MUSI20150: Music and Health

The assessment, however, was not as laidback. Having 90% of the marks locked up in essays is daunting, especially when 50% of those are due only a few weeks into the semester. The first assignment was a 2000 word essay on a personal playlist that you create. You give that playlist a context (e.g. cheering you up when you're depressed), and use 150 words per song to justify each song's inclusion, as well as if you thought it created the desired effect. This is a particularly vague task, and the only preparation you're given are the first 3 blogs that you write, which are similar, as well as the lecture material, which gives you the reasoning you need. However feedback on those are never given, so you're mostly in the dark. The introductions and conclusions are not as aimless, as clear points are given on what to write. I found it difficult to justify all 10 songs with a unique reason, as most of them overlap. You also needed a minimum of 6 references, however I ended up using one for each song as well as those in the introduction and conclusion, as it was easier to justify the songs (and increase the word count) by including sources. A common criticism given in the feedback for this assignment was that the references and justifications seemed forced, and I feel like this is a consequence of the need for 10 songs to fill out your playlist.
The second assignment is quite similar, but much more structured and therefore easier to write (especially since you now have feedback from your previous essay, though it is a bit thin). It is worth 40%, and involves a playlist again, but this time only for exercise. You rate each song based on the Brunel Music Rating Inventory-3 (BMRI-3), which determines how useful the song will be for exercise on a scale of 6-42. You then do the exercise and see if the songs were as useful as the BMRI estimated. Since each song only needs 100 words, it is quicker and easier to write, as you are given a clear structure on how to approach each song.
Another point about the assignments is that they are scaled, so most marks end up around the 70-80% range. Since you also compete with those doing music degrees, it can be difficult to get a particularly good score above this range.
The weekly blogs are particularly easy to complete, and you only need to complete them to get the mark for each (I don't think they read them at all). Each takes 5-10 minutes. For the last two, writing down your name on a roll at the start of the lecture will get you the mark (you don't have to actually do anything), and I recommend this over the song-writing that I had to do for being absent from the lectures, which can be painful (my lyrics were probably the most embarrassing things I'll ever write). Since these 10 marks are effectively guaranteed as long as you keep up, it does mitigate the scaling of the major assessments a little bit.

I'll have to be upfront about this and say that I mainly picked this subject since it looked light, with only one lecture a week, few assessments, and no exam. I'm also not a music student, and I'd imagine that those taking this subject as part of their music degree will have a much different impression. This subject is certainly very light on material, with only a few lectures relevant to the assignments and the rest mostly material for your own personal interest. The lectures however, when they worked, were engaging, and certainly different (in a good way) from the standard dry science lecture. The assessments didn’t take up too much time either, but the fact that there is scaling on this subject makes it difficult to get a good score.

Ultimately this is a subject which is perfect for those with an interest in music, and is good for those looking for a subject which needs almost no time commitment. The scaling however makes this a subject that is not easy to do well in, so your essay and research skills need to be competitive to be able to get a higher mark. The lectures themselves vary between interesting and terminology-filled dullness, though thankfully it’s mostly the former.
This subject is a unique experience for science/biomeds like me since you don’t really have to know anything. You just need to show up, listen and be engaged, with none of the stress that comes with the average fact-filled science lecture, making it quite refreshing. If you just want a quick and easy H1 breadth, this probably isn’t the best choice. But if you're fed up with cramming an endless stream of bones of the upper limb, and have an interest in music in general, this subject is definitely recommended as long as you don't care too much about your marks.

Yes, without screen capture.

Katrina McFerran, Cherry Hense, Imogen Clark, Sandra Garrido, Jason Kenner.

Each lecture begins with one of the lecturers leading the group of around 300 in singing a song. Yes it is slightly awkward, and yes it all seems a bit dumb, but everyone else has to do it too, and its actually a decent way to relax and take your mind off things. You sing one song for a few weeks at a time (for example, the first song was by the aboriginal band Tiddas), and you can sit up the back and do nothing if you want, so its ultimately harmless.
The lecturers mix around, with one taking the first half, and the other with the second half. All of the lectures are practitioners of music therapy, and are clearly passionate and motivated to teach their work (especially Kat). The first lecture delved into a highly psychological and completely confusing dissection of what it means to be healthy, and it never cropped up again. The high points of the subject are when they start to talk about more logical associations, such as the links between Music and Love or Violence, and the properties of the music which cause them to influence the individual. Following are various lectures on music and relationships, joy, identities, exercise, relaxation and peace, all of which had a nice blend of biological reasoning and social sciences. However the lectures did sometimes drag on, and the two hours sometimes took forever to finish. I think they knew this, since they made efforts to mix it up with activities (making up stereotypes for genres of music), and movies/anecdotes which demonstrated the applications of what we were learning to music therapy.
To sum up the lectures then, they were interesting and engaging, but often felt pointless due to their irrelevance to the assessments and their length did start to drag on after a while. The lack of lectopia capture is also strange, since the lecture slides are given out after the lecture. This is more an annoyance than anything, but it'd definitely be better if the capture was included (previous years seemed to have it, so this may not apply).

3.5 Out of 5

Levitin, D.J. The world in six songs: How the musical brain created human nature. London: Dutton Publishers, 2008.
I never used this book, as there was a wide range of readings given by the lecturers which covered lecture material and was free to access.

1x 2 hour lecture per week.

2014, Semester 2

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