Module description
Given the importance of music and its interactions with other aspects of cultural life across the Global Iberias, this module provides conceptual and analytical tools for students to be able to systematize and analyse a range of musical expressions within the Portuguese- and Spanish-speaking worlds. Students will be introduced to the practices and traditions that have shaped these musical expressions and the connections between them. Besides gaining experience in cultural and musicological interpretation, students will consider how these musical soundscapes express a variety of cultural identities in Latin America, Iberia and the Atlantic world.
http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/splas/modules/level4/4aasa051.aspx
Assessment details
One 2000 word essay (40%) and one 2000 word essay (60%)
Educational aims & objectives
For Spanish, Portuguese and other humanities students interested in the musical soundscapes of Latin America, Iberia and the Atlantic world, who wish to understand the practices and traditions in which they are rooted, the connections between them and their relationships to the wider cultural world, but who lack the basic tools of musicological description and analysis, this module provides an essential introduction and a foundation for further study.
The module meets two core needs:
- Approaches. To explain some key principles and concepts of musicological description and analysis as applicable to the Lusophone and Hispanic worlds, such as the production and technologies of musical sound; musical time, melody and harmony; interactions of music and language in song; the economies, social formations and politics of musical performance and consumption; musical identities and ideologies.
- Traditions and Histories. To characterize some of the key traditions and practices which have shaped the performance of music across the Hispanic and Lusophone world in the last two hundred years, e.g. batuque, samba, fado, morna, flamenco, tango, rumba, cumbia, bossa nova.
These two elements, Approaches and Traditions and Histories, are not treated separately in consecutive sessions, but are integrated so that each musicological concept is explored by reference to examples drawn from across both chronological and geographical fields. Ample use is made of sound recordings, video documentaries and web-based materials.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the module students will be able to demonstrate intellectual, transferable and practicable skills appropriate to level 4 and, in particular, to
- demonstrate an understanding of key principles and concepts of musicological description and analysis, such as time/rhythm/meter; pitch/melody; harmony/tonality; timbre/texture; media, technologies; musical movements and subcultures; musical nationalism, the politics of musical taste and authenticity.
- deploy those key descriptive and analytical concepts in relation to selected representative traditions and practices from the Iberian peninsula, West Africa and the Atlantic, and Latin America
- demonstrate an understanding of the key processes in the social and cultural history of music-making across the Hispanic and Lusophone worlds that have shaped and connected their traditions and practices
- undertake the study of more advanced, specialised themes. The module is a prerequisite for 5AASB075 Brazilian Poetry & Song I: Modernism, Samba & the Estado Novo 1915-45 and 6AASC075 Brazilian Poetry & Song II: 1958 to present.
Teaching pattern
Two hours per week
Suggested reading list
All readings will be available on the KEATS page of this module.