Outline

Overview

This unit of study deals with the different ways in which we comprehend music and with the different ways in which that comprehension might be explained. It deals with modes of hearing and musical analysis for the purpose of leading students towards a deeper knowledge of how music in various genres (ranging from the classical mainstream to the twentieth-century avant-garde, from Tin Pan Alley songs to punk rock and hip-hop) is understood. This is a required unit of study for a music major in an Arts degree.

Unit details and rules

Academic unit	Analysis, History and Cultural Studies
Credit points	6
Prerequisites ?	None
Corequisites ?	None
Prohibitions ?	None
Assumed knowledge ?	None
Available to study abroad and exchange students	Yes

Teaching staff

Coordinator	Charles Fairchild, charles.fairchild@sydney.edu.au

Assessment

The census date for this unit availability is 1 September 2025

Details
Criteria

Type	Description	Weight	Due	Length	Use of AI
Portfolio or journal	Three brief essays Essay	30%	Multiple weeks	1500 words	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
Contribution	Weekly Workshop Participation and Contribution to Weekly Online Discussio Participation in class discussion and weekly contribution to multiple forms of discussion.	20%	Ongoing	1000 words	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:
Written work	Final Essay Essay	50%	Week 13 Due date: 17 Nov 2025 at 23:59	3000 words	AI allowed
Outcomes assessed:

Assessment summary

Class Discussion/Journal: From week 2, participation will be assessed in terms of tutorial attendance and focused engagement in the weekly discussions (10%) in tandem with the writing of a weekly journal (10%) - totalling 20% of the entire course mark.

In summary, this assignment module consists of two components:

1. Each week you are required to submit one comment about the weekly content via the designated Discussion Board in Canvas.

2. Within the journal, you will write a general summary of the week’s reading(s) as well as brief observations/critiques etc. This is also a good place to store a ‘glossary of terms’ as the course progresses – and make casual observations about your own musical tastes/encounters as they relate to the content. 1000-3000 words. Due November 13 via Canvas.
Three brief essays (500 words) on topics representative of the music covered by the unit’s various segments, to be turned in electronic format, via Turn-It-In on the unit’s Canvas website. This task could involve a small annotated bibliography of literature in a particular field discussed; a brief analysis/discussion of music that relates to a field/development; or critical comparisons of two or more of the assigned readings. These will be due by midnight Sunday, weeks : 4, 8, 10 (40%).
Final paper: (2000 words) in essay/research format – on an instructor approved topic of the student's choice due in electronic format via Turn-It-In on the unit’s Canvas website by midnight, November 5.

Possible topic areas and examples of questions will be posted on Canvas. Research conducted for the four brief essays can be developed into the final paper, but should be integrated appropriately and not adapted ‘word for word.’ (40%)

Detailed information for each assessment can be found on Canvas.

Assessment criteria

The following assessment criteria are used for written work in this unit of study:

Result name	Mark range	Description
High distinction	85 - 100	Demonstrates high level of initiative in research and reading; sophisticated critical analysis of evidence; high level engagement with theoretical issues, innovative use of reading/research material and impressive command of underlying debates and assumptions; properly documented and written with style, originality and precision.
Distinction	75 - 84	Demonstrates initiative in research and wide, appropriate reading; complex understanding of question and ability to critically review material in relation to underlying assumptions and values; analyses material in relation to empirical and theoretical contexts; properly documented; clear, well-developed structure and argument with some signs of literary style.
Credit	65 - 74	Evidence of broader understanding than pass level; offers synthesis with some critical evaluation of material; coherent argument using a range of relevant evidence; some evidence of independent thought, good referencing. A high credit (70-74) shows some evidence of ability to problematise and think conceptually.
Pass	50 - 64	Written work meets basic requirements in terms of reading/research; relevant material; tendency to descriptive summary rather than critical argument; makes a reasonable attempt to avoid paraphrasing; reasonably coherent structure; often has weaknesses in particular areas, especially in terms of narrow or underdeveloped treatment of question; acceptable documentation.
Fail	0 - 49	Work may fail for any or all of the following reasons: Unacceptable paraphrasing; irrelevance of content; poor spelling; poor presentation; grammar or structure so sloppy it cannot be understood; failure to demonstrate understanding of content; insufficient or overlong word length.

