MUSA100-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025

Essentials in Music Techniques

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 17 February 2025
End Date: Sunday, 22 June 2025
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 2 March 2025
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 11 May 2025

Description

This course provides students with skills in musicianship, music theory & creative composition. Students will have a good understanding of chords and chord progressions, melodic patterns and notation systems, and will have acquired skills in sight singing and melodic dictation.

In this course, we will be exploring the elements of music—metre, rhythm, modes, scales, and chords. You will learn how to 'hear' a melody which you see notated, and how to notate a melody you hear. You will also compose and harmonise your own melodies, and learn how to use different chord progressions.
Some students will come into this course having done some music theory in advance, but for others this will be new. The course will enable you to advance your skills from your current level and, most importantly, to continue to develop the connection between what you hear (music) and what you see (notation). The course caters to those with interests in all styles of music—classical, jazz, and popular.

Learning Outcomes

  • Understand fundamentals of music theory and notation (modes, scales, keys, intervals, triads and seventh chords);
  • Read and use musical shorthand (figured bass, lead sheets);
  • Use diatonic chords to harmonise major and minor melodies following the logic of common-practice harmony;
  • Understand phrases and cadences in a common-practice context;
  • Use sol-fa as a tool for developing the inner ear and for sight-singing simple melodies
  • Notate simple melodies played at the piano;
  • Combine the elements of music in a creative composition which students notate in staff notation.
    • University Graduate Attributes

      This course will provide students with an opportunity to develop the Graduate Attributes specified below:

      Critically competent in a core academic discipline of their award

      Students know and can critically evaluate and, where applicable, apply this knowledge to topics/issues within their majoring subject.

Restrictions

MUSI107

Timetable 2025

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 09:00 - 10:00 A6 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Lecture B
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Tuesday 13:00 - 14:00 A6 Lecture Theatre
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Optional A (Optional)
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 14:30 - 17:30 Arts Centre G15 Recital Room
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
Tutorial A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Thursday 09:00 - 10:00 A7
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
02 Thursday 10:00 - 11:00 A7
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun
03 Thursday 11:00 - 12:00 A7
17 Feb - 6 Apr
28 Apr - 1 Jun

Timetable Note

Workload
Student workload (150 hours) will be allocated to:
• 24 hours attending lectures
• 11 hours attending tutorials
• 20 hours completing the Practical Musicianship Tasks
• 20 hours completing the Composition project
• 20 hours preparing for written tests
• 55 hours self-directed study

Course Coordinator

Francis Yapp

Tutor

Courtney Hickmott

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage 
Practical Musicianship Task 1 10%
Practical Musicianship Task 2 10%
Practical Musicianship Task 3 10%
Practical Musicianship Task 4 10%
Written Test 1 15%
Written Test 2 15%
Composition Project 30%


Please check the course LEARN page for further details and updates.

Textbooks / Resources

Recommended Reading

Ralph Turek and Daniel McCarthy; Workbook to Accompany Theory for Today’s Musician, ; 3rd Ed; Routledge, 2019.

Turek, Ralph , McCarthy, Daniel William; Theory for today's musician ; Third edition; Routledge, 2019 (These books can be bought from the University Bookshop; there are also copies in the UC Library. The textbook (not workbook) is available as an eBook from the UC Library).

These books can be bought from the University Bookshop; there are also copies in the UC Library. The textbook (not workbook) is available as an ebook from the UC Library.

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $998.00

International fee $4,850.00

* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.

For further information see Creative and Digital Arts .

All MUSA100 Occurrences

  • MUSA100-25S1 (C) Semester One 2025