James Cook University Subject Handbook - 2001

MU1412:03

Contemporary Music

Townsville

Inadmissable Subject Combination: MU1213

26 lectures, 13 tutorials. Second semester.

Available to BMus students or other students who pass the University’s music rudiments test at entry or later.

Staff: Dr S Campbell, Mr R Daniel.

Developments in popular musical styles, forms and media since the mid-1950s will be studied through observation and analysis of selected music from a diversity of popular musicians. The subject will address a range of contemporary styles such as Rock, Pop, Rhythm and Blues, Metal, Rap and Techno.

Learning Objectives:

  1. acquire a familiarity with major musical repertoire, stylistic changes and associated terminology relevant to Western popular music since about 1955;
  2. acquire knowledge of the life, times and music of selected song-writers and performers;
  3. discuss, analyse and compare relationships between music and the other art forms selected during this period;
  4. aurally recognise, describe, analyse and compare selected pieces of music by a representative selection of song-writers and performers;
  5. relate changes in musical style to underlying social and intellectual theories, philosophies and aesthetics of the period;
  6. develop fundamental strategies in musical and historical judgement.

Assessment by three class tests (20% each) (60%); essay (40%).