For more information see guide to grades.

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

You can use generative AI tools for open assessments. Restrictions on AI use apply to secure, supervised assessments used to confirm if students have met specific learning outcomes.

Refer to the assessment table above to see if AI is allowed, for assessments in this unit and check Canvas for full instructions on assessment tasks and AI use.

If you use AI, you must always acknowledge it. Misusing AI may lead to a breach of the Academic Integrity Policy.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Late submission

In accordance with University policy, these penalties apply when written work is submitted after 11:59pm on the due date:

Deduction of 5% of the maximum mark for each calendar day after the due date.
After ten calendar days late, a mark of zero will be awarded.

This unit has an exception to the standard University policy or supplementary information has been provided by the unit coordinator. This information is displayed below:

Any assessment submitted after the due time and date (or extended due time and date) will incur a late penalty of 5% of the total marks per 24 hour period

Academic integrity

The University expects students to act ethically and honestly and will treat all allegations of academic integrity breaches seriously.

Our website provides information on academic integrity and the resources available to all students. This includes advice on how to avoid common breaches of academic integrity. Ensure that you have completed the Academic Honesty Education Module (AHEM) which is mandatory for all commencing coursework students

Penalties for serious breaches can significantly impact your studies and your career after graduation. It is important that you speak with your unit coordinator if you need help with completing assessments.

Visit the Current Students website for more information on AI in assessments, including details on how to acknowledge its use.

Learning support

Simple extensions

If you encounter a problem submitting your work on time, you may be able to apply for an extension of five calendar days through a simple extension.  The application process will be different depending on the type of assessment and extensions cannot be granted for some assessment types like exams.

Special consideration

If exceptional circumstances mean you can’t complete an assessment, you need consideration for a longer period of time, or if you have essential commitments which impact your performance in an assessment, you may be eligible for special consideration or special arrangements.

Special consideration applications will not be affected by a simple extension application.

Using AI responsibly

Co-created with students, AI in Education includes lots of helpful examples of how students use generative AI tools to support their learning. It explains how generative AI works, the different tools available and how to use them responsibly and productively.

Support for students

The Support for Students Policy reflects the University’s commitment to supporting students in their academic journey and making the University safe for students. It is important that you read and understand this policy so that you are familiar with the range of support services available to you and understand how to engage with them.

The University uses email as its primary source of communication with students who need support under the Support for Students Policy. Make sure you check your University email regularly and respond to any communications received from the University.

Learning resources and detailed information about weekly assessment and learning activities can be accessed via Canvas. It is essential that you visit your unit of study Canvas site to ensure you are up to date with all of your tasks.

If you are having difficulties completing your studies, or are feeling unsure about your progress, we are here to help. You can access the support services offered by the University at any time:

Support and Services (including health and wellbeing services, financial support and learning support)
Course planning and administration
Meet with an Academic Adviser

Weekly schedule

WK	Topic	Learning activity
Week 01	The Beginnings of Understanding	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 02	Thread One: Idealism and Autonomy	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 03	Thread Two: Ethnomusicology	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 04	Thread Three: Popular Music As Exact Collections of Sound	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)
Week 05	Thread Four: The Study of Music and Capitalism	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 06	Music and Biography	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 07	The Ideology of Musical Greatness	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)
Week 08	Experimentalism and the Avant Garde	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)
Week 09	The Musical Universality of Mediation	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)
Week 11	The Music Itself / 'Absolute Music'	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)
Week 12	Intertextuality and Semiotics/Musical Meaning	Lecture and tutorial (3 hr)
Week 13	Making Musical Understanding–In the final week, we will summarise the trajectory of the course - leading to a discussion of how the idea of the musical subject/object has transformed philosophically and aesthetically within different approaches to understanding music - and how music is not something to be encountered in isolation but entangled within broader socio-cultural, technological, non-human, and ecological contexts.	Lecture and tutorial (2 hr)

Attendance and class requirements

Attendance: Students are expected to attend a minimum of 90% of timetabled activities for a unit of study, unless granted exemption by the Dean, Head of School or professor most concerned. The Dean, Head of School or professor most concerned may determine that a student fails a unit of study because of inadequate attendance. Alternatively, at their discretion, they may set additional assessment items where attendance is lower than 90%.

