Module manager: Emily Payne
Email: e.l.payne@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 1 (Sep to Jan) View Timetable
Year running 2025/26
| MUS2132 | Cultures of Performance |
This module is not approved as a discovery module
Increasingly, music has come to be recognised not simply as an object conceived by a composer and reproduced by a performer, but as performance: something embodied, material, inherently creative, and embedded in historically and socially distinct performance cultures. On this module you will analyse musical cultures of performance in critical contexts relating to staff specialisms. You will draw on relevant methodologies to appraise the implications of positioning performance as the primary object of musical study, and examine the meanings musical performance takes on in wider social settings. 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 situate musical performance as primary in the study of musical culture and meaning. You will learn to apply relevant methodologies to appraise the relationship between the theory and cultural practice of performance, and situate musical performances within their cultural and analytical contexts.
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following learning outcomes relevant to the subject:
1. Show creative initiative in synthesising academic knowledge and skills from music and related disciplines.
2. Demonstrate engagement with current debates in music performance studies and the ways in which they interact with real-world concerns and priorities.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module students will have demonstrated the following skills learning outcomes:
3. Show critical judgement in the selection and use of relevant research, practice and scholarship.
4. Communicate ideas in precise, organised and accessible 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 – which proposes and justifies a title for the final assessment, an associated research question, and a proposed choice of sources and methodology – will be provided before or within the seminar, helping to build skills in preparation for the final assignment. This feedback will be provided individually through Minerva. Lectures will incorporate seminar elements (Q&A and group work) that engage students directly with aspects of source selection, critique and methodology.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Coursework | Written Assignment | 100 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
The assignment may use any discursive format equivalent in length to a 4,000-word essay, including e.g. a podcast or multimedia essay (incorporating online video or audio examples).
Check the module area in Minerva for your reading list
Last updated: 03/03/2025
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team