To introduce the study of audio production and audio productions as musical activities and texts which have their intrinsic value and meaning as well as historical, cultural and technological contexts and impacts.
To develop listening skills, and a systematic evaluation methodology, for identification and critique of audio recording and production styles.
Module learning outcomes
Students should be able to understand and use both technological and musicological terminologies and concepts to assess production techniques, technologies and outcomes.
Students should be able to develop their own analyses of existing audio productions that consider their wider context and impact beyond just the identification and description of production techniques and technologies.
Students should be able to link technique and technology to methodology and phenomenology in order to identify and describe production style within individuals, movements and cultures.
Academic and graduate skills
Autonomous task planning and implementation
Ability to advance individual knowledge and understanding
Initiative
Flexibility and adaptability
Analytic skills
Self-management
Self-motivation
Organisation and planning
Lateral thinking
Time management and prioritisation
Engagement with the unfamiliar
Independent learning
Assessment
Task
Length
% of module mark
Essay/coursework Essay 3000 Words
N/A
100
Special assessment rules
None
Reassessment
Task
Length
% of module mark
Essay/coursework Essay 3000 Words
N/A
100
Module feedback
Comments and breakdown of marks by end of week 6, term 3.
Indicative reading
Zagorski-Thomas, Simon The Musicology of Record Production, Cambridge University Press
Moorefield, The Producer as Composer: Shaping the Sounds of Popular Music, MIT Press
Danielsen, Anne (ed.) Musical Rhythm in the Age of Digital Reproduction, Ashgate
Katz, Mark Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, University of California Press
Milner, Greg Perfecting Sound for Ever: The Story of Recorded Music, Granta Books