Study commitment

Typically, there is a minimum expectation of 1.5-2 hours of student effort per week per credit point for units of study offered over a full semester. For a 6 credit point unit, this equates to roughly 120-150 hours of student effort in total.

Required readings

Class Schedule and Readings

Week 1–The Beginnings of 'Understanding

This week we will set up the most foundational presumptions of this class.

Cluster One: The Essential Threads of Understanding

Week 2–Thread One: Idealism and Autonomy

We will begin this semester with some of the more foundational concepts that have defined the formal study of music in the Western academy, especially ideas related to the emergence of the “musical work” within the discipline of musicology. This week we will explore the enshrining of early musicology as a so-called 'scientific' discipline, anticipated by the development of theoretical treatises on music theory and we will also discuss the rise of musical criticism and its relationship to the idea of the ideal 'musical object.'

Readings

Goehr, Lydia. (1989) 'Being True to the Work.' The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 47(1): 55-67.

[second reading TBD]

Week 3–Thread Two: Ethnomusicology

Differing from musicology, ethnomusicology is known as being concerned with the music of non-western cultures. This week explores the development of Ethnomusicology from the late-19th century as it developed out of Musical Folklore and so-called “Comparative Musicology.” We will examine the influence of various anthropological approaches to analysing the music of non-Western cultures.

Readings

Ames, Eric. (2003) ‘The Sound of Evolution.’ Modernism/Modernity, 10(2): 297-325.

Week 4–Thread Three: Popular Music As Exact Collections of Sound

This lecture will explore how popular music is understood within scholarship and we will explore what it means to analyse such music within the field of popular music studies.

Readings

Gracyk, Theodore. (1996) 'That Wild, Thin Mercury Sound.' From Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Gracyk, Theodore. (1996) 'I'll Be Your Mirror: Recording and Representing.' From Rhythm and Noise: An Aesthetics of Rock. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

Week 5–Thread Four: The Study of Music and Capitalism

Around the mid-20th century, cultural theorist and Frankfurt School figurehead Adorno wrote about the role of music in society and culture, as well as what it means to 'listen' under Capitalism. Adorno’s writing had a subsequent impact on the development of music sociology. We will focus on the emergence of what Adorno called the "culture industry" and how it relates to the study of music and mass culture.

Readings

Harvey, David. (2002) ‘The Art of Rent: Globalization, Monopoly and the Commodification of Culture.’ Socialist Register, January, 94-110.

Taylor, Timothy. (2024) 'Trendspotters: Agents and Inspectors of Consumer Capitalism.' From Making Value: Music, Capital, and the Social. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 72-97.

Cluster 3: Historical Understanding In and Around Music

Week 6 –Music and Biography

Readings

Bonds, Mark Evan. Excerpts from The Beethoven Syndrome: Hearing Music as Autobiography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.

[second reading TBD]

Week 7 – The Ideology of Musical Greatness

Readings

Fairchild, Charles. (2020) ‘The Emergence and Evolution of the Rock Imaginary.’ From Musician in the Museum: Display and Power in Neoliberal Popular Culture. New York: Bloomsbury, 161-184.

Rupert Till (2010) 'Pop Stars and Idolatry: An Investigation of the Worship of Popular Music Icons, and the Music and Cult of Prince.' Journal of Beliefs & Values, 31:1, 69-80.

Week 8-Experimentalism and the Avant Garde

This week Dr Campbell will approach the vast socio-cultural changes of the mid-20th century from another direction: the experimental compositions of the American and European avant garde and how this has reconfigured the philosophical foundation of music itself. We will touch upon conceptions of music-as-politics within the music of John Cage, Pauline Oliveros and Fluxus; music technologies; as well as the dynamics of the audience within new-music contexts.

Readings

Cage, John. (1961) 'Experimental Music.' Silence: Lectures and Writings, pp. 7-12.

Kahn, Douglas. (1993) 'The Latest: Fluxus and Music.' In The Spirit of Fluxus, pp. 102-121.

Oliveros, Pauline. (1974) Sonic Meditations. Baltimore, MD: Smith Publications.

