School: Western Australian 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 Cultures of the World
  • Unit Code

    MUS3160
  • Year

    2025
  • Enrolment Period

    1
  • Version

    1
  • Credit Points

    15
  • Full Year Unit

    N
  • Mode of Delivery

    On Campus
  • Unit Coordinator

    A/Prof Jonathan MCINTOSH

Description

This unit examines select music cultures from around the world, including Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures, to investigate how and why people give meaning to music in their lives. By emphasising the importance of understanding music in its cultural, social and political context, the unit also serves as an introduction to contemporary ethnomusicology, giving students the opportunity to engage with current debates in the discipline.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

  1. Relate key themes and debates in contemporary ethnomusicology to a range of musical styles and traditions.
  2. Critically review a music performance and articulate visual and auditory observations in an appropriate written academic format.
  3. Collaborate with others to conduct scholarly ethnomusicological research and reflect on the teamwork process.
  4. Create, edit and produce a vodcast for web delivery.
  5. Appraise representations of Australian Indigenous musics.

Unit Content

  1. Music and/as culture.
  2. Ethnomusicology and world music’.
  3. Gender, sexuality, politics and protest.
  4. Technology and circulation.
  5. Traditional’ and popular’ musics.
  6. Consumption and sustainability.
  7. Teamwork skills.
  8. Representation of music cultures, including Australian Indigenous Musics.
  9. Creating vodcasts.

Learning Experience

Students will attend on campus classes as well as engage in learning activities through ECU's LMS

JoondalupMount LawleySouth West (Bunbury)
Semester 1Not Offered11 x 2 hour workshopNot Offered

For more information see the Semester Timetable

Additional Learning Experience Information

Students complete pre-class online activities and attend a series of classes. In addition, students must attend a lecturer-approved ethnomusicology concert.

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 School Progression Panel.

ON CAMPUS
TypeDescriptionValue
ExercisePre-class online activities30%
ReviewConcert review20%
AssignmentGroup research project (vodcast) and individual reflective report50%

Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005)

For the purposes of considering a request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Commonwealth 2005), inherent requirements for this subject are articulated in the Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Assessment Requirements of this entry. The University is dedicated to provide support to those with special requirements. Further details on the support for students with disabilities or medical conditions can be found at the Access and Inclusion website.

Assessment

Students please note: The marks and grades received by students on assessments may be subject to further moderation. Informal vivas may be conducted as part of an assessment task, where staff require further information to confirm the learning outcomes have been met. All marks and grades are to be considered provisional until endorsed by the relevant School Progression Panel.

Academic Integrity

Integrity is a core value at Edith Cowan University, and it is expected that ECU students complete their assessment tasks honestly and with acknowledgement of other people's work as well as any generative artificial intelligence tools that may have been used. This means that assessment tasks must be completed individually (unless it is an authorised group assessment task) and any sources used must be referenced.

Breaches of academic integrity can include:

Plagiarism

Copying the words, ideas or creative works of other people or generative artificial intelligence tools, without referencing in accordance with stated University requirements. Students need to seek approval from the Unit Coordinator within the first week of study if they intend to use some of their previous work in an assessment task (self-plagiarism).

Unauthorised collaboration (collusion)

Working with other students and submitting the same or substantially similar work or portions of work when an individual submission was required. This includes students knowingly providing others with copies of their own work to use in the same or similar assessment task(s).

Contract cheating

Organising a friend, a family member, another student or an external person or organisation (e.g. through an online website) to complete or substantially edit or refine part or all of an assessment task(s) on their behalf.

Cheating in an exam

Using or having access to unauthorised materials in an exam or test.

Serious outcomes may be imposed if a student is found to have committed one of these breaches, up to and including expulsion from the University for repeated or serious acts.

ECU's policies and more information about academic integrity can be found on the student academic integrity website.

All commencing ECU students are required to complete the Academic Integrity Module.

Assessment Extension

In some circumstances, Students may apply to their Unit Coordinator to extend the due date of their Assessment Task(s) in accordance with ECU's Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000001386.

Special Consideration

Students may apply for Special Consideration in respect of a final unit grade, where their achievement was affected by Exceptional Circumstances as set out in the Assessment, Examination and Moderation Procedures - for more information visit https://askus2.ecu.edu.au/s/article/000003318.

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