Music as Noise: Making Sound Art (MUSI40094)
HonoursPoints: 12.5On Campus (Southbank)
Overview
| Availability | Semester 1 |
|---|---|
| Fees | Look up fees |
The notion of noise as potential music has been an enduring preoccupation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Various contexts for noise-based music include performance works, recordings, installation artworks/sound sculpture, radiophonic works and online.
This subject looks at noise art’s development from the Futurists through to Cage’s and Oliveros’s experimentalism, to contemporary postmodern sound art and into the current post-postmodern era. Students will learn how to create a short sound art work in a style of their choosing, and to contextualise their creative approach within the genre’s history.
Intended learning outcomes
On completion of this subject, students should be able to:
- understand and critically evaluate to a sophisticated level the history and aesthetics of the phenomenon of noise-as-music;
- demonstrate basic skills in sound art creation;
- articulate and situate their creative endeavours in this area;
- demonstrate the ability to evaluate and criticise the different ways in which people write about noise as music.
Generic skills
On completion of this subject students should possess:
- a capacity to make critical, informed and sophisticated responses to new musical ideas, methodologies and theoretical frameworks
- the ability to engage with new ideas and respond to them in a thoughtful, critical and personal way, in both written and creative platforms
- the ability to communicate effectively
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Eligibility and requirements
Prerequisites
None
Corequisites
None
Non-allowed subjects
None
Inherent requirements (core participation requirements)
The University of Melbourne is committed to providing students with reasonable adjustments to assessment and participation under the Disability Standards for Education (2005), and the Assessment and Results Policy (MPF1326). Students are expected to meet the core participation requirements for their course. These can be viewed under Entry and Participation Requirements for the course outlines in the Handbook.
Further details on how to seek academic adjustments can be found on the Student Equity and Disability Support website: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/student-equity/home
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Assessment
| Description | Timing | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
A short creative recording project
| During the assessment period | 30% |
A piece of written work reflecting on the student's creative project
| During the assessment period | 40% |
3 short written projects (3 x 10% each)
| From Week 4 to Week 12 | 30% |
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Dates & times
- Semester 1
Coordinator Linda Kouvaras Mode of delivery On Campus (Southbank) Contact hours 24 hours, comprising one 1-hour seminar plus one 1-hour tutorial per week. Total time commitment 170 hours Teaching period 3 March 2025 to 1 June 2025 Last self-enrol date 14 March 2025 Census date 31 March 2025 Last date to withdraw without fail 9 May 2025 Assessment period ends 27 June 2025 Semester 1 contact information
Linda Kouvaras: lindaik@unimelb.edu.au
What do these dates mean
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- Your tuition fees, academic transcript and statements.
- And for Commonwealth Supported students, your:
- Student Learning Entitlement. This applies to all students enrolled in a Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP).
Subjects withdrawn after the census date (including up to the ‘last day to withdraw without fail’) count toward the Student Learning Entitlement.
Last updated: 4 March 2025
Further information
- Texts
- Related Handbook entries
This subject contributes to the following:
Type Name Course Graduate Diploma in Music Informal specialisation Composition Informal specialisation Musicology/Ethnomusicology Informal specialisation Performance
Last updated: 4 March 2025