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Song Beyond the Score - MUS00180I

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  • Department: Music
  • Credit value: 20 credits
  • Credit level: I
  • Academic year of delivery: 2023-24

Module summary

This module explores the interaction of words and music in songs created and performed without traditional score notation, from Homeric epic and Babylonian incantation, through sea shanty and broadside ballad, to death metal and freestyle rap.

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Semester 2 2023-24

Module aims

For hundreds of years, music-makers and thinkers educated in the Western classical tradition saw notated music as the central, driving force for historical progress, and non-notated musics as peripheral and (worse) stuck in a sort of permanent stasis. Even in today’s more enlightened research, the legacy of this worldview endures as an imbalance in scholarly apparatus – we have no shortage of well-honed methods for analysing notated song, but relatively underdeveloped vocabularies and scarce established methods for engaging with songs created in oral traditions, even though they make up the majority of the world’s music. This module first examines the frameworks in which non-notated song has been discussed – e.g., in ethnomusicology, popular music studies, music psychology and memory studies, practice research, early medieval musicology, oral-formulaic theory, and ‘salvage’ ethnography – before looking to the future, and asking what new frameworks are needed, and how we might develop them. We consider questions like:

  • Are there observable musical features that differentiate song in oral traditions from song in notated traditions (and vice versa)?

  • How are songs transmitted in oral traditions, and how does the nature of oral transmission affect our ability to differentiate and categorize them?

  • What do we know about the cognitive processes involved in recalling musical gestures and (how) do they translate into song characteristics?

Suitable for anyone interested in singing and/or understanding songs, this module fosters both practical and theoretical perspectives on the content by progressing through analytical case studies to exploration of the same concepts in creative/practical tasks. As well as listening, reading, writing, transcription, and discussion, it embraces as research methods all forms of musical expression contained in the category ‘song’ (the nebulous definition of which we must of course tackle), such as song-writing, improvisation, chant, incantation, musical storytelling, and rap. We learn about how we sing by singing.

Module learning outcomes

  • discover a broad range of song traditions, current and historical;

  • become familiar with frameworks in which oral traditions are studied;

  • deepen sensitivity to cultural biases that impinge on the analysis of unfamiliar vocal traditions;

  • expand technical vocabularies for discussing non-notated vocal musics, in order to communicate with clarity on the issues their study encompasses;

  • find new insight into the process of oral musical creation through creative practice in combination with critical reflection.

Second years, in their independent work, should demonstrate Learning Outcomes B9 and 12, plus B8 and/or B11 if the performance option is chosen.

Indicative assessment

Task % of module mark Group
Essay/coursework 100 A
Essay/coursework 10 B
Practical 90 B

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Assessment options are EITHER

Option A) An essay on a topic to be decided in consultation with the project tutor (4000w; 100%)

OR

Option B) A performance of music learned by ear (c.25-30’) or a self-created performance (c.15-20’) (90%), accompanied by a commentary (1000w; 10%)

Indicative reassessment

Task % of module mark Group
Essay/coursework 100 A
Essay/coursework 10 B
Practical 90 B

Module feedback

You will receive written feedback in line with standard University turnaround times.

Indicative reading

  • Bagby, B. (2005). ‘Beowulf, the Edda, and the Performance of Medieval Epic...’ in: E. Birge Vitz, N. Freeman Regalado, and M. Lawrence (eds.) Performing Medieval Narrative. Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer.

  • Lord, A. B. (1960). The Singer of Tales. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  • Middleton, R. (1990). Studying popular music. McGraw-Hill Education (UK).

  • Mithen, S. (2006). The Singing Neanderthals. London: W&N.

  • Nettl, Bruno. (210). The study of ethnomusicology: Thirty-one issues and concepts. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.

  • Ong, W. J. (2013). Orality and Literacy. Oxford: Routledge.

  • Pihel, E. (1996). ‘A Furified Freestyle: Homer and Hip Hop’, Oral Tradition 11/2,

249–269.

  • Potter, J. (2000). The Cambridge Companion to Singing. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press

  • Potter, J. and N. Sorrell (2012). A History of Singing. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

  • Roud, S. (2017). Folk Song in England. London: Faber & Faber.

  • Sullivan, J. (2018). Which Side are You On?: 20th Century American History in 100 Protest Songs. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  • Treitler, L. (2007). With Voice and Pen – Coming to Know Medieval Song and How it was Made. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Williams, K., and J. A. Williams, eds. (2016). The Cambridge companion to the singer-songwriter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University constantly explores ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary. In some instances it may be appropriate for the University to notify and consult with affected students about module changes in accordance with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.