Unit name | Further Technical Studies |
---|---|
Unit code | MUSI20099 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
Unit director | Dr. Scott |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
MUSI10047: Technical Studies I or MUSI10048: Technical Studies II (level C) (or demonstration of equivalent knowledge of music theory). |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of Music |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
The unit continues and develops students' education in music theory, style analysis and pastiche composition beyond the 'Technical Studies' units at level C/4. The unit explores a specific historical/stylistic repertoire from Western music history in three different ways:
The choice of period and repertoire may change from year to year, and either builds directly on Technical Studies at level C (by exploring examples from 18th- and 19th-century Western art music), or widens the range of students' technical experience through the exploration of repertoires further away from the 'common-practice period' (e.g. medieval, renaissance or early baroque music; styles of Western popular music).
Unit aims: to introduce students to the study of musical material, compositional procedures, style analysis and pastiche composition of a repertoire beyond those studied at level C.
At the end of the unit, a successful student will be able to
1. understand the range of musical features (such as harmony, rhythm, melody, polyphony, voice-leading, texture, phrase structure) typical for the repertoire in question;
2. understand typical ways of developing basic musical material into coherent musical structures;
3. understand the relation between the surface of the musical style in question to underlying structural principles;
4. analyse shorter pieces or movements with regard to their use of musical material and structures
5. compose pastiche extracts or short pieces/movements in the style in question.
Weekly two-hour seminar
Four coursework exercises, the best two of which count towards the coursework mark. All exercises, however, must be completed and handed in on time for the award of credit points. At the end of the unit: an extended final assignment. The final mark for the unit will be determined in the following way:
Indicative exercises/assignments might be: realisation of a short composition exercise typical of musical pedagogy contemporaneous with the repertoire being studied; a musical analysis presented in graphic or textual form; the completion of a short sonata exposition in the style of a given composer, developed from given opening bars. The nature and size/duration of each exercise will depend on the particular repertoire being studied. Further details of assessment are given in the unit booklet.
Specific reading lists will be given to students based on the specific repertoire chosen for the unit in a given year.