Courses / Module

Toggle Print

Module MUSIC AND MEANING IN CONTEMPORARY WESTERN SOCIETY

Module code: MU264
Credits: 5
Semester: 2
Department: MUSIC
International: No
Coordinator: Dr Laura Watson (MUSIC)
Overview Overview
 

This module explores how artists and audiences in contemporary Western society treat music as a form of meaningful expression. Fundamental questions to be considered include: why and how do we ascribe aesthetic values to sounds? What does it take for performers and composers to produce music understood as meaningful? How can musicians encode ideas about society and culture in their output and effectively transmit these to listeners? What informs listeners’ responses to musical works and performances? How do listeners arrive at value judgements about what constitutes ‘good’ or ‘bad’ music, across a range of genres? In what ways is the reception of music mediated by the setting in which a listener encounters a work? How do evolving cultural and media landscapes alter and shape the consumption of music to the point where it becomes divorced from its original meaning and context?

To address these questions, the module presents case studies across popular-music, classical, and experimental idioms. Popular-music case studies include: methodologies for decoding the modern pop song using semiotic, textual, and cultural approaches; listening cultures, canons, and aesthetics; consuming popular music in the twenty-first century. In the realm of classical music and contemporary audiences, topics include: live performance and virtuosity today; the meaning of traditional concert-hall and operatic cultures in the twenty-first century; ‘highbrow’, ‘crossover’, and listener values; the commodification of classical repertoire. Moving away from classical and popular mainstreams, case studies in experimental music include: pushing sonic boundaries in the twentieth century; the search for new musical meaning and the rejection of meaning; new music and new audiences.

Open Learning Outcomes
 
Open Teaching & Learning methods
 
Open Assessment
 
Open Autumn Supplementals/Resits
 
Open Pre-Requisites
 
Open Timetable
 
Back to top Powered by MDAL Framework © 2022
V5.3.3 - Powered by MDAL Framework © 2022