Module Catalogue 2025/26

Pre Requisite Comment

All single-honours Music students will take MUS1056 Understanding Music in Semester 1, before taking Challenges in Musicology in Semester 2. Combined Honours may elect to take Understanding Music alone, or both Understanding Music and Challenges in Musicology, but they may not take Challenges in Musicology alone.

Co Requisite Comment

N/A

Aims

To widen students’ knowledge of the musical repertoires and communities of practice examined in the module
To introduce core questions in the study of music’s social and cultural contexts (historical and contemporary)
To model varied ways to explore those questions, providing opportunities for hands-on learning
To think about familiar and unfamiliar styles of music and their cultural and social values, historically and in the present day
To provide the intellectual groundwork that will help students prepare for their final year Specialist Studies, be that as musicologists, composers or performers
To give students some practical experience of conducting individual research about music, under the guidance of module staff
To raise students’ awareness of professional approaches to communicating about music in written and live presentation formats

Outline Of Syllabus

Music is part of everyday life, and it both reflects and shapes the values of its time and place. Making and listening to music helps people to form identities as individuals and communities, and to make sense of the world they live in. In other words, music never exists in a vacuum, but is always embedded in a social and cultural context. This module, then, presents a handful of core challenges concerning how and why we study music’s social and cultural contexts, in both the past and the present day. We will model varied ways to explore these challenges, by focusing on a range of different musics and their connections with race, gender, power, technology, religion, and other key themes.
 
The module will take the form of three, three-week projects, each of which will focus on a different set of musical repertoires, communities of practice and scholarly literature. A community of practice, in this context, is a group of people with shared musical interests and expertise; they work together to share their knowledge and learn from one another. Focuses for the individual projects will reflect the research expertise of module staff. Current staff research specialisms include: Shetland fiddle traditions; music-making in the colonial Americas; the development of cultural and intellectual movements (e.g. Romanticism, Modernism, etc.); the cultural history of sound recording; music and court culture; music and the Holocaust; music and the environment; political song; women and music in early modern England; and music and decolonisation.
 
Not all topics will be available in any given year, and the projects on offer may change from year to year to reflect staff availability and current research interests.
 
Each of the three projects will provide opportunities for hands-on learning, problem solving and guided research, which will help students to consolidate their knowledge of and begin to apply the methodologies introduced in the Semester 1 module Understanding Music (MUS1056). The remaining teaching weeks of the semester will be used for drop-in sessions and small-group tutorials to support students with assignment preparation.

Intended Knowledge Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will have gained:

-Familiarity with some key approaches to studying a range of musical repertoires and communities of practice, as well as relevant scholarly literature
-An enhanced understanding of some of the contemporary and historical contexts—social, political, institutional, cultural and geographical—of the musical languages, styles and practices studied during the module
-A developing critical awareness of their own position with respect to the questions and perspectives explored in the module

Intended Skill Outcomes

On successful completion of the module, students will have:

-Developed their ability to make and articulate connections between musical repertoires and communities of practice (including and in addition to their own) and a range of historical and contemporary sociocultural contexts
-Enhanced their ability to think, talk, and write critically about music, while also developing their critical listening skills
-Refined their analytical and self-reflexive skills
-Consolidated their ability to make effective use of academic resources (e.g. scholarly books and journals) and library resources (including electronic ones)

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Workshops deliver core content in an interactive, problem-based manner. The format will vary according to the project – some will be entirely classroom based, others will take place in PC Clusters, the University Library’s Special Collections, and other relevant locations on campus and across the city centre. Some projects may be co-taught by multiple staff members, but others may be led by an individual.

Drop-in surgeries provide the opportunity for groups of students to discuss aspects of individual projects and to develop their ideas for the summative assessment.

Small-group tutorials will allow students opportunities to discuss their individual essay/project plans with peers and module staff.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The portfolio assessment will consist of an introduction and responses to three or four research prompts, which will be provided by module staff. Some research prompts will require written responses, but others may invite transcriptions or other non-textual material. The prompts will cut across the module’s three projects, inviting students to make connections between different musical repertoires, communities of practice and concepts.

The portfolio will test students’ understanding of the conceptual content of the module and examine their ability to critique ideas from scholarly literature. It will also create opportunities for guided independent research and for applying the knowledge and skills gained from the module.

Students will receive verbal formative feedback on their ideas during the workshops and drop-in sessions. This formative feedback will help them to shape their ideas for the portfolio. Students will have the opportunity to give a short, formative presentation to their peer group, in which they will outline their plan for the portfolio. Small-group tutorials will allow further opportunities to discuss their work-in-progress with module staff and peers.

General Notes

N/A