Critical Practice in Musicology

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Modules

Courses / Modules / MUSI6022 Critical Practice in Musicology

When you'll study it

Semester 1

CATS points

ECTS points

Level

Level 7

Module lead

Thomas Irvine

Academic year

2025-26

Module overview

This module is based on a selection of recent and innovative scholarly writings on music, which challenge the reader to examine their assumptions about the nature of both scholarship and music as cultural practices.

Aims and Objectives

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Understand and employ critical vocabulary derived from cultural theory in the scholarly discussion of the arts
Describe and evaluate the range of critical approaches to Western music employed since the late 18th century
Discuss critically the political affiliations and impact of various musicological methods, conventions, and discourse

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

actively reflect and participate in debate about scholarly practices within a global context
navigate various forms of resources to produce an original work

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

the methodological and ideological frameworks of a range of recent scholarly writings on music
the applicability of different critical practices to different repertories
exploring current critical practices in musicology.

Subject Specific Practical Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

Demonstrate critical awareness of how diversity and inclusion address in musicology.
Explain the essential features of a specific piece of musical criticism

Learning and Teaching

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include • formal teaching in seminars • structured discussion seminars, in which course tutor acts as moderator. Learning activities include • reading about the discipline of musicology • following, in a step-by-step fashion, some innovative writings on music • preparing oral summaries and evaluations of critical writings • weekly study diary, published on class blog The seminars are designed to clarify the principles underlying critical approaches, and to show how they may be applied to specific contexts. The background reading will enable you to study in greater depth matters that are introduced in the seminars but not explored in detail. The week-to-week study of critical methods, together with the longer-term application of these methods in formal assessment, will give you the competence to undertake critical acts of your own, and the confidence to share your insights into music with your tutors, your peers, and your own students.

Study time
Type	Hours
Teaching	24
Independent Study	276
Total study time	300

Resources & Reading list

Journal Articles

Dreyfus, Laurence (1993). Musical Analysis and the Historical Imperative. Revista de musicologia, 16, pp. 407- 19.

Agawu, Kofi (1997). Analyzing Music Under the New Musicological Regime. The Journal of Musicology, 15(3), pp. 297-307.

Pinch, Trevor and Karin Bijsterveld (2004). Sound Studies: New Technologies and Music. Social Studies of Science, pp. 635-648.

Tucker, Sherrie (2008). When Did Jazz Go Straight? A Queer Question for Jazz Studies. Critical studies in improvisation, 4(2).

Davies, James (2006). Julia’s Gift: The Social Life of Scores, c.1830. Journal of the Royal Musical Association, pp. 287–309.

Middleton, Richard (2000). Musical Belongings: Western Music and Its Low-Other. Western Music and its Others: Difference, Representation, and Appropriation in Music, pp. 59-85.

Citron, Marcia (1993). Introduction. Gender and the Musical Canon, pp. 1—14.

Gabbard, Krin (1995). The Jazz Canon and Its Consequences. Jazz Among the Discourses, pp. 1—28.

Middleton, Richard (2000). Introduction. Reading Pop: Approaches to Textual Analysis in Popular Music, pp. 1—19.

Guck, Marion A (1994). Analytical Fictions. Music Theory Spectrum, 16(2), pp. 217–30.

Cook, Nicholas (1999). Analysing Performance and Performing Analysis. Rethinking Music, pp. 424-51.

Covach, John (1999). Popular Music, Unpopular Musicology. Rethinking Music, pp. 452-470.

Tomlinson, Gary (1984). The Web of Culture: A Context for Musicology. 19th Century Music, 7(3), pp. 350-62.

Nettl, Bruno (1999). The Institutionalization of Musicology: Perspectives of a North American Ethnomusicologist. Rethinking Music, pp. 287-310.

Brett, Philip (1993). Britten's Dream. Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, pp. 259-79.

Smith, Bruce R. (2004). Listening to the Wild Blue Yonder: The Challenges of Acoustic Ecology. Hearing Cultures: Essays on Sound, Listening, and Modernity, pp. 21-41.

Taruskin, Richard. Nationalism. Grove Music Online.

Fink, Robert (1998). Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies At the Twilight of the Canon. American Music, pp. 135-79.

Treitler, Leo (1989). Music Analysis in a Historical Context. Music and the Historical Imagination, pp. 67-78.

Taruskin, Richard (1995). “The Modern Sound of Early Music” and “Tradition and Authority.”. Text and Act: Essays on Music and Performance, pp. 164-97.

Jenkins, Keith, and Alun Munslow (2004). Introduction. The Nature of History Reader, pp. 1—18.

Treitler, Leo (1999). The Historiography of Music: Issues of Past and Present. Rethinking Music, pp. 356-77.

Bowen, José (1999). Finding the Music in Musicology. Rethinking Music, pp. 424-51.

Samson, Jim. Canon (iii). Grove Music Online.

Levy, Beth E (2001). ’The White Hope of American Music,’ Or, How Roy Harris Became Western. American Music, 19(2), pp. 131-67.

Solie, Ruth (1997). Defining Feminism: Conundrums, Contexts, Communities. Women and Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, 1, pp. 1—11.

Samuels, David W., et al. (2010). Soundscapes: Toward a Sounded Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology, 39, pp. 329-45.

Dahlhaus, Carl (1983). The Significance of Art: Historical of Aesthetic?. Foundations of Music History, pp. 19-33.

Claude Palisca (1963). The Scope of American Musicology. Musicology, pp. 89-121.

Cusick, Suzanne G (1999). Gender, Musicology, and Feminism. Rethinking Music, pp. 471-98.

Everist, Mark (1999). Reception Theories, Canonic Discourses, and Musical Value. Rethinking Music, pp. 378-402.

Duckles, Vincent and Jann Pasler. Musicology §I: The nature of musicology. Grove Music Online.

Taruskin, Richard (2005). Introduction: The History of What?. The Oxford History of Western Music.

Kerman, Joseph (1985). “Introduction” and “Musicology and Positivism: The Postwar Years.”. Musicology, pp. 11—59.

Solie, Ruth (1993). Introduction: On 'Difference'. Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship, pp. 1—20.

Frith, Simon (2004). What is Bad Music?. Bad Music: The Music We Love to Hate, pp. 16-36.

Small, Christopher (1998). Prelude. The Meanings of Performing and Listening, pp. 1—18.

Burke, Peter (2005). Performing History: The Importance of Occasions. Rethinking History, 9, pp. 35-52.

Potter, Pamela (2007). The Concept of Race in German Musical Discourse. Western Music and Race, pp. 49-62.

Subotnik, Rose Rosengard (1996). Toward a Deconstruction of Structural Listening: A Critique of Schoenberg, Adorno, and Stravinsky. Deconstructive Variations: Music and Reason in Western Society, pp. 148-252.

Geertz, Clifford (1973). Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture. The Interpretation of Cultures.

Assessment

Assessment strategy

• one position paper, critically engaging with one of the topics covered during the module • one essay summarising the major themes and debates surrounding one topic in the musicological literature covered during the semester

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	60%
Position Paper	40%

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Coursework	100%

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Breakdown
Method	Percentage contribution
Essay	60%
Position Paper	40%

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External

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