Competences developed in the course

General Competences

CG3: Produce and correctly interpret the graphic notation of musical texts.

CG4: Recognise musical materials through auditory skills and apply this ability in professional practice.

CG11: Be familiar with a broad and updated repertoire, centred on the student’s speciality but open to other traditions; recognise its stylistic features and describe them clearly and comprehensively.

CG12: Demonstrate sufficient knowledge of musical phenomena and their relationship with the evolution of aesthetic, artistic, and cultural values.

CG14: Know the historical development of music in its different traditions from a critical perspective that situates musical art within its social and cultural context.

CG15: Possess extensive knowledge of the most representative works of historical and analytical music literature.

Specific Competences

MU1: Know the musical structure of works from different repertoires of Western and other traditions, fully assessing their syntactic and sonic aspects.

MU5: Know musical sources and the tools for accessing them, as well as the techniques required for their dissemination.

MU6: Know scientific research methods specific to the field and their applications.

MU7: Acquire critical capacity to evaluate musical products from different periods from an integrated artistic, historical, and social perspective.

Learning outcomes (general objectives)

1. Identify and situate the main models of Western musical notation up to the present.
2. Relate notation models and their elements to different types of music.
3. Demonstrate understanding of the main lines of evolution of Western musical notation.
4. Identify and situate notation models belonging to non‑Western societies.
5. Relate Western notation systems and their transformations to contemporary musical activity and theoretical conceptions, evaluating them in their historical context.
6. Identify and interpret the main Western notation models up to the end of the 14th century, and read documents written in these notations.
7. Apply the most appropriate editorial criteria to the type of score to be produced.
8. Understand musical graphic notation as a tool that must adapt to the objectives of each investigation.
9. Use different graphic‑notation models discriminately, evaluating and situating each model according to its communicative purpose.
10. Use various transcription models practically and reasonedly, applying them to specific research objects and developing musical‑perception skills.
11. Recognise and describe melodic, rhythmic, harmonic, timbral, and formal parameters contained in complex compositions through listening.
12. Apply theoretical knowledge necessary to interpret and analyse music from periods prior to Classicism.
13. Demonstrate understanding of technical language and musical terminology in ancient treatises and current historical musicology.
14. Differentiate musical theories based on tonality from modal‑system theories of earlier periods.
15. Develop study methodology and analytical approach to musical works from a historical‑research perspective.
16. Observe how sonic material has been organised in relation to the intellectual currents of each period and its contribution to musical thought.
17. Deepen awareness of interpretative practice and its variables from a historical perspective and in relation to communication with contemporary audiences.
18. Evaluate and apply major theories on early‑music performance and situate them chronologically.
19. Become familiar with reading historical documentary sources on performance and analyse and apply them critically.
20. Develop personal communicative and interpretative capacity based on solid theoretical foundations.
21. Relate Western notation systems and their transformations to contemporary musical activity and theoretical conceptions, evaluating them in their historical context.
22. Identify and interpret the main Western notation models from the 15th century onwards, and read documents written in these notations.

Contents

Graphic‑notation models in Western music up to the 14th century. Semiology and palaeography. History of musical notation. Elements of transformation. Documents and testimonies. Editorial and transcription criteria and techniques. Analysis of documents with graphic notation. Transcription. Contextualisation of notation systems in relation to musical styles and activities. Evaluation and analysis of diverse transcriptions/editions. Discriminated application of appropriate editorial criteria and techniques.

Teaching methodology

Lecture sessions, debate and discussion sessions, group work, and student presentations.

Assessment systems

Continuous assessment based on diagnostic evaluation and formalised through summative evaluation leading to the final grade. Assessment is carried out through participation and class work, presentations, assignments and/or readings outside class, submission of written work, or written/oral tests.