| Unit name | Studies in Musical Modernism and New Media |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MUSI20087 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12) |
| Unit director | Dr. Heldt |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Music |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
To what extent does culture drive technology, or is it technology that ultimately drives culture? This is the central, perhaps unanswerable, question at the heart of this unit. The unit uses the advent of different historic media as a prism through which to explore the musical riches of the Modernist period. It examines the radical developments in Western Art Music and media from the invention of the Gramophone up to the tape loop and minimalism. With a slight emphasis on figures from the Weimar Republic, there will be classes on ‘Memory and Media,’ Discourse Networks and Radio,’ ‘Perceiving Cinema,’ ‘Modernist Listening’ et al. that explore, on theoretical and practical levels, the work of modern and avant-garde composers in the context of new technological developments in the early-to-mid twentieth century.
This unit’s aims are:
1 to explore the relationship between of technology and (mainly) art music in the 20th century;
2 to discuss musical modernism in the context of media history;
3 to acquaint students with the influence a range of media (phonograph and gramophone, the radio, film, magnetic tape) had on the composition, performance, reception of music.
At the end of this unit, students should:
1) be familiar with developments in media history that crucially influenced different waves of musical modernism in the 20th century;
2) have become acquainted with ideas of musical modernism, and to discuss musical modernism in its relation to media history;
3) be aware of key musical developments in 20th-century art music influenced by media technology;
4) be able to write in detail about musical works in their relationship with media technology in the 20th century;
5) understand the influence of media technology not just on the production of music, but also on its performance, dissemination and reception, and be able to discuss the interrelatedness of different aspects of music.
10x2 hour classes for the whole cohort
All the assessment is summative:
1x2,500-word essay (50%); 1x 2-hour exam (50%).
Both the essay and the exam will demonstrate (1)-(5), with the essay in particular providing an opportunity for the students to demonstrate (4) and (5), and the exam in particular providing an opportunity to demonstrate (1), (2) and (3).
1. Albright, Daniel (ed.): Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources (Chicago and London: Univ. Chicago Press, 2004)
2. Benjamin, Walter: The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings on Media, ed. M. Jennings, B. Doherty, and T. Levin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ Press, 2008)
3. Katz, Mark: Capturing Sound: How Technology has Changed Music (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. California Press, 2004)
4. Kaes, Anton ed. et al: The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1994)
5. Kolocotroni, Vassili (ed.): Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1998)
6. Kracauer, Siegfried: The Mass Ornament: Weimar Essays, trans. and ed. Thomas Levin (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1995)
