Alternative Perspectives: Interdisciplinary Ideas about Performance - MUS00009H

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Module summary

This project will explore how music performance relates to other forms of performance. Music performance will be set in context as part of a wider phenomenon of performance in everyday life.

Module will run

Occurrence	Teaching period
A	Autumn Term 2022-23

Module aims

This module will explore how music performance is part of a wider phenomenon of performance in everyday life. It will draw on theories that originated outside musicology, and will focus on key ideas from performance studies, a discipline that grew out of a combination of theatre studies and anthropology. Selected theatre theory will also be examined and applied to performances involving music. In this way, students will be encouraged to

• consider performance from new angles
• think about the wider social contexts of music performance
• examine their own modes of performance critically

Module learning outcomes

On completion of the project, all students should

• understand how music studies can intersect with interdisciplinary performance theory
• demonstrate familiarity with a number of performance studies theories
• have acquired the knowledge to apply performance theory to music
• have gained the critical distance necessary to reflect on their own performance of music

In their independent work,

• third-year students should demonstrate Learning Outcomes C1-6

Indicative assessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Special assessment rules

None

Indicative reassessment

Task	% of module mark
Essay/coursework	100

Module feedback

Feedback to student no later than 20 working days from submission of assessment.

Indicative reading

• Schechner, Richard. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.
• Cook, Nicholas. ‘Between Process and Product: Music and/as Performance’, Music Theory Online 7/2 (April 2001). <http://mto.societymusictheory.org/issues/mto.01.7.2/mto.01.7.2.cook_frames.html>
• Auslander, Philip. ‘Musical Personae’, The Drama Review 50/1 (Spring 2006), 100–119.
• Auslander, Philip. Liveness. Performance in a Mediatized Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1999.
• Davis, Tracy C. The Cambridge Companion to Performance Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
• Counsell, Colin and Laurie Wolf, eds. Performance Analysis. Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2001.