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2018/19 Taught Postgraduate Module Catalogue

MUSS5633M Electronic & Computer Music Contexts

30 creditsClass Size: 30

Module manager: Dr James Mooney
Email: j.r.mooney@leeds.ac.uk

Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable

Year running 2018/19

Pre-requisite qualifications

There are no specific pre-requisites, though you are advised to consult the module leader if you wish to consider this as an optional module.

This module is not approved as an Elective

Module summary

Electronic and computer music is usually taught from a predominantly practical or technical perspective, with little attention paid to the rich discursive aspects of the discipline. As a central part of the Electronic and Computer Music programme, the purpose of this module is to provide students with the opportunity to engage more fully with electronic and computer music’s historic, social, cultural, aesthetic, philosophical, and/or analytical dimensions. The module has a reading-group format. Students attend weekly seminars in which set texts and works of electronic or computer music are discussed. The range of texts and works aims to provide a balanced overview of historical and contemporary, practice-based and theoretical, critical and analytical work in or relevant to the fields of electronic music and computer music. In seminars, students are encouraged to relate the readings to their own experiences of electronic and computer music.

Objectives

1) Provide opportunities for students to deepen their scholarly understanding and level of critical engagement with electronic and computer music.
2) Enable students to develop new critical perspectives on electronic and computer music through exposure to a range of scholarship, readings, and repertoires that may not have featured in their previous experiences and/or tuition.
3) Provide a supportive forum for students to develop their critical and discursive abilities by studying, discussing, presenting on, and writing about electronic and computer music in a scholarly, but non-technical, way, with reference to relevant critical, analytic, aesthetic, theoretical, and/or philosophical frameworks.

Learning outcomes
After successfully completing the module, students should be able to:
1) Approach electronic and computer music critically, and engage with it in a range of discursive and scholarly ways that go beyond individual creative praxis and technical theory.
2) Apply scholarly ways of thinking about electronic and computer music in their own research and practice.
3) Develop and articulate a coherent scholarly argument on a topic related to electronic and computer music that approaches the topic in a non-technical way, using one or more of the approaches discussed in the module.


Syllabus

Students attend weekly seminars in which set texts and music are discussed. Opportunities will be provided, where possible, for texts/discussions to be tailored to the specific interests of the group. The following schedule is indicative (i.e. the specific topics may vary from year to year):

1. Module introduction
2. Seminar: Material culture, object biography, and Hugh Davies’s self-built musical instruments
3. Seminar: Designers, users, scripts, and the Roland MC303 Groove Box
4. Seminar: Issues of Perception in Computer Music
5. Seminar: Sampling or plundering?
6. Seminar: Gender, class, and race in music technology
7. Seminar: Pitch, rhythm and timbre in electronic dance music
8. Student presentations
9. Student presentations
10. Seminar: Essay planning

Teaching methods

Delivery typeNumberLength hoursStudent hours
Seminar102.0020.00
Private study hours280.00
Total Contact hours20.00
Total hours (100hr per 10 credits)300.00

Private study

• 84 hours: Reading of / listening to weekly prescribed texts / works
• 84 hours: Digesting, annotating, re-reading, re-listening, discussing (with peers), summarising and note-taking on weekly prescribed texts / works, including work on the follow-up report
• 112 hours: Researching, drafting, writing, and additional reading and listening for Essay

Opportunities for Formative Feedback

Student progress is monitored on a weekly basis by individual tutors. Additionally, the presentation, contributions to discussion, and follow-up report provide opportunities for the module tutors to evaluate student progress in more detail before the main essay is submitted.

Methods of assessment


Coursework
Assessment typeNotes% of formal assessment
Report1000-1500-word follow-up report20.00
Presentation10-minute presentation and contributions to discussion0.00
Essay4500-5500 words80.00
Total percentage (Assessment Coursework)100.00

Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated

Reading list

The reading list is available from the Library website

Last updated: 30/04/2018

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