Universität Wien

160069 UE Analysing Popular Music (2017S)

Prüfungsimmanente Lehrveranstaltung

An/Abmeldung

Hinweis: Ihr Anmeldezeitpunkt innerhalb der Frist hat keine Auswirkungen auf die Platzvergabe (kein "first come, first served").

Details

max. 40 Teilnehmer*innen
Sprache: Englisch

Lehrende

Termine (iCal) - nächster Termin ist mit N markiert

  • Dienstag 07.03. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 14.03. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 21.03. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 28.03. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 04.04. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 25.04. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 02.05. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 09.05. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 16.05. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 23.05. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 30.05. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 13.06. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 20.06. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01
  • Dienstag 27.06. 16:00 - 17:30 Hörsaal 2 Musikwissenschaft UniCampus Hof 9, 3G-EG-01

Information

Ziele, Inhalte und Methode der Lehrveranstaltung

Popular music means so much to us, and yet we often forget how much of that meaning depends on the situation within which we hear it. Album art, music videos, the performance or attitude of the singer/band, the lyrics, the subculture involved, and many other factors influence what we hear and our response to it. The aim of this course is to develop a toolkit for analysing how musical texts, usually a recording or a performance, interact with their various listeners and contexts to generate meaning.

Music is sticky. When we hear music, it seeks out sources of meaning in our environment and sticks to them. Popular music is usually heard in combination with other media where it sticks to visual, linguistic, and sonic meanings forming multimedia blends that communicate ideas and feelings that neither the music nor the media could have managed alone. We will learn to analyse how this blended meaning arises by considering the variety of contexts in which popular music is heard: listening to recorded music in the home, live performance, music video, television drama, film, and advertising, amongst others.

In the final few lectures we will discuss the turn to affect. In the last few years, many popular music scholars have become less interested in what a piece of music means, and more in what it does. For example, popular music has been used to discipline, to punish, or as a weapon; its ‘energy’ or ‘aura’—rather than any overtly political content—has been used to mobilize protestors during political rallies. Understanding these phenomena requires new affective methods of analysis.

Art der Leistungskontrolle und erlaubte Hilfsmittel

The course will be examined by coursework consisting of:
1. c. 10 short exercises to be completed during the course. Each will require roughly one side of A4 paper (40%).
2. Extended analysis of a piece of popular music or other media object in which popular music plays an important role. Students may choose their own topic, and should use a selection of techniques learnt in the lectures. Length: maximum 3000 words (60%).

Mindestanforderungen und Beurteilungsmaßstab

By the end of the course, students will be able to:
- understand that meaning is generated in the interaction between text, listener, and context,
- identify and describe the relevant carriers of meaning in the various contexts in which popular music is heard,
- analyse how music shapes meaning in those contexts,
- think critically about how social, political and economic forces shape the meanings attributed to popular music in ways listeners are not always aware of,
- understand the meaning of affect, and how the analysis of musical affect differs from the analysis of musical meaning.

Prüfungsstoff

The course will cover topics from among the following:
1. Music, multimedia, and meaning.
2. Timbre, arrangement, and rhythm in popular music.
3. Harmony, melody, and phrasing in popular music.
4. Analysing recorded music.
5. Album art and publicity.
6. Analysing performance.
7. Analysing genre.
8. Analysing music video
9. Popular music in television and film.
10. Popular music in advertising.
11. Popular music and affect.

Literatur

Nicholas Cook, Analysing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
David Machin, Analysing Popular Music: Image, Sound and Text (London: Sage, 2010).
Richard Middleton (ed.), Reading Pop (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000).
Allan F. Moore (ed.), Analyzing Popular Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Allan F. Moore, Song Means: Analysing and Interpreting Recorded Popular Song (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012).

Zuordnung im Vorlesungsverzeichnis

POP-V, FRE; B06(PM), B14, B17, B19; M01, M02, M03, M04, M05, M11, M14, M16

Letzte Änderung: Mo 07.09.2020 15:35