| Unit name | Music and Television |
|---|---|
| Unit code | MUSI29004 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Heldt |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Music |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
While film music research has been a one of the boom areas of musicology for the last generation, the television music has received scant attention. But TV is second only to radio as a medium for the dissemination and contextualisation of music in the 20th and 21st centuries, and a closer look is long overdue. The challenge of music and television as a topic is that literature is scarce, and so the unit will be not just an opportunity to come into contact with cutting-edge research, but will actually require students to do some of that research themselves, and to develop methods to approach the many potential questions, e.g.: What is the importance of sound in television in comparison to film, and how does that affect the role music plays in different types of programmes? What are the problems and the structural possibilities of writing music for a TV series, compared to music for a film? How, and to what effect, is music used in news and other fact-based programmes? How does TV present an art-music form such as opera? And what about all those operas commissioned by television? What did and do phenomena like MTV and casting or talent shows mean for pop music? What role does music play in advertising, and how is music promoted by TV?
