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Unit of study_

MCGY1030: This is Music

This course introduces students to the different ways of thinking about music that bind together our Conservatorium culture. It is a course concerned with 'big' questions: What exactly is a musical work? What do we hear when music is played? How do we go about making new music and how do we make old music new again? In grappling with these questions, students learn how to formulate persuasive arguments about the nature of music in general and the significance of musical works and artists in particular. The course is broken into four three-week episodes: Talking about Music, Making Music, Listening to Music and Learning about Music. Lectures from performers, composers, music educators and musicologists comprise each of these episodes and cover the wide variety of music genres and approaches to music making taught at the Conservatorium. As students hone their philosophical positions in relation to the course's 'big' questions, they are therefore simultaneously introduced to the constellation of ideas that constitute our musical world.

Code MCGY1030
Academic unit Musicology
Credit points 6
Prerequisites:
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None
Corequisites:
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None
Prohibitions:
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None

At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:

  • LO1. independently source scholarly articles and books that inform a personal musical interest
  • LO2. identify the different sorts of evidence used to support arguments in a variety of music disciplines
  • LO3. Explain how an argument about a musical work or artist’s significance is formulated and evaluate the persuasiveness of the argument.
  • LO4. trace the evolution of an idea about music over time and evaluate its trajectory
  • LO5. develop a plan for growing your own musical practice.