Cluster 3: The Very Nature of Music

Week 9 – The Musical Universality of Mediation

This week, we will discuss the role of media technology in directly mediating the musical experiences we have in our everyday lives. Our key question is this: where does 'the music' end and 'the media' begin?

Readings

Drott, Eric. (2024) 'Streaming Music.' From Streaming Music, Streaming Capital. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 22-62.

Whelan, A., and R. Nowak. (2018) '"Vaporwave Is (Not) a Critique of Capitalism": Genre in An Online Music Scene.' Open Cultural Studies, 2: 451-462.

Week 11 – The Music Itself / 'Absolute Music'

Readings

[readings TBD]

Week 12-Intertextuality and Semiotics/Musical Meaning

The idea of music being a distinct and separate 'thing,' in and of 'itself,' is a complex and revealing idea. Dr. Rachel Campbell will present this idea as a key contextual element that remains relevant despite decades of intense critique.

Readings

[readings TBD]

Week 13 – Making Musical Understanding: A lesson in how to write a proper work of research.

[the end.]

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes are what students know, understand and are able to do on completion of a unit of study. They are aligned with the University's graduate qualities and are assessed as part of the curriculum.

Outcomes
Graduate qualities

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

LO1. explain, through verbal descriptions, how music as an 'object' of study has transformed historically, aesthetically and contextually
LO2. explain, in essays, how the understanding of different musical practices is underpinned by various academic and/or socio-cultural developments
LO3. by employing diverse methods to comprehending music, students will be able to deal intellectually not just with music they already ‘know’ but also with music they have yet to encounter

Graduate qualities

The graduate qualities are the qualities and skills that all University of Sydney graduates must demonstrate on successful completion of an award course. As a future Sydney graduate, the set of qualities have been designed to equip you for the contemporary world.

GQ1	Depth of disciplinary expertise Deep disciplinary expertise is the ability to integrate and rigorously apply knowledge, understanding and skills of a recognised discipline defined by scholarly activity, as well as familiarity with evolving practice of the discipline.
GQ2	Critical thinking and problem solving Critical thinking and problem solving are the questioning of ideas, evidence and assumptions in order to propose and evaluate hypotheses or alternative arguments before formulating a conclusion or a solution to an identified problem.
GQ3	Oral and written communication Effective communication, in both oral and written form, is the clear exchange of meaning in a manner that is appropriate to audience and context.
GQ4	Information and digital literacy Information and digital literacy is the ability to locate, interpret, evaluate, manage, adapt, integrate, create and convey information using appropriate resources, tools and strategies.
GQ5	Inventiveness Generating novel ideas and solutions.
GQ6	Cultural competence Cultural Competence is the ability to actively, ethically, respectfully, and successfully engage across and between cultures. In the Australian context, this includes and celebrates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, knowledge systems, and a mature understanding of contemporary issues.
GQ7	Interdisciplinary effectiveness Interdisciplinary effectiveness is the integration and synthesis of multiple viewpoints and practices, working effectively across disciplinary boundaries.
GQ8	Integrated professional, ethical, and personal identity An integrated professional, ethical and personal identity is understanding the interaction between one’s personal and professional selves in an ethical context.
GQ9	Influence Engaging others in a process, idea or vision.

Outcome map

Learning outcomes	Graduate qualities
Learning outcomes

Responding to student feedback

This section outlines changes made to this unit following staff and student reviews.

This unit of study has been reworked with a new unit of study coordinator.

Disclaimer

The University reserves the right to amend units of study or no longer offer certain units, including where there are low enrolment numbers.

To help you understand common terms that we use at the University, we offer an online glossary.

Current students

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links

MUSC3699: Understanding Music: Modes of Hearing

Semester 2, 2025 [Normal day] - Camperdown/Darlington, Sydney

Overview

Overview

Unit details and rules

Teaching staff

Assessment

Assessment

Assessment summary

Assessment criteria

Use of generative artificial intelligence (AI)

Late submission

Academic integrity

Learning support

Learning support

Simple extensions

Special consideration

Using AI responsibly

Support for students

Weekly schedule

Weekly schedule

Attendance and class requirements

Study commitment

Required readings

Learning outcomes

Learning outcomes

Graduate qualities

Outcome map

Responding to student feedback

Responding to student feedback

Disclaimer

On this page

Useful links