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2021/2022

Musical Criticism

Code: 100644 ECTS Credits: 6
Degree Type Year Semester
2500240 Musicology OT 3 0
2500240 Musicology OT 4 0
The proposed teaching and assessment methodology that appear in the guide may be subject to changes as a result of the restrictions to face-to-face class attendance imposed by the health authorities.

Contact

Name:
Silvia Martínez García
Email:
Silvia.Martinez.Garcia@uab.cat

Use of Languages

Principal working language:
catalan (cat)
Some groups entirely in English:
No
Some groups entirely in Catalan:
Yes
Some groups entirely in Spanish:
No

Prerequisites

No prerequisites required, although basic knowledge of technical vocabulary from different musical fields -i.e. classical, urban, contemporary, traditional music- is recommendable.

Objectives and Contextualisation

  • Identify the main processes that make up musical communication and learn to describe them appropriately
  • Have up-to-date observation and critique tools available to apply to observations of musical situations
  • Know the new digital media, social networks and apps, shaped as a tool for dissemination and music criticism
  • Enrich the possibilities of oral expression in the analysis of musical situations
  • Write short critical writings aimed at various supports (blogs, IG posts, short radio spots, etc.)
  • Develop critical thinking about Musicology in a way that contributes in the future to improving the field of studies

Competences

    Musicology
  • Developing critical thinking and reasoning and communicating them effectively both in your own and other languages.
  • Identify and compare the different channels of reception and consumption of music in society and in culture in each period.
  • Producing innovative and competitive proposals in research and professional activity.
  • Relate concepts and information from different humanistic, scientific and social disciplines, especially the interactions which are established between music and philosophy, history, art, literature and anthropology.
  • Relate musical creations with their different contexts, differentiating between the social functions of music, its roles and that of the musician in society and in relation to other artistic manifestations.
  • Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
  • Students must be capable of collecting and interpreting relevant data (usually within their area of study) in order to make statements that reflect social, scientific or ethical relevant issues.
  • Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
  • Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.

Learning Outcomes

  1. Accurately describing the artistic object with the specific language of art criticism.
  2. Apply the conceptualisation of philosophy, history, literature and anthropology to musical research.
  3. Demostrate creative and innovative skills in the area of professional application of musicological training.
  4. Detect possible fields of innovation and improvement for proposals of cultural and leisure management.
  5. Develop habits for transfer to the ambit of musical dissemination and information the musical training acquired.
  6. Establishing relationships between science, philosophy, art, religion, politics, etc.
  7. Evaluate the consumption of music in contemporary society.
  8. Identify the complexity of music reception processes.
  9. Identify the connections between current musical creation and the sociopolitical and cultural circumstancesticas in which it takes place.
  10. Identifying the main and secondary ideas and expressing them with linguistic correctness.
  11. Integrate knowledge acquired in the production of clear and concise appropriate to the academic and specialist communication.
  12. Personally and critically transfer knowledge acquired in the field of musicology to the pertinent professional and work environments.
  13. Produce correct, precise and clear argumental and terminological writing of knowledge acquired, both in the area of musical specialisation and dissemination.
  14. Producing a written text that is grammatically and lexically correct.
  15. Summarizing the characteristics of a written text in accordance to its communicative purposes.

Content

  1. Write about music. Listen, describe, explain
  2. Strategies for musical criticism: a diachronic vision
  3. Institutions and discourse in music criticism
  4. Music criticism and mass media: what media for which kind of music?
  5. Writings and audiovisuals for criticism in social and new medias

Methodology

The course encourages an open format of a seminar, with an active learning that involves all the students. The course contents will be achieved mainly from the reading and critical discussion of the course readings and other materials, as well as the analysis and debate on the proposed audiovisual cases. Supervised work in the classroom may be done in person in the classroom or through the online teaching channels established by the UAB (Teams, Zoom, etc.)

Throughout the theoretical-practical class sessions, collective work on various audiovisual and written materials will be shared. The work material will be proposed mainly by the teaching staff, although the contribution of the students will be encouraged. Collaborative work will also be promoted in small groups in the classroom, organized to reflect and discuss the proposed materials, from which written or audiovisual materials will be derived and considered in the final evaluation.

