Handbook : Unit informationEdith Cowan University

Faculty of Education and Arts

School: WA Academy of Performing Arts

This unit information may be updated and amended immediately prior to semester. To ensure you have the correct outline, please check it again at the beginning of semester.

• Unit Title

  Music History: Modernism and Postmodernism

• Unit Code

  MUS1508

• Year

  2015

• Enrolment Period

  1

• Version

  1

• Credit Points

  10

• Full Year Unit

  N

• Mode of Delivery

  On Campus
  

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Description

This unit introduces the student to the history of modernist and postmodernist music, roughly pertaining to the music of the twentieth-century and beyond. It is a thematically-based examination of issues that have informed the development of techniques and ideologies of composers following the common practice period, such as: transcendence, abstraction, irrationality, rationality, technology, authenticity, non-Western culture, quotation and immanence. Emphasis will be placed on the development of critical enquiry and listening skills.

Equivalent Rule

Unit was previously coded MUS1112

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

1. Critically discuss issues that informed developments in modernist and postmodernist art music.
2. Demonstrate critical enquiry and listening skills.
3. Identify and contextualise seminal modernist and postmodernist composers, composition techniques and key recordings.
4. Show familiarity with the presentation of academic research including proper formatting and attribution.
5. Use academic resources to formulate a critical argument.

Unit Content

1. Analysis and context of seminal works from the modernist and postmodernist eras.
2. Critical themes relevant to music of the modernist and postmodernist eras.
3. Critical writing skills.

Additional Learning Experience Information

Lectures.

Assessment

GS1 GRADING SCHEMA 1 Used for standard coursework units

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant Board of Examiners.

Text References

• ^ Cope, D. (2001). New directions in music. (7th ed.). Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press.
• Davies, S. (2003). Authenticity in musical performance, in themes in the philosophy of music. New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ross, A. (2008). The rest is noise. New York: Picador.
• Salzman, E. (2002). Twentieth-century music: an introduction. (4th ed.). New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
• Hanning, B. (2006). Concise history of western music. (3rd ed.). New York: WW Norton.

Website References

• Doornbusch, P.A. Chronology of electronic and computer music http://www.doornbusch.net/chronology
• Cage, J. (1958). Experimental music http://www.kim-cohen.com/artmusictheoryassets/artmusictheorytexts/Cage%20Experimental%20Music.pdf

^ Mandatory reference

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