MUSI2751: Philosophy, Music and Improvisation

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• This module explores the relation between music and philosophy, considering the philosophical issues to which music gives rise, how music may illuminate some of those issues, and how philosophy may illuminate the understanding of music.

• Half of the module consists of a content-oriented (jazz) course with a particular focus on the aesthetics of improvisation, and the relation of art and entertainment. Through consideration of key topics in jazz history, these lectures raise questions about the aesthetics of musical performance, improvisation and listening, the relation of art and entertainment, and the important category of "artist-entertainers". These questions require us to step back and think about the meanings of the most basic assumptions and concepts in music and music-making.
• The other lectures take up the form and substance of these questions and others like them known as second-order questions. These are philosophical questions in aesthetics, epistemology and metaphysics in relation to music, musical works and musical performances.
• Improvisation strongly informs the jazz lectures and is reflected in other lectures in connection with (among other things) the identity of the musical work, the relationship between work, score and performance, and the phenomenology of the experience of listening to music.
• The module addresses philosophical questions concerning music and our experience of it, including music as an art and as entertainment. These questions raised include (a) the nature of music; (b) the concept of musical works and performances, notably composition v. improvisation; (c) musical experience. In undertaking the above, we consider the views of contemporary philosophers of music, who may include such figures as Roger Scruton, Jerrold Levinson, Stephen Davies and Lydia Goehr, with reference also to major historical philosophers, who may include Kant, Nietzsche, Hanslick and/or Adorno.

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of the module students will have gained a familiarity with a range of characteristic philosophical enquiries, and be able to understand their bearing upon the nature of music and musical experience. They will correspondingly be able to assess the capacity of music to illuminate philosophical enquiry.

Subject-specific Skills:

• The module will develop students capacities for critical reflection and for reasoning through valid argumentation, and their ability to recognise and, where appropriate, challenge the foundational premisses upon which arguments are grounded.

Key Skills:

• The development of a range of appropriate analytical and reasearch skills together with the ability to articulate ideas in writing, whether in precis or essay form. Students will also be expected to develop presentational skills by working in groups for tutorials.

• Whole group lecture/seminars, both including class discussion to ensure the active participation of students.
• Directed reading.
• The assessments address creative, practical, and critical modes of engagement, leading students to develop original research questions, and honing their capacity for logical argument and written eloquence.

In preparation of summative assignments, students will be asked to prepare a short written outline of their essay and bibliography.

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