Postgraduate Course: Studies in Popular Music (MUSI11072)
Course Outline
| School | Edinburgh College of Art |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course is designed to introduce the field of popular music studies and new directions in popular music research through case-study oriented lecture/seminars, accompanied by selected reading and listening tasks. Strong links will be made to issues of gender, race, capitalism, and technology, as well as to the at times complicated relationship between popular music and popular culture. |
| Course description |
To facilitate contextualisation, the course will adopt a case-study approach using various artists, trends, or approaches as a lens through which to examine and apply various theoretical approaches key to the study of popular music. Particular topics, themes, and approaches may vary from year to year. While not a history course per se, the course is concerned with ensuring that students understand and can extrapolate from some of the key historical developments in popular music. While welcoming broader approaches in student work, the course takes a largely North American perspective as its jumping off point.
The course will provide an overview of some key approaches to popular music studies from the field of musicology across the last 40 years, ensuring that a variety of critical viewpoints in contemporary musicology are discussed. Race, gender, technology, capital, genre, identity, politics, and notions of value will be recurrent themes for examination and application.
In addition to weekly set readings, students will be expected to engage with popular music as sound, and critical engagement with recordings will be a point of weekly focus. That said, this course does not expect or require you to read music or engage with formal musical analysis (though you may do so if you wish).
Classes will normally take place weekly, and will comprise lecture/seminars organised around set readings and listening/viewing. The 1-hour lecture portion of the class will be shared with the Level 10 course [MUSI10107 Three Minute Records: Case Studies in Popular Music]
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2021/22, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 4 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 20,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 8,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
168 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Feedback |
Students will receive staff and peer feedback on an ongoing basis as part of class discussion.
Feedback will be provided by both brief written comments and via plenary discussion.
Written feedback on the summative presentation will be provided within 15 working days of the hand-in date. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Demonstrate a critical understanding of key theories, principles, and concepts in the field of popular music studies.
- Communicate key concepts and debates within popular music studies with peers and senior colleagues.
- Plan and execute a significant analysis of a specialist topic within the study of popular music.
- Exercise substantial autonomy and initiative in the development of a research project in popular music.
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Reading List
There is no set reading list for this course. Weekly readings will be made available via Learn and are likely to change from year to year.
Indicative sources include:
Black Music Research Journal
Journal of Popular Music Studies
Popular Music
Popular Music and Society
Scottish Music Review
Journal of the Art of Record Production |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
| Keywords | popular music,Sociology of music,Musicology,Popular culture |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Marian Jago
Tel: (0131 6)50 2426
Email: m.s.jago@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Carrie Parker
Tel: (0131 6)50 2422
Email: Carrie.Parker@ed.ac.uk |
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