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Musical Thought and Scholarship

Music and Politics

Paul Harper-Scott’s 2012 book The Quilting Points of Musical Modernism explicitly addresses the politics of musicological categorizations and the ideological frame of musicology as a discipline. Is musicology always political?                                                       [past paper question, 2013]

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  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Harper-Scott, J.P.E., Ideology in Britten’s Operas (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018), especially chapter 1—click here to access

    • Maus, Fred, ‘What Was Critical Musicology?’, Radical Musicology, 5 (2011)—click here to access

  2. Possible examples...

    • Agawu, Kofi, ‘'Tonality as a Colonizing Force in Africa’’, in Audible Empire: Music, Global Politics, Critique, ed. by Ronald Michael Radano and Tejumola Olaniyan (Durham: Duke University Press, 2016), pp. 334– 55—click here to access

    • Born, Georgina, ‘Women, Music, Politics, Difference: Susan McClary’s “Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality”’, Women: A Cultural Review, 3.1 (1991), 79–86—click here to access

    • Bull, Anna, ‘El Sistema as a Bourgeois Social Project: Class, Gender, and Victorian Values’, Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education, 15.1 (2016)—click here to access

    • Garratt, James, Music and Politics: a Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 37-64 especially chapter 2—click here to access

    • Potter, Pamela, ‘Musicology under Hitler: New Sources in Context’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 49.1 (1996), 70-113—click here to access

Music and Video Games

For revision game, click on the joystick!

Arcade Game Joystick

On what basis can the links between music, environment, and landscape be asserted? What might be gained from these strategies?

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • ​Cheng, William, ‘Role-Playing toward a Virtual Musical Democracy in “The Lord of the Rings Online”’, Ethnomusicology, 56.1 (2012), 31–62—for access, click here

    • Gibbons, William, Unlimited Replays: Video Games and Classical Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), pp.1-35—for access, click here

    • Summers, Tim, Understanding Video Game Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp.1-10—for access, click here

  2. Further reading (optional, but perhaps pick one or two chapters?)

    • ​The Cambridge Companion to Video Game Music, ed. Melanie Fritsch and Tim Summers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021)—for access, click here

Music and the 'Spatial Turn'

What was the ‘spatial turn’, and how has it mattered to musicology? Provide a brief scholarly survey and some musical examples of your own.​

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Cook, Nicholas, ‘Classical Music and the Politics of Space’, in Music, Sound and Space: Transformations of Public and Private Experience, ed. by Georgina Born (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 224–38—click here to access

    • Eisenberg, Andrew J., ‘Space’, in Keywords in Sound, ed. by David Novak and Matt Sakakeeny (Duke University Press, 2015), pp. 193–207—click here to access

  2. Possible examples

    • Bonds, Mark Evan, ‘The Spatial Representation of Musical Form’, The Journal of Musicology, 27.3 (2010), 265–303—click here to access

    • Dillon, Emma, The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260-1330 (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), prologue—click here to access

    • Grimley, Daniel M., Delius and the Sound of Place (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), chapter 1—click here to access

  3. Wider context

    • Massey, Doreen, Space, Place, and Gender (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), esp. 249-272—click here to access

    • Warf, Barney and Santa Arias, The Spatial Turn: Interdisciplinary Perspectives (London, 2009).—only physical access, but potentially very useful!

    • Withers, Charles W. J. ‘Place and the “Spatial Turn” in Geography and in History’, Journal of the History of Ideas 70.4 (October 2009), 637– 58—click here to access

Music and Epistemology

What epistemological challenges does music pose as a medium, and how can our choice of epistemology be political?

  1. General reading (recommended)...

    • Cook, Nicholas, ‘Epistemologies of Music Theory’, in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. by Thomas Street Christensen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 78–106—click here to access

    • Kramer, Lawrence, The Thought of Music (Oakland: University of California Press, 2016), especially chapter 1 (‘Music and Forms of Thought’)—click here to access

    • Cross, Ian, and Elizabeth Tolbert, ‘Epistemologies’, in The Oxford Handbook of Western Music and Philosophy, ed. by Tomas McAuley, Nanette Nielsen, Jerrold Levinson, and Ariana Phillips-Hutton (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press USA, 2020)—click here to access

  2. The politics of epistemology

    • Fourie, William, ‘Musicology and Decolonial Analysis in the Age of Brexit’, Twentieth-Century Music, 17.2 (2020), 197–211—click here to access

    • Harper-Scott, J.P.E., ‘How We Got Out of Music History, and How We Can Get Back into It’, in Theories of History: History Read across the Humanities, ed. by Michael J. Kelly and Arthur Rose (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 37– 60—click here to access. N.b. this is hard going in places! Don’t worry too much about the Badiou material - instead focus on pp.37-43.

