Music postgraduate modules

These two co-requisite modules present selected topics in advanced electroacoustic composition, including, but not limited to:

• Advanced recording techniques (studio and field) using conventional and ambisonic techniques
• Approaches to multichannel spatialisation
• Diffusion techniques and the MiniBEAST and BEAST sound systems
• Topics in programming for electroacoustics and digital signal processing
• Live electroacoustic performance
• Advanced or non-standard synthesis techniques
• Mixed instrumental and electroacoustic composition.

Assessment: A combination of written and practical tasks

The module contains the following main areas of study: repertoire studies, advanced compositional techniques, studies in notation, issues of compositional aesthetics.

Topics covered will include: editing and preparation of materials at a professional level, recent stylistic developments in contemporary music, the rational and the intuitive. Composers discussed may range from Ades and Adams to Lutoslawski and Ligeti.

Assessment: Two composition exercises, one editing exercise and one essay

This module considers subjects such as: art and the nature of aesthetic experience; beauty, ugliness and the sublime; symbolism and allegory; the aesthetics of modernism. At its core is an overview of the German aesthetic tradition, involving foundational texts by Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel and their contemporaries in the early 19th century. It will also consider work by a range of subsequent authors, such as Walter Benjamin, John Dewey, Ernst Bloch, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Theodor Adorno and Martin Heidegger. 

Assessment: One 4,000 word essay.

British Music studies is a fast-growing research field in today’s musicology. This module takes the broadest perspective on modern British art music, offering case studies in the work of the ‘great composers’ of the tonal idiom such as Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten, evaluation of the Anglican choral tradition and the British symphonic tradition, examination of the problematic status of modernism in British music before 1960, and criticism of modernist and postmodernist composition since World War II. Approaches are critical, analytical and sociological, with some reception history as well. The repertoire under study is mainly choral, orchestral and chamber music.

Assessment: Two 2,500-word essays

You will receive regular one-to-one tutorial teaching, enabling you to develop your compositional technique and a self-reflexive critique of your own work. You will be taught composition techniques appropriate to your individual needs. You will also be encouraged to broaden your range of compositional practice, and move toward the development of a personal ‘voice’.

Assessment: A series of compositions

This practice-led module will build the skills needed to conduct an independent ethnographic research project. Throughout the module, you will become acquainted with the various methods available for fieldwork and learn to assess their strengths and weaknesses in relation to varying research contexts.

Topics addressed may include: project design and planning, ethics, audio-visual documentation, interviewing, field notes, transcription, and online/virtual ethnography. Instruction and assessment will be hands-on, applying theoretical readings to concrete materials and activities.  

Assessment: 2,500-word research prospectus and five applied fieldwork assignments totalling 2,500 words

You will study key issues and practices in the history of musical performance.  Through a series of case studies presented by experts in a range of fields, you will learn to navigate the complexities of historically informed performance. Topics examined might include instrument design and performance techniques, treatment of tempo and rhythm and conventions affecting temperament and ornamentation. Through this module you will gain an advanced insight into the notation practices of the early-modern period; tutorials will support you in developing your own specialism within the field.

Assessment: Two research projects, each 2,500 words or equivalent

This module aims to familiarise you with a field of study that has been emerging from the intersection of ethnomusicology and popular music studies. Assigned readings, discussions, and assessments will seek to situate popular music in a global context while also attending to the ways that global processes impact local musical actors, scenes, and styles. Particular attention will be paid to ethnography and its application to the study of popular musics. Topics and cases to be explored included diasporic popular musics, musical migration, recording and production, global music industries, musical labour in the ‘creative industries’, local music scenes, urban contexts, and media theory. This module will also provide an orientation to relevant fields of study (including ethnomusicology and popular music studies) through an engagement with foundational disciplinary texts as well as current debates.

Assessment: 3,000-word research project and ten weekly reading responses totalling 1,500 words

This module prepares you for the field of Musicology by examining key issues, theories, and methodologies in the field. It is taught as a series of seminars by a number of staff in the Department of Music, and any research presentations organised for department staff and visiting scholars. 

Assessment: Two 2,500-word essays

This module explores the rapidly developing field of laptop ensemble performance. The class will function as an ensemble group, working to develop and prepare repertoire for public concerts. Topics covered will include techniques for improvisation, networked music performance, live coding, and composition for live electroacoustic ensemble. Works presented in concert will include student and group developed pieces, as well as ‘classics’ from the field. Experience in programming is helpful but not required, and the projects pursued will be selected according to the ensemble’s makeup each year.

Assessment: A series of short programming assignments, an improvisation test, and a final performance

This module runs in the autumn term. It is designed to address the extra-musical aspects of successful musical performances and is intended to complement and enhance performances given in other MA performance modules. 

You will attend five two-hour seminars/workshops in the Department’s Music Health and Wellbeing series, which focus on the physical and psychological elements of performance. You will deliver a presentation summarising the key skills and techniques covered in the series, relating them to your own performance practice. You will also attend all three Barber Evening Concerts, and produce a review of each concert.

Assessment: Ten-minute presentation and three 500-word reviews

This module runs in the spring term. Following on from Performance Skills 1, it is again intended to address the extra-musical aspects of successful music performance.

You will attend five 'Performance Platform' sessions, where students perform for one another, analyse each other’s performances, and receive formative feedback from professional specialists, as well as their peers. Your assessment - a performance and short presentation - will require you to apply the skills and techniques learned in both the Music Health and Wellbeing Series (autumn term) as well as the feedback received during Performance Platform sessions. You will also attend three further Barber Evening Concerts, and produce a review of each concert.

Assessment: Ten-minute performance and five-minute presentation, plus three 500-word reviews

This module will equip the student with a range of skills necessary for anyone wishing to pursue an in-depth study of early music. Through a series of case studies, the student will be shown a variety of analytical models to equip them with sophisticated ways of engaging with the music as well as of talking and thinking about it. The necessary technical and theoretical background for students working in this period will also be covered. Complex and controversial issues of performance practice will also be addressed. 

Assessment: One 4,500 word essay or equivalent analytical or editorial study.