MUSA131-18S1 (C) Semester One 2018

Organum to Autotune

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 19 February 2018
End Date: Sunday, 24 June 2018
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Friday, 2 March 2018
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Friday, 18 May 2018

Description

An overview of Western music history from Medieval times to the present day, including the development of music notation systems, instruments, performance techniques, basic musical structures and genres, and the growth of the "music industry".

The discipline of musicology explores the role of music in history, society, and culture.  At its broadest, it encompasses all genres of music, and draws upon varied approaches to history, as well as exploring intersection of music and other topics (such as social and political change, revolution, and colonisation).

This course provides an introduction to a series of topics in music history, and an overview of the music of different historical periods.  It focuses on western cultures but also ventures into other traditions.  It includes a study of the history of music notation, instruments, performance techniques, genre development, and the growth of the "music industry".

The course takes the approach of a theme-based overview of socio-cultural topics in music history.  It provides the foundation knowledge and skills that are further developed in the second and third-year music history, world music, and popular music studies, and is a foundation and prerequisite course for 200-level MUSA history courses (MUSA231, MUSA232, MUSA233 and MUSA244).

Topics covered in this course
• Music: organised sound?
• Notation and improvisation
• The virtuoso: performance and display
• Recording, from cylinders to samples
• ‘Modern’ Music?: Avant-gardes from Ars-Nova to Darmstadt
• Telling a story through music: music theatre
• Opera as music theatre
• From Herrmann to “Hype”: Music and moving image
• The invention of polyphony: early organum to Notre Dame
• Organum to Autotune: The voice and the word in music
• Paying the piper: Muses and markets, patrons and pop music
• Authenticity in music old and new

Learning Outcomes

  • Students who pass this course will:
  • Be able to write effectively about music and its relationship to culture, technology, history, and society
  • Be able to research a topic related to music and present arguments and/or findings in academic English
  • Have acquired information literacy skills relevant to the study of music
    • University Graduate Attributes

      This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

      Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award

      Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.

Restrictions

MUSI131

Timetable Note

Workload

Student workload (150 hours) will be allocated to:
• 24 hours attending lectures
• 11 hours attending tutorials
• 20 hours preparing and writing the research assignment
• 35 hours researching and writing the essay
• 25 hours researching and writing the playlist assignment
• 35 hours preparing for the listening test

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Francis Yapp

Lecturer

James Gardner

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Research Assignment 15%
Essay 27 Apr 2018 30% (1600 to 1800 words)
Playlist Assignment 11 May 2018 25%
Listening Test 29 May 2018 30%


All assessments are due at 12pm on the specified date. Students must submit a hard copy, including an official School of Music assignment cover page, to the assignment drop-box in the School of Music foyer. An electronic copy should also be submitted via Learn.

Textbooks / Resources

Required Texts

Cox, Christoph,1965- , Cox, Christoph, Warner, Daniel; Audio culture :readings in modern music ; Revised edition; Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Inc, 2017.

Recommended Reading

Peter Burkholder, Claude Palisca, and Donald Grout; A History of Western Music ; 9th; Norton, 2014.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $834.00

International fee $3,600.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Humanities .

All MUSA131 Occurrences

  • MUSA131-18S1 (C) Semester One 2018