    • Morrison, Matthew, ‘Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 72.3 (2019), 781–823—click here to access

Music and Affect

Over the past two decades, various scholars have noticed an ‘affective turn’ across a range of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. What is this ‘affective
turn’, and how has it mattered to musical thought and scholarship?            [past paper question]

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  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Abbate, Carolyn, ‘Music—Drastic or Gnostic?’, Critical Inquiry, 30.3 (2004), 505–36—click here to access

    • Smith, Rachel Greenwald, ‘Postmodernism and the Affective Turn’, Twentieth Century Literature, 57.3/4 (2011), 423–46—click here to access

  2. Possible examples

    • Cox, Arnie, Music and Embodied Cognition: Listening, Moving, Feeling, and Thinking (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2016), chapter 8—click here to access

    • Leech-Wilkinson, Daniel, ‘The Emotional Power of Musical Performance’, in The Emotional Power of Music: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Musical Arousal, Expression, and Social Control, ed. by Tom Cochrane, Bernardino Fantini, and Klaus R. Scherer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)—click here to access

    • Stras, Laurie, ‘The Organ of the Soul: Voice, Damage, and Affect’, in Sounding Off: Theorizing Disability in Music, ed. by N. Lerner and J. N. Straus (London: Routledge, 2006), pp. 173–84—only physical access, but worth a read!

    • Wallrup, Erik, Being Musically Attuned: The Act of Listening to Music (Farnham: Ashgate, 2015), especially pp.1-12—only physical access, but well worth it!

Music and Ecocriticism

On what basis can the links between music, environment, and landscape be asserted? What might be gained from these strategies?

  • Allen, Aaron S., Daniel M. Grimley, Denise Von Glahn, Holly Watkins, and Alexander Rehding, ‘Colloquy: Ecomusicology’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 64.2 (2011), 391–424—click here to access

  • Dillon, Emma, The Sense of Sound: Musical Meaning in France, 1260-1330 (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), esp. prologue— click here to access

  • Grimley, Daniel M., Grieg: Music, Landscape and Norwegian Identity (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2006), esp. chapter 2. Click here to access

Film Music

Discuss the importance of leitmotif and representation to film music. Ensure that you discuss at least one musical example in depth.

  1. ​General reading (recommended)

    • Heldt, Guido, ‘Film-Music Theory’, in The Cambridge Companion to Film Music, ed. by Fiona Ford and Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 97–113. For access, click here.

  2. Possible examples

    • Baumgartner, Michael, ‘Jean-Luc Godard’s “Prénom: Carmen” (1983): Beethoven and the Concept of Two Sounds’, Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, 15.1 (2021), 3–35. For access, click here.

    • Christiansen, Paul, ‘“And That’s Why You Always Leave a Note!”: Music as Comedic Element in the First Season of the Television Show Arrested Development’, Music and the Moving Image, 11.1 (2018), 19–34. For access, click here.

    • Finocchiaro, Francesco, ‘Operatic Works in Silent Cinema: Toward a Translational Theory of Film Adaptations’, Music and the Moving Image, 13.3 (2020), 49–71. For access, click here.

    • Link, Stan, ‘Horror and Science Fiction’, in The Cambridge Companion to Film Music, ed. by Fiona Ford and Mervyn Cooke (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 200–215. For access, click here.

    • Rahn, Steven, ‘Motivic Transformation in the “Dark Knight” Trilogy’, Music and the Moving Image, 12.2 (2019), 40–60. For access, click here.

    • Rone, Vincent, ‘Scoring the Familiar and Unfamiliar in Howard Shore’s “The Lord of the Rings”’, Music and the Moving Image, 11.2 (2018), 37–66. For access, click here.

Music and Gender

On what basis can the gendering of musical materials and practices be asserted? What is

gained from such gendering?            [2015 question]

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • McClary, ‘Narrative Agendas in “Absolute” Music: Identity and Difference in Brahms’s Third Symphony’, in Reading Music: Selected Essays, ed. by Susan McClary (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016)—to find, click here.