These activities will be complemented, insofar as circumstances permit, with attending live concerts from which the student will have to prepare several critical works that will be presented throughout the course.

Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

Activities

Title Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Type: Directed      
Attendance to live concerts, which will be the material to prepare the pieces of criticism 10 0.4
Theoretical and practical classes 50 2 14, 1, 8, 6, 9
Type: Supervised      
Personal or group tutorials (online or offline) 5 0.2
Support for the personal exercises in writing and audiovisual format 15 0.6 2, 3, 1, 5, 6, 9, 10
Support to prepare the individual composition of written pieces about live concerts 5 0.2 2, 7, 13, 14, 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11
Type: Autonomous      
Personal work analysis and study on bibliographic and audiovisual materials proposed for the course 34 1.36 2, 3, 5, 6, 11, 15, 12
Personal work in audiovisual supports related to music criticism 20 0.8 2, 7, 13, 14, 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12
Personal work on writing exercises related to music criticism 5 0.2 2, 3, 1, 5, 4, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12

Assessment

The class sessions are prepared for the active participation of the students, who undertake to carry out the proposed readings for the correct follow-up of the course, as well as to bring examples and joint discussion at classroom when requested.

The evaluation will be the result of two written tests -or equivalent activities online- and some writing and audiovisual works carried out in groups. Each of these items will have a weight of 30% in the overall course. The remaining 10% will be valued from the participation in class discussions and the proactive attitude to the case studies raised by the teaching staff.

The re-evaluation is considered an exceptional measure, since the objective is to pass a continuous evaluation of the activity throughout the entire semester. To appear for the reevaluation, at least one of the two written partial tests must have been passed with a mark of 5.5.

To consider the grade "not assessable" (previous "no presentat"), the student will have to have abandoned without having taken any written evaluation test or only the first one.

The review of the final grades will be carried out on dates announced in advance and agreed with the class group.

 

Assessment Activities

Title Weighting Hours ECTS Learning Outcomes
Exercises (writing and audiovisual formats) related to music criticism 30% 2 0.08 2, 7, 1, 5, 4, 8, 12
Proactive attitude and participation in class activities 10% 0 0 2, 13, 14, 1, 5, 8, 9, 10, 15
Test (I) 30% 2 0.08 2, 7, 1, 8, 6, 11, 15, 12
Test (II) 30% 2 0.08 2, 7, 13, 14, 3, 1, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12

Bibliography

Ballester, Jordi and Germán Gan Quesada (eds.), Music Criticism, 1900-1950, Turnhout: Brepols, 2018. 

Blum, Stephen y Philip V. Bohlman (eds.). Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1991. 

Cantón García, José Antonio. «Prensa y música, divulgación y crítica». Comunicar: Revista científica iberoamericana de comunicación y educación, 23 (2004): 43-47 

Carreira, Xoán Manuel. «Variaciones sobre la crítica musical». Ritmo, 51-508 (1981): 29-36 

Cascudo García-Villaraco, Teresa. «Apuntes sobre la crítica musical». Doce notas preliminares: revista de arte, 9 (2002): 113-122

Cascudo Teresa y Palacios, Maria: Los señores de la crítica.Periodismo musical e ideologia del modernismo en Madrid (1900-1950). Madrid: Doble J, Editorial, 2012

Chiantore, Luca; Domínguez, Áurea; Martínez, Sílvia. Escribir sobre música. Barcelona: Musikeon Books, 2016

Citron, Marcia J. Gender and the Musical Canon. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993 

Graf, Max: Composer and Critic. Two hundret years of Musical Criticism. Norton and Company. New york, 1946

Monelle, Raymond. «La crítica de la interpretación musical». En La interpretación musical, editado por John Rink. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2006, 249-262. 

Rink, John (ed.). The practice of performance: studies in musical interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995 

Ros Fábregas, Emilio. “Retos de la musicología en la España del siglo XXI: de la reflexión a la aplicación práctica en el aula”. Revista de Musicología, 29-1 (2006), pp. 11-44.

 

Software

No specific software needed