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Historical Musicology. The links between A-Level and Degree Level Music. Aims/Objectives. To discuss what the main differences are between the Historical Musicology course and Music at A-Level. My background. Layout of the Historical Musicology course. Assessment.
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Historical Musicology The links between A-Level and Degree Level Music
Aims/Objectives • To discuss what the main differences are between the Historical Musicology course and Music at A-Level. • My background. • Layout of the Historical Musicology course. • Assessment. • How teachers might help students transition to a music degree.
Dr Simon D. I. Fleming • I teach part-time in the Music Department of Durham University on the Historical Musicology course. • Specialist field: music production in eighteenth-century Britain, with a primary focus on the north of England. • Doctoral thesis: music production in eighteenth-century Durham City.
Dr Simon D. I. Fleming • Over ten years of experience of teaching music in schools and have taught the AQA, Edexcel and OCR courses in Music at A-Level. • Teach part-time at the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington; responsible for AS and A2 Music. • I currently teach the OCR syllabus at AS and A2.
Layout of the Historical Musicology course • Students have a weekly lecture which focuses on a particular area of music history. • In 2013/14 first year students have studied the 19th-century but will be studying the 18th-century from next year. • Example lectures for this past year include: • Beethoven and monumentalism – Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’ and Symphony No. 7 • Italian opera and the establishment of a virtuoso vocal art form – Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Verdi and the Risorgimento • England and the choral tradition
Research-informed teaching • At university, it is encouraged that teaching is ‘research-informed’. • Research-informed teaching refers to the practice of linking research with teaching in Higher Education. • Professor Dibble, as an acknowledged expert on 19th-century British music, has used his research to deliver the lectures on Stainer, Parry, etc.. • For the concerto grosso, I draw upon my research on Avison. • In secondary school there is little opportunity for ‘research-informed’ teaching outside KS3 although many teachers choose a topic with which they have the greatest affinity when delivering the A-level course.
Seminars • Each seminar group consists of five or six students. • In each fortnightly session one work or movement is studied in depth. • There will be discussion about: • The composer and his compositional output. • Background to the work itself that places it in the wider context of what else was being composed at around the same time. • An analysis of the structure, tonality, harmony, melodic material, instrumentation, texture and any other features of interest. • Who or what were the main influences in the compositional process.
Essays • Essays are marked on a scale of 0-100. • Unlike at A-Level, students at degree level should aim to produce a publishable piece of work that includes musical examples, bibliography and footnotes, with their own analysis supported by extensive background reading and quotations from scholarly sources. • They do not get multiple attempts at their assignments. Students are welcome to ask questions before they submit their ‘summative’ assignments, but once marked there is no option to resubmit. • To compensate, students get two formative assignments each year which are designed to help prepare them for their summative essays. They get detailed feedback with their mark to help them improve; many also arrange tutorials to discuss their feedback. • Unlike A-level, students are not expected to memorise their essays for reproduction in an exam; as such this is more like mainstream musicology.
Essays • Example: Write an essay about cyclic form during the first half of the Nineteenth Century with reference to the fantasy, the sonata and structural compression. • Students tended to choose, for the sonata, Liszt’s piano sonata in B minor as this had already been studied in a seminar. • Hints had been given as to the importance of Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy but this work had not been studied in any depth; students were expected to do the background reading and analysis for themselves.
Oral Presentations • Students need to give a ten-minute summative oral presentation to their seminar group. • Given a task in relation to a set work that they need to prepare for and deliver. • A: How does Mendelssohn’s admiration of the music of Bach and Handel manifest itself in his life and in his choice of musical genres? B: Regarding Elijah, choose three contrasting movements and guide the tutorial group through them, showing how the music both evokes, and diverges from Baroque templates.
Oral Presentations • Students are expected to: • Prepare a hand out or a PowerPoint presentation. • Provide a bibliography and make reference to scholarly literature in their discussion. • Include music examples both in audio and in score.
An extension or a large leap? • What is taught at degree is, in many respects, an extension of what is taught at A-level. • In assessment, there is larger gap between what is expected at A-Level and at degree level.
What might we as teachers do to facilitate the transition from A-level music to degree level? • Encourage students, as they study their set works, to do the analysis for themselves using the appropriate musical vocabulary. • Encourage students to speak out in classroom discussions. • Encourage students to use Sibelius (or other computer-based notation software) • Use scaffolding theory and threshold concepts. • Utilise scores in your discussions and encourage students to annotate them. • Choose classical-based set works. • Encourage students to do background reading on the works they are studying and listen to other related pieces of music.
