UNISA Music in History and Society Course Module 2024-2025

Major combinations:
NQF Level: 5: MHS1501, MHS1502
NQF Level: 6: MHS2602, MHS2604, MHS2615
NQF Level: 7: MHS3701, MHS3702, MHS3703, MHS3704, MHS3705
It is advised that students have regular access to a computer for the above mentioned modules. Students who have completed this module: MHS2601 will be exempted from MHS2614, and for MHS2605 will be exempted from MHS2615.

Jazz Studies – MHS2605
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to develop an understanding of the historical origins of jazz by encouraging them to listen critically to jazz recordings, thereby broadening their knowledge of key elements in jazz performance; and to induce them to consider jazz as a social practice in the twenty-first century in South Africa and globally.

Jazz Studies – MHS2615
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: Qualifying students will be able to explore a range of genres in jazz music history, both local (South African) and international. Furthermore, students will grasp historical and contemporary approaches to the study of jazz from both a South African and an American perspective. Students will also explore the diversity of jazz styles through selected past and present musical works, and literature pertaining to the world of jazz music-making in history and society.

Music in Religion – MHS3701
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 7	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To introduce students to some of the ways in which music is (and has been) used in a variety of religious traditions and enable them to explore and assess those musics with insight.

Opera – MHS3702
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 7	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to explore the world of opera since the early 17th century and gain a critical understanding of musical, literary, gender, social, political and other issues presented in selected operas.

Music and Gender – MHS3703
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 7	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to explore aspects of music and gender throughout history, within various cultures, musical professions and musical life as a whole.

Music in South Africa – MHS3704
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 7	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable student to gain insight into the multi-faceted nature of South African music, especially how this music relates to cultural, political and social attitudes.

Sociology of Music – MHS3705
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 7	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To engage students in a study of selected recent texts on music sociology and enable them to understand the theoretical background to contemporary thinking in the field.

Playing with History: the Early Music Movement and Its Impact on Recent Performing Trends – MUS4801
Honours	NQF level: 8	Credits: 24
Module presented in English	Module presented online
Purpose: This paper deals with an aspect of late twentieth-century and early twenty-first century musical history which has become crucially significant for performers, listeners and indeed the entire ‘art music’ industry as a whole, including the not insignificant recording industry: the unfolding of the early music movement and the effect it’s had on how we perform, listen to and perceive early music. And since the term ‘early music’ – no longer refers to the esoteric music of some bygone age – it is now taken to mean Western music up to and including the early twentieth century (Mahler, Elgar, Ravel, Bartok and so on) – it includes most of the repertoire that almost all performers and music-lovers are familiar with. ‘Early music’ is therefore no longer a specialist category in music. The purview of this paper affects all of us to a substantial degree.

Southern African Encounters in Music – MUS4802
Honours	NQF level: 8	Credits: 24
Module presented in English	Module presented online
Purpose: In this paper, you will be introduced to aspects of music in South Africa, from the point of view of critical theory. You will explore the contributions of major scholars in the field and various schools of thought marking this development extensively. You will also explore themes in southern African music studies by familiarising yourself with the literature and work of scholars in the field. This paper also includes an introduction to key debates in preservation, heritage and issues of public culture and ownership

Music Bibliography – MBY1501
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 5	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to build basic, independent research skills through learning to locate, evaluate and cite source material relevant to the academic study of music. Students will also be guided in the use of such sources in their own written work.

Research Methodologies in Musicology – MUS4803
Honours	NQF level: 8	Credits: 12
Module presented in English	Module presented online
Purpose: One of the chief strategies of this paper will be to help you focus on recent literature dealing with issues of cultural musicology. You will need to demonstrate that you can interpret and contextualize a variety of texts. In particular, we expose you to a wider view of music other than Western art music, including those related to African and Afro-diasporic music. At the same time we look at the practical side of carrying out research, including research methods such as fieldwork, ethnography, interviews, transcription, participant observation, and so on

Introducing Music Studies – MHS1501
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 5	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to understand the broad scope of music studies and some of the important issues in musicology today by thinking about music in new ways, thereby empowering them to explore diverse world of music – making in history and society, past and present, through selected musical works and case studies.

Exploring World Musics – MHS1502
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 5	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to respond intelligently to notions of identity, representation, gender and cultural differences through engagement with a variety of world musics, and to ‘read’ music not specifically in notational terms but for its significance as an intrinsic part of culture and society.

Musical Entrepreneurship – MHS2601
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to gain insight into entrepreneurial possibilities in music, and to understand the basic administrative, organizational, economic and ethical requirements for a professional career in music.

Music and Society – MHS2602
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To introduce students to contemporary thinking on the roles that music plays in society today in a variety of musical cultures and enable them to understand and explore the effects music has had upon society and the effects that society has had upon music.

Music and Patronage – MHS2603
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to understand and analyse the role of patronage as an agent that informs music in a range of cultural contexts.

Music in Vienna from the Late 18th Century – MHS2604
Under Graduate Degree	Semester module	NQF level: 6	Credits: 12
Module presented in English
Purpose: To enable students to explore the multi-faceted musical history of a significant urban environment through engaging with various aspects of music-making including performance, composition, publication, aesthetic theorizing, instrument manufacturing and the rise of concert societies and educational institutions for music.