Module: MUS6207-20 Understanding Music 3A (Rethinking Music)

Level: 6

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: 

Module Tutor Contact Details: 

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module approaches music through its geographical and historical diversity, considering its role in both individual and social identity. Understanding music as an expression of living and intangible cultural heritage provides a useful framework for examining musical practices, musicianship, music genres, rituals, or products of the music industry. Transcultural music studies draws attention to similarities as much as differences, opening up the possibilities for interdisciplinary and collaborative practice.

This module aims to:

• Explore the geographical and historical diversity of music.

• Develop strategies for examining musical practices, musicianship, music genres, rituals and musical products

• Foster an awareness of the similarities and differences in transcultural music.

2. Outline syllabus:

Breaking the dichotomy between musicology and ethnomusicology, you apply theories and methods from these and other disciplines to a specific case study (S1). For example, acoustic ecologies highlight the importance of interdisciplinarity in addressing contemporary environmental issues. Ecomusicology promotes alternative approaches to listening to and learning music which informs new pedagogical approaches and has wider applications. For example, listening – in all its forms – can develop environmental understanding, empathy, communication, action and justice, linking cultural sustainability to environmental sustainability.

3. Teaching and learning activities:

A series of weekly lectures present theories and methods from areas including musicology, ethnomusicology, ecomusicology, popular music studies, anthropology and cultural studies, addressing issues such as tradition, identity, exoticism, improvisation, authenticity, appropriation, hybridity, diaspora, politics and globalisation. Weekly seminars enable you to engage with discourses of postcolonialism, critical theory, cosmopolitanism and decolonisation in order to understand music through its relationships with, and representations of, issues such as race, power and privilege. Tutorials support your work for both the essay (on an area of music as living heritage that considers both its local and global contexts), and the collaborative project (that are more interactive, interdisciplinary and intercultural).

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Essay (2,500 words)

• % Weighting: 50%

Assessment Item 2:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Collaborative Project

• % Weighting: 50%