Module Code - Title:
MD6152
-
FRAMING IRISH MUSIC: SOURCES AND DISCOURSES 2
Year Last Offered:
2025/6
Hours Per Week:
Grading Type:
Prerequisite Modules:
Rationale and Purpose of the Module:
The purpose of this module is to explore the printed, manuscript, and audio-visual sources of Irish Music, and to examine the main discourses around this music over the past three centuries. This module is one of six offered by the Irish World Academy as part of a joint PhD in The Anthropology of Irish Music coordinated with the Keough Naughton Institute of Irish Studies, University of Notre Dame.
Syllabus:
Students will engage with a systematic examination and analysis of printed, manuscript, and audio-visual sources of Irish Music (including Dance), as well as an investigation of the central discourses surrounding the music in order to develop individualised theoretical and inter-disciplinary frameworks drawing on sources relevant to their specific research area.
Learning Outcomes:
Cognitive (Knowledge, Understanding, Application, Analysis, Evaluation, Synthesis)
Selecting key sources, categorise these (printed, manuscript, audio-visual) with regard to their social surround, their various motivations, and their cultural impact. Differentiate these key sources from each other within clearly defined categories.
Selecting key sources, examine the repertoire contained within each source with respect to its uniqueness, its relation to other sources, and its relative importance in the transmission of music culture. Contrast each key source with the other key sources to clearly demonstrate the essential nature of each source.
Selecting key sources, evaluate the influence and impact these sources have had on the living contemporary oral-tradition in terms of transmission, continuity, and innovation. Quote specific examples of the cultural impact of these sources from prints and manuscripts, through audio-visual archive holdings, through commercial recordings, and on into the contemporary living tradition.
Affective (Attitudes and Values)
Selecting key sources, develop an awareness of the various perceptions that can be brought to bear on any of these sources. Identify specific examples of such perceptions and demonstrate their cultural influence.
Learn how to challenge inappropriate perceptions of the nature of selected key sources, and present cases of how such perceptions have lead to mythologizing the nature of a tradition.
Psychomotor (Physical Skills)
Actively engage in the performance of repertoire from selected key sources sources with a view to generating critical discussion and analysis around the various interpretations of these sources. Perform a lecture-recital on one of these sources clearly demonstrating both the academic rationale and the musical intuition behind the source material itself.
How the Module will be Taught and what will be the Learning Experiences of the Students:
The module is taught through a direct examination of the primary sources, through the performance of the repertoire from these sources, and through discussion generated by a clear first-hand knowledge of the material allied to the insights provided by music cognition through both individual and collective performance activities.
The newly emerging academic literature on arts practice research is central to this teaching approach.
Research Findings Incorporated in to the Syllabus (If Relevant):
Prime Texts:
John and William Neal (1724)
The Most Celebrated Irish Tunes Proper for the Violin, German Flute, Hautboy
, Dublin
Burk Thumoth (1742)
Tqwelve Scotch and Twelve Irish Airs set for the German Flute, Violin or Harpsichord
, London
Burk Thumoth (1743)
Twelve English and Twelve Irish Airs set fr the German Flute, Violin or harpsichord
, London
O'Farrell (1806)
O'Farrell's Pocket Companion for the Union Pipes
Vols 1 and 2
, London: Goulding and Company
P.W. Joyce (1873)
Ancient Irish Music: One Hundred Airs hitherto Unpublished, Many of the Old Popular Songs and Several New Songs
, Dublin: McGlashan and Gill
Aloys Fleischmann, Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin, Paul McGettirck, eds. (1998)
Sources of Irish Traditional Music, Volumes 1 and 2
, New York and London: Garland Press
Other Relevant Texts:
Thierry Dubost and Alexandra Slaby, eds. (2013)
Music and the Irish Imagination
, Université De Caen Bass-Normandie
Mary Louise O'Donnell (2014)
Ireland's Harp: The Shaping of Irish Identity 1770 - 1889
, UCD Press
Catherine E. Foley (2013)
Step Dancing in Ireland: Culture and History
, Ashgate Publishing
Programme(s) in which this Module is Offered:
Semester(s) Module is Offered:
Spring
Module Leader:
sandra.joyce@ul.ie