MUS8031 - Collaborative Music Making
- Offered for Year: 2025/26
- Module Leader(s): Dr Bennett Hogg
- Owning School: The School of Arts and Cultures
- Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
- Capacity limit: 100
Semesters
Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.
| Semester 2 Credit Value: | 40 |
| Total Credits: | 40.0 |
Aims
Collaborative Music Making teaches students how to creatively collaborate in small groups to devise, rehearse and ultimately make a public presentation of a substantial project. This may be a live performance, a produced recording, or video presentation, depending on the nature of the project. Students gain insight into group creativity, and how to work with the demands of group music making, and to adopt appropriate roles within the project. Learning to sculpt the group sound by paying attention to timing, balance, interpretation and creative decision making is an essential set of skills that the module develops.
In short, the aim of this module is to provide students with the experience of bringing to public presentation an ambitious musical project and to be a member or take a lead role within the group.
Outline Of Syllabus
Collaborative Music Making is an essential aspect of music. The module brings students together to work collaboratively with one another on a project that they devise and develop as a group. The precise groupings and project ideas are developed in collaboration with the students each year.
Choices and decision about each year's projects are informed by students' semester 1 achievements, and their emergent interests in terms of repertoire, praxis, and skill. In some cases, this may be a project where one musician accompanies another, in others where composers and performers collaborate on a joint new musical project, or where a group of musicians decide to form a band. The emphasis is on making music together, learning to collaborate, sometimes to lead, and discovering the complex social and creative processes through which humans make music. Students also attend the series of free lunchtime concerts in King's Hall every week to get a broad perspective on professional levels of creativity, technical skill, interpretation, and presentation.
The areas of musicianship and collaborative working covered on this module may include:
- accompaniment roles
- arranging
- composers working together with performers
- group rehearsal and leadership skills
- developing appropriate technical skills for the group context
- collective interpretation
- effective and professional presentation of work
- observation of professional musicians in concert across a wide range of style and genres
Teaching Methods
Teaching Activities
| Category | Activity | Number | Length | Student Hours | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities | Workshops | 11 | 3:00 | 33:00 | Weekly workshops led by staff |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities | Fieldwork | 11 | 1:00 | 11:00 | Attendance at weekly King's Hall Concerts |
| Scheduled Learning and Teaching activities | Project-related supervision | 6 | 1:00 | 6:00 | For performance students this would consist of one-to-one instrumental or vocal lessons |
| Guided independent study | Project work | 12 | 4:00 | 48:00 | Activities connected with developing work directly related to the workshops |
| Guided independent study | Student-led group activity | 20 | 4:00 | 80:00 | Collaborative projects, devising creative project, and rehearsal (includes work over Easter Vac) |
| Guided independent study | Skills practice | 16 | 12:00 | 192:00 | Independent work on musical technique (includes work over Easter Vac) |
| Guided independent study | Assessment preparation | 5 | 6:00 | 30:00 | Rehearsing, recording, organising events, etc. connected to the eventual public dissemination of the project(s) |
| Total | 400:00 | ||||
Teaching Rationale And Relationship
- Workshops incorporate performing, composing, and critical listening to try out possible collaborative ideas. Each week project work is set that gradually encourages students to develop and stretch themselves. Workshop exercises initiate and cultivate collaborative skills, give a forum in which to try out ideas, receive peer feedback, and build confidence [K1, K2, K4, S1].
- Project work is set each week to consolidate skills learned in workshops, and also to develop confidence and creativity [K2, K4, S1, S2].
- Student-led group activity gives students greater freedom to bring their own ideas to the collaboration, and to develop more creative independence [K1, K2, K4, S1, S2].
- Project-related supervision for performance strand students consists in one-to-one lessons with instrumental or vocal teacher. For composition students this is one-to-one tutorials with the composition supervisor [K2, K3].
- Fieldwork consists of attending weekly free lunchtime concerts in King's Hall, this exposes students to a range of different musics and their attendant performance and presentation standards, as well as expanding knowledge of repertoires and ways in which musicians creatively develop their music and curate its public presentation [K3, K4, S3].
- Skills practice covers the ongoing practice with voice or instrument for performance strand students, or regular compositional/improvisational activities for composition strand students, as well as strategizing input to the project work and student-led group activity according to individual capabilities and creative needs [K2, K3, S2, S3].
- Assessment preparation consists of focussed rehearsals and/or recording, score publishing, setting up sound installations, building web presence, etc. for the public dissemination of the results of the collaborations [K2, K3, S1, S2, S3].
Assessment Methods
The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners
Other Assessments:
| Description | Semester | When Set | % | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Creative project | 2 | A | 80% | This may be a substantial portfolio of work and/or live performance of up to 45 minutes, depending upon the form of the final collaboration to be agreed in advance with module leader. |
| Report | 2 | A | 20% | An account of the collaborative process with self-reflection on the individual role played by the student (1,500-2,000 words). |
Assessment Rationale And Relationship
Assessment 1: Creative Project (80%)
The design or creative project showcases the creative results of the collaboration. Students negotiate the specific parameters of their performance with the tutor. The task specific assessment criteria are as follows:
1. Quality and professionalism of the final presentation, be that some form of recorded musical work (an album, for example) or a live performance (K1; K3; S1).
2. The effectiveness of the arrangement, composition, and/or production values of the project appropriate to the genre (K3; K4).
3. Musical coherence of the live performance and/or recording in terms of intonation, timing, dynamic balance, etc. (K3; S4).
Assessment 2: Report (20%)
The critical reflection report allows students to discuss their role in the process, the challenges confronted and their resolution, as well as giving conceptual insight into the artwork or performance that was created. It is assessed against the following task assessment criteria.
1. Critical reflection of the process of collaborative group work, its challenges and their resolution (K1; K4).
2. A convincing account of the creative role that the student has played in the project (K2; S2; S3).
3. Conceptual or other aspects of the project not immediately communicated by "the music itself" (S4).
Timetable
- Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/