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MUSIC IN HISTORY AND SOCIETY

Major combinations:
NQF Level: 5: MHS1511, MHS1512
NQF Level: 6: MHS2611, MHS2612, MHS2614
NQF Level: 7: MHS3711, MHS3712, MHS3713, MHS3714, MHS3715

Theory of African Music - MHS3712
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 7 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MHS2612
Purpose: Qualifying students will engage in advanced debates on African musicology, the history of African music and the archive, music in social life, music and language, and structural principles of African music. Students will study tonal, rhythmic, and linguistic components of African musical structures, and learn to analyse and critique these features in selected genres from across the continent.
Psychology of Music - MHS3713
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 7 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: PYC1501
Recommendation: CST1511 or UNISA Grade 5 in Music theory
Purpose: Qualifying students will learn to apply concepts, theories and approaches to the psychology of music. Students will acquire knowledge and skills appropriate to the sub-fields of music psychology, including acoustics, music perception and cognition, neuroscience of music, emotion and meaning in music, music acquisition, music and language, and music therapy. Qualifying students will be competent to analyse musical structures using methods of cognitive music theory. The module prepares students for advanced studies in the psychology of music at postgraduate level.
Opera and Choral Music - MHS3714
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 7 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MHS2611
Recommendation: MHS2612
Purpose: Qualifying students will be able to describe local contemporary operatic and choral conventions in the contexts of composition, performance, and reception. Students will be able to differentiate between various forms of musical theatre, including: Operas, Operettas and Musicals. In addition, they will be able to discuss the relationship between operatic and choral conventions in South Africa with reference to their respective cultural histories, the role of economic and socio-political dynamics affecting their developments, and the roles of leading composers and/or other forms of cultural producers. Students will finally be able to identify and critically discuss the ways in which opera and choral singing respond to contemporary socio-political and cultural conditions. The module opens the narrative on the history of Western art music to engage notions of decolonization, Africanisation, indigenisation and decoloniality.
Popular Music - MHS3715
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 7 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: Qualifying students will be competent to analyze select popular music genres from the twentieth century to the present in relation to historical and technological developments. Students will be able to compare and contrast the characteristic features of selected genres, including tin pan alley, blues, rock, reggae, punk, funk, hip hop, rap, disco, and dance music. In addition, they will be able to demonstrate the relationship between popular music and society, and to explain the roles of key artists, events, albums, record labels, technologies and historical and cultural developments in the development of twentieth and twenty-first century popular music. In addition, qualifying students will be able to summarize, discuss and critically evaluate key debates and approaches in the field of Popular Music Studies and apply these to their own work.
Playing with History: the Early Music Movement and Its Impact on Recent Performing Trends - MUS4801
Honours NQF level: 8 Credits: 24
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: This paper deals with an aspect of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first century musical history which has become crucially significant for performers, listeners and indeed the entire 'art music' industry as a whole, including the not insignificant recording industry: the unfolding of the early music movement and the effect it's had on how we perform, listen to and perceive early music. And since the term 'early music' - no longer refers to the esoteric music of some bygone age - it is now taken to mean Western music up to and including the early twentieth century (Mahler, Elgar, Ravel, Bartok and so on) - it includes most of the repertoire that almost all performers and music-lovers are familiar with. 'Early music' is therefore no longer a specialist category in music. The purview of this paper affects all of us to a substantial degree.
South African Encounters in Music - MUS4802
Honours NQF level: 8 Credits: 24
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: In this paper, you will be introduced to aspects of music in South Africa, from the point of view of critical theory. You will explore the contributions of major scholars in the field and various schools of thought marking this development extensively. You will also explore themes in southern African music studies by familiarising yourself with the literature and work of scholars in the field. This paper also includes an introduction to key debates in preservation, heritage and issues of public culture and ownership
Research Methodologies in Musicology - MUS4803
Honours NQF level: 8 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: One of the chief strategies of this paper will be to help you focus on recent literature dealing with issues of cultural musicology. You will need to demonstrate that you can interpret and contextualize a variety of texts. In particular, we expose you to a wider view of music other than Western art music, including those related to African and Afro-diasporic music. At the same time we look at the practical side of carrying out research, including research methods such as fieldwork, ethnography, interviews, transcription, participant observation, and so on
Early Music to Baroque - MHS1511
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 5 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: Qualifying students will be introduced to histories of Western vocal and instrumental art music from Antiquity through to the Baroque (up to 1750), and to the composers and musical genres that developed in relation to particular socio-economic conditions during this period. Students will be able to identify, interpret and discuss the characteristics of the various music genres and forms studied in the module, including: the mass, motet, madrigal, dance suite, da capo aria, fugue, opera, oratorio, and concerto grosso, as well as a range of other vocal and instrumental genres specific to this period. Qualifying students will be able to situate such genres within the frame of larger intellectual movements from Antiquity, Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.
Introduction to African Music - MHS1512
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 5 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: Qualifying students will be introduced to debates on pre-colonial and colonial musical cultures in Africa. Furthermore, these students will explore specific music genres ranging from Central, East, North, South, and West African cultures. Qualifying students will also be able to analyse cross cultural, political, economic, and religious influences on African music.
Classic and Romantic Music - MHS2611
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 6 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MHS1511
Purpose: Qualifying students will be introduced to histories of Western instrumental art music in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and to the composers and musical genres that developed in relation to particular socio-economic and political conditions. Students will be able to identify and discuss the characteristics of the various music genres studied in the module, including the suite, sonata, string quartet, concerto, and symphony, as well as a range of smaller solo instrumental genres for piano and assorted instruments, and to situate such genres within the frame of larger intellectual movements such as Enlightenment and Romanticism.
Music in Postcolonial Africa - MHS2612
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 6 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MHS1512
Recommendation: Students to complete MHS1512 or MHS1502 before they enrol for this module.
Purpose: Qualifying students will be introduced to histories of selected independence movements in Africa and their musical interconnections, debates on post-colonial thought, globalization, and technological influences on African music in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students will also be able to identify and discuss the characteristics of the various music genres studied in the module, and especially cross cultural, political, economic and religious influences.
Music Business - MHS2613
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 6 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MNB1501
Recommendation: Students to complete MNB1501 before they enrol for this module.
Purpose: The purpose of this module is to ensure that students are able to practice entrepreneurship within the music industry. Students gain knowledge and insight into the South African music industry, the entities and personnel involved in the music industry, and how each of these functions, and will be able to identify music entrepreneurship opportunities. Issues of copyright, marketing and the impact of music technology is also covered in the module.
Jazz Studies - MHS2614
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 6 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Purpose: Qualifying students will be able to explore a range of genres in jazz music history, both local (South African) and international. Furthermore, students will grasp historical and contemporary approaches to the study of jazz from both a South African and an American perspective. Students will also explore the diversity of jazz styles through selected past and present musical works, and literature pertaining to the world of jazz music-making in history and society.
Modernism and Twentieth Century Music - MHS3711
Under Graduate Degree Semester module NQF level: 7 Credits: 12
Module presented in English Module presented online
Pre-requisite: MHS2611
Purpose: Qualifying students will be introduced to histories of Western instrumental art music in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, and to the composers and musical genres that developed in relation to particular socio-economic and political conditions. Students will be able to identify and discuss the characteristics of the various music genres and movements of experimentalism, impressionism, primitivism, expressionism, cross-culturalism, serialism, experimentalism, minimalism, and post minimalism, and frame these within larger intellectual movements such as modernism, postmodernism.