Module: MUS4013-20 Music in Society

Level: 4

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Adam Biggs

Module Tutor Contact Details: a.biggs@bathspa.ac.

1. Brief description and aims of module:

You will develop skills of individual and collaborative improvisation and creativity. This module aims to develop your abilities to understand the concepts of flow and play in music, moving you off the page and into a more expressive approach to music making. It will support you in developing your awareness of sound, and how you can manipulate it for expressive and practical purposes

2. Outline syllabus:

There is a long history of improvisation in music. Indeed creativity itself begins with improvisation. Improvised counter melodies, theme and variation, down through to silent film, liturgical, and other community settings, all provide spaces where improvising is central to the practices. In the modern era one might think of Derek Bailey, Gabriella Montero, Keith Jarrett, Eugene Friesen, or the Grateful Dead. The teaching activities for this module will consider improvisation in the broad contexts of today's professional musician, and will include strategies for improvisation in a variety of genres/styles, as well as how to structure improvised work, and issues such as form and shape, as well as theoretical concepts for communicating musically as part of a group

3. Teaching and learning activities:

You will explore playing music without notated music, with and without your instrument. You will consider improvising, and what that means to your development as a musician. The sessions will explore being musical, and how music can be expressed. You will learn about form and structure, and how to utilise the elements of music that were explored in the first semester. You will use your voice, respond to ideas and stimuli, devise strategies and concepts to help you make music.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Improvising Performance (5 minutes)

• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Devising Strategy Proposal (2500 words)

• % Weighting: 50%