertinent disciplinary restrictions, values, and methods, and the ability to construct arguments using multiple pertinent theoretical perspectives
• Oral presentation skills
• engage in close readings of a wide range of challenging texts (musical, verbal, audio-visual, as appropriate)
• deploy independent research skills using appropriate specialist tools and resources;
• synthesise complex materials from a wide range of sources and to present them cogently in the form of written documents, oral reports, presentations, and musical performances, as appropriate
• demonstrate competence in information technology skills to support MA learning and research (e.g. by means of: word-processing and music-processing software; databases; presentation software; audiovisual editing and analysis software; graph- and image-processing; web-based resources; relevant technologies)
• deploy advanced knowledge of professional conduct in meeting academic standards, including appropriate use of relevant ethical codes of practice and correct referencing of sources
• deploy problem-solving skills
• deploy organisational skills, including time management

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

• In seminars students will benefit from focused discussion with academic staff specialising in interdisciplinary research. Students will be expected to give at least one short presentation each term to a seminar, and to contribute to discussions in those seminars to which they are not presenting.
• Learning Outcomes will be tested through written assignments. Essays should include, where appropriate, critical discussion of the nature of the information studied, and the paradigms and disciplinary assumptions that are implicitly used in the study of the topic.
• Students will also be expected to attend the Music Department's Postgraduate Seminar and Research Forum events, where they will benefit from exposure to the presentation of research at an advanced level by visiting and Durham-based scholars.
• Typically, directed learning may include assigning student(s) an issue, theme or topic that can be independently or collectively explored within a framework and/or with additional materials provided by the tutor. This may function as preparatory work for presenting their ideas or findings (sometimes electronically) to their peers and tutor in the context of a seminar.
• In this way, the module’s intended outcomes – subject-specific knowledge and skills and a substantial body of analytical work – are gradually and continuously built-up over the course of the year, with regular opportunities for sharing ideas and findings throughout.

Teaching Methods and Learning Hours

Summative Assessment

Formative Assessment:

Regular written, analytical, and oral presentation tasks relating to the topics covered on the module.

■ 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