Subject Description:
In this subject, students will be introduced to unfamiliar sounds and their links to cultures of the past and present to discover how musical elements can be developed by and transmitted for successive generations. It is designed to help students think more deeply about current music practices that rest upon the discoveries about sound, oral music traditions, and the development of music notation systems.
The two focus areas of this subject, Ethnomusicology and Early European Music, will be undertaken from current and past practices, respectively. Ethnomusicology will involve the study of world music or folk and indigenous music practices from a variety of cultures and examine how and why these music’s are used. The study will examine the elements of musical style including the scales and tunings and the traditional instruments of many cultural groups existing today. Exposure to the music will be through festivals, recordings, and research texts. Early European music studies will begin with the earliest musical examples and trace the development of music through medieval times, the baroque and early classical eras; the instruments used to perform works; methods of notation and the place of music in the cultures of the time. Much of the early studies will focus on music in the church. Students will examine the elements of musical style of a range of works either aurally or from notated scores: melody, rhythm, harmony and tonality, form/structure, texture, instrumentation, and dynamics.
Students will engage with a diverse range of
music practices through festivals such as WOMAD/Fringe visit and Cathedral
concerts; guest speakers/performers; and relevant scores.
- Teacher: Janelle Fletcher
- Teacher: Logan Watt