Module Catalogue 2024/25

Pre Requisite Comment

Students must have a Grade VI ABRSM Theory or equivalent.

Co Requisite Comment

None

Aims

This module aims to provide the student with core skills in techniques and textures of Common Practice music. It covers an introduction to Western tonal harmonic practices as applied in Western European art musics and to ultimately cultivate a musically intelligent practice and a practical musical intelligence. Skills learned inform stage 2 and 3 modules in composition, analysis, and performance, as well as offering secure theoretical grounding for historical and cultural theory modules.

Outline Of Syllabus

The module begins with a series of five lectures introducing Species Counterpoint, with each lecture including hands-on supervised work. In the sixth week students are given instruction in correct musical calligraphy, and a series of weekly small group seminars begin in which students work through weekly formative tasks with their assigned tutor. Issues covered will include consonance and dissonance, melodic (linear) and harmonic (vertical) writing, the roots of tonal harmony and harmonic function, notation skills and conventions, the voicing of chords and their various inversions, and composition. The module also includes weekly aural training sessions.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

• Read musical notation fluently on three clefs (treble, bass and alto/tenor)
• Read and analyse Roman numerals, figured bass and other musical annotations
• Identify musical intervals both aurally and in notated music
• Identify key areas and modulations
• Understand the differences in monophonic and polyphonic practice.
• Understand the metrical structure of text and how it relates to musical compositions
• Understand and interpret the significant structures in Common Practice musics

Intended Skill Outcomes

• Write (by hand) musical notation fluently on three clefs (treble, bass and alto/tenor)
• Write and employ Roman numerals, figured bass and other musical annotations
• Compose in defined key areas and prepare and establish modulations
• Write a musical composition from a given text
• Sketch, draft and produce a final copy of a short piece of music in a Common Practice style

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The lectures introduce Species Counterpoint and provide a supervised workshop-style environment in which students work through problems with the tutor. The small group teaching offers intensive, formative evaluations of progress on a weekly basis, with the differing starting abilities of students taken into account through an initial diagnostic test. The independent study enables the students to practice the techniques and textures they have encountered each week, which then inform the project work hours where they undertake the formative assessments set at the close of each week, and ultimately lead to the assessment preparation time where the students complete their summative assessment for the module.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

In semester 1, students will be examined in a take-away paper (streamed for each group) in their creative and compliant response to the understanding and application of harmonic function (40%). The portfolio submitted at the end of the second semester will contain a collection of projects completed through semester 2, and will be assessed on its hand written calligraphy, it compliance with contemporary conventions of musical notation, the harmonic and melodic reasoning in evidence, and its understanding of the Common Practice techniques and textures that have been explored throughout the module.

General Notes

n/a