  2. Further reading (optional)

    • Born, Georgina, ‘Women, Music, Politics, Difference: Susan McClary’s “Feminine Endings: Music, Gender and Sexuality”’, Women: A Cultural Review, 3.1 (2991), 79–86—for access, click here

    • Citron, Marcia J., ‘Gender, Professionalism and the Musical Canon’, The Journal of Musicology, 8.1 (1990), 102–17—for access, click here

    • Tunbridge, Laura, ‘Scarlett Johansson’s Body and the Materialization of Voice’, Twentieth-Century Music, 13.1 (2016), 139–52—for access, click here

Music and the Body

Should musicology primarily address the mind or the body, and how might that choice be political? Ensure that you discuss at least one musical example in depth.

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Abbate, Carolyn, ‘Music—Drastic or Gnostic?’, Critical Inquiry, 30.3 (2004), 505–36—for access, click here

  2. Some possible examples...

    • Berger, Karol, ‘Musicology According to Don Giovanni, or: Should We Get Drastic?’, The Journal of Musicology, 22.3 (2005), 490–501—for access, click here

    • Cusick, Suzanne G., ‘Feminist Theory, Music Theory, and the Mind/Body Problem’, Perspectives of New Music, 32.1 (1994), 8–27—for access, click here

    • Harper-Scott, J.P.E., ‘How We Got Out of Music History, and How We Can Get Back into It’, in Theories of History: History Read across the Humanities, ed. by Michael J. Kelly and Arthur Rose (London: Bloomsbury, 2018), pp. 37– 60. Focus on pp.37-41 if you opt for this reading—for access, click here

    • Morrison, Matthew, ‘Race, Blacksound, and the (Re)Making of Musicological Discourse’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, 72.3 (2019), 781–823—for access, click here

Music and Death

Explain the importance of recording, aesthetics, and music analysis for understanding death in music. Your answer should summarise some important scholarly literature, and it should draw upon a specific case study in depth.

           

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • ​Stanyek, Jason, and Benjamin Piekut. “Deadness: Technologies of the Intermundane.” TDR: The Drama Review, vol. 54, no. 1, 2010, pp. 14–38.

    • Cenciarelli, Carlo. “The Limits of Operatic Deadness.” Cambridge Opera Journal, vol. 28, 2016, pp. 221–26.

    • Grimley, Daniel M. “Storms, Symphonies, Silence: Sibelius’s ‘Tempest’ Music and the Invention of Late Style.” Jean Sibelius and His World, edited by Daniel M. Grimley, Princeton University Press, 2011, pp. 186–226.

  2. ​Possible examples​:

    • Tunbridge, Laura. “On Sharing.” Anuario Musical, vol. 74, 2019, pp. 11–18, especially p. 15. If you want to use Mendelssohn's Octet Op. 20 as a case study, you may also wish to read Taylor, Benedict. Mendelssohn, Time and Memory: The Romantic Conception of Cyclic Form. Cambridge University Press, 2011, ch. 2, to support Tunbridge's example of the piece's recording with music-analytical observations.

Flat Ontologies

What are the benefits and limitations of pursuing a 'flat ontology' in musicology?

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Fink, Robert. “Going Flat: Post-Hierarchical Music Theory and the Musical Surface.” Rethinking Music, edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 102–37.

    • Ash, James. “Flat Ontology and Geography.” Dialogues in Human Geography, vol. 10, no. 3, 2020, pp. 345–61.

    • Rehding, Alexander. “Music Theory’s Other Nature: Reflections on Gaia, Humans, and Music in the Anthropocene.” 19th-Century Music, vol. 45, no. 1, 2021, pp. 7–22.

Music and Authorship

Explain how notions of intertextuality may challenge stable understandings of musical authorship.

           

  1. General reading (recommended)

    • Barthes, Roland. “The Death of the Author.” In Image, Music, Text: Essays Selected and Translated by Stephen Heath, 142–48. London, 1977. For access, click here.

    • Allen, Graham. Intertextuality. London ; New York: Routledge, 2000, especially chapter 2 (‘The Text Unbound: Barthes’)

    • Korsyn, Kevin. "Beyond Privileged Contexts: Intertextuality, Influence, and Dialogue", edited by Nicholas Cook and Mark Everist, Oxford University Press, 1999, pp.55-72.

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