Core Modules

Foundation Year

• Digital Cultures

  This module will explore critical approaches to digital culture and its social and artistic impact. The module will explore different digital media (reconstruction, game, animation) and visual forms and styles from diverse cultures and geographies to develop skills in the close analysis of a wide range of digital media. The examples chosen will highlight different uses of digital media in games, education, and heritage, as well as some of the ethical issues raised by ‘gamification’ and digital culture. The module will consider how meaning changes across geographical locations and cultures and the role of new media in a globalised culture. The media to be studied will be selected to explore these issues and will rotate to connect with staff knowledge and current issues or ideas and the module will offer training in the creation and use of digital multimedia forms.

• Cultures of Thinking

  This core Foundation module offers an inter-disciplinary introduction to a range of concepts of global significance highly relevant for students progressing onto humanities, arts and social science subjects. The lectures, seminars and readings will approach each concept from a variety of humanities, arts and social science perspectives and will involve students exploring different epistemological approaches, including but also beyond, those of their own degree subject.

• Society on Screen

  This module explores the ways in which experiences, identities and social issues are represented in British film. It considers the ways that filmmakers engage with contemporary society and the extent to which films respond to, or act as a catalyst for, social change.

  Each week we will explore a different topic through the lens of a specific film. We will contextualise the representation offered and consider how it fits within the longer tradition of filmmaking on that subject.

  Since the very earliest days of the cinema, films have captured the public imagination and this module will explore the broader role of film in society. We will consider the cultural significance of film as a form of leisure and as a method of communication and education. We will explore the nature of the relationship between filmmakers and the audience, consider questions of funding and censorship, and place film within the broader context of today’s media.

• Textual Cultures

  In this module, students closely examine, compare and contextualise a range of texts that deal with the theme of learning. The core texts: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel Purple Hibiscus (2003); Willy Russell’s play Educating Rita (1980); and Alan Parker’s film, Fame (1980), will be accompanied by a range of extracts from a broad variety of text types, from poetry to philosophy to legal documents. Each week, we will consider a key issue raised by the core text under discussion alongside extracts from other texts. Students will be encouraged to use the methods of Critical Discourse Analysis in their close reading, comparison and contextualisation of the texts.

  The module aims to provide students with a flexible and adaptable framework that enables them to read, understand and interpret texts from any discourse area closely, analytically and critically. It will support their understanding of the ways in which different text types function and enable them to identify the way genres provide frameworks for audiences to comprehend discourse, assess the means by which apparently similar aspects of the world can be appreciated and understood from different perspectives or positions, and explore the ways in which discourse is used to constitute a sense of being and identity.

  The module will also provide opportunities for students to reflect on their own experiences of and beliefs about learning, and to consider their own learning methods and processes as the Foundation Year progresses. This will support the transition to their degree courses, giving them agency in the process as they think carefully about how they learn, how they might learn more effectively, and how that is affected by cultural, social and economic forces.

• Fundamentals of Music