MUS10210 Musicianship

Academic Year 2024/2025

This module is intended to prepare students for Music Theory 1 in the spring trimester by focusing intensively on the basics of music theory and literacy in order to consolidate existing knowledge and fill lacunae. A short music theory examination will be available to students during the first week of teaching. If you achieve less than 80% in this exam, you should take Musicianship. If you achieve a higher grade you can proceed directly to Music Theory 1 in the spring trimester.

Over the trimester students will work intensively in lectures and tutorials on the notation of pitch and rhythm, rhythmic duration and rests, simple and compound meters, treble, bass and C clefs, major and minor scales and key signatures, circle of fifths, relative and parallel keys, simple and compound intervals and the inversion of intervals, quality of intervals, consonance and dissonance, triads and seventh chord construction, Roman numeral identification of chords and transposition. Students will be expected to achieve fluency and agility in handling this material.

The module will also include a basic focus on melody, harmony, counterpoint, rhythm and timbre as fundamental elements of music. These elements will be elucidated through an introduction to score reading.

In weekly tutorials students will have the opportunity to develop their music literacy skills in small groups where attention will also be devoted to the development of aural and sight-reading skills.