Music Recommends

Before beginning your undergraduate Music degree course here at Birmingham you may be wondering if there is anything you can do to prepare.

A number of applicants have contacted the Music Department to ask for reading suggestions. We are happy to suggest the books below, along with several listening recommendations. Applicants should not feel obliged to buy any of these books; they are NOT required purchases.  A separate list of required purchases will be sent out during the summer months.  After enrolment, all of the texts will be available through the University’s Library Services.

Reading recommendations:

Before you begin your studies with us, you might look at one or more of the following.

• Music: A Very Short Introduction by Nicholas Cook (1998)
• A History of Western Music by J. Peter Burkholder (any edition)
• The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20^th Century by Alex Ross (2007)
• Musicology: The Key Concepts by Beard and Gloag (2016)
•  What’s that Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and Its History by John Covach and Andrew Flory (any edition)

Some books from Year 1 reading lists:

• Music in the Medieval West by Margot Fassler (2014)
• Renaissance Music: Music in Western Europe, 1400-1600 by Allan W. Atlas (1998)
• Baroque Music: Music in Western Europe, 1580-1750 by John Walter Hill (2005)
• Classical Music: A Concise History from Gluck to Beethoven by Julian Rushton (1986)
• The Romantic Generation by Charles Rosen (1998)
• Understanding Italian Opera by Tim Carter (2015)
• The Cambridge Companion to the Musical by William Everett & Paul Laird (2002)
• Interpreting Popular Music by David Brackett (1995)

Recently published histories:

Some of the books above are recent publications; some are ‘classics’.  If you have an interest in a particular period of music history and want a recent scholarly publication, you might consider buying one of the following:

• Music in the Renaissance by Richard Freedman (2012)
• Music in the Baroque by Wendy Heller (2013)
• Music in the Eighteenth Century by John A. Rice (2013)
• Music in the Nineteenth Century by Walter Frisch (2012)
• Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries by Joseph Auner (2013)

Listening recommendations

Concerts

If you have Spotify you can listen to the music of upcoming concerts by the CBSO.

Operas

Operavision is an excellent website for finding full length operas

Late Twentieth-Century Works

Here are some performances of works composed in the late twentieth-century by particularly prominent composers: 

Spotify playlist from Birmingham Jazz

Birmingham Jazz produce a Spotify playlist that’s well worth a listen.

Podcasts

CBSO Podcasts  -  one of their choices is ‘The Classical Top 5’,  a series that provides good listening recommendations.

Films

Here are three ‘must-see’ films for those with an interest in the history of film music: 

• Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
• North by Northwest (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
• Psycho (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

Helpful tips from Eloise (BMus Music student):

Books

• The Rest is Noise by Alec Ross. This book gives you an account of 20^th century music in a digestible manner and I found it useful for the history module in first year!
• Any of the oxford ‘Very Short Introduction’ books. I read the Introduction to Early Music by Thomas Forrest Kelly which was also very useful for the first year history module. These books are really small and short and provide really useful basic knowledge.
• Read anything that interests you because at the end of the day, that is how you will want to tailor your degree and will determine which modules you choose. Just read things you enjoy and are interested in. I read an excellent book by Mark Wigglesworth called The Silent Musician about the role of a conductor and I used it in an essay recently. 

Listening

• Just listen! Listen to lots of different genres of music. This could be pop, jazz, classical, renaissance etc…
• Listen outside of your normal repertoire. Of course, listen to your favourite music but also take recommendations from other people and expand your knowledge of other genres through friends or family. I found this really useful, and I now listen to a much more eclectic range of music.

General tips

• Throw yourself into lots of different things and get actively involved, especially within the music society! There are so many different groups and plenty of time to do lots of them and other societies. Really use first year to work out what you like to spend your time doing.
• Use this summer to be interested in music and try to go to some concerts or see live music to be inspired.
• Come to uni with an open mind to experience new things and become interested in things you may not have considered before.
• Finally, a general tip which you have probably heard many times before but it is useful, do not bring everything you own to uni because it probably won’t fit in your room!