Module manager: Professor Edward Venn
Email: e.j.venn@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
| MUS3232 | Music and Meaning |
This module is not approved as a discovery module
The meanings music might have – what they are and who gets to decide – form a perennial subject of debate in music studies. Music’s interactions with other media, narrative, and aspects of cultural and social identity enrich but complicate its potential meanings for listeners and performers alike. On this module you will analyse music and meaning in critical contexts relating to staff specialisms. You will draw on relevant methodologies to appraise the relationships between music and meaning, and the resulting issues and challenges they raise. Please note this is an optional module and runs subject to enrolments. If a low number of students choose this module, then the module may not run and you may be asked to choose another module.
This module aims to develop your capability to engage critically with musicological sources to interpret the relationship between music and meaning. You will learn to apply relevant methodologies to appraise the ways in which music takes on its meanings, and analyse connections between theories of meaning and the reception of music in its social and cultural contexts.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Situate music with respect to a range of analytical contexts and critical perspectives relevant to music and meaning.
2. Analyse connections between theories of meaning and the specific meanings music acquires in cultural contexts.
3. Apply a range of appropriate methodologies to the study of musical meaning.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
4. Analyse sources to appraise, debate and defend scholarly arguments
5. Communicate ideas in clear and structured ways.
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module.
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 8 | 2 | 16 |
| Seminar | 1 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
| Private study hours | 182.5 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 17.5 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
Formative feedback on a preparatory task to the summative coursework assessment – which may take the form of a literature review, abstract or other similar task as appropriate to the form of the final assessment – will be provided before or within the seminar, helping to build skills (especially SLO4 and 5). This feedback may be provided in plenary form, with opportunities for individualized follow-up feedback via email or drop-in hours extended to students who wish to take advantage of it. It is anticipated that, rather than being ‘accompanied’ by ‘set readings’, lectures will incorporate seminar elements (Q&A and group work) that engage students directly with texts, appropriate reading strategies and literature search approaches, and allow them to gain a clearer sense of the effectiveness of their reading and research.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Written Assignment | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 07/04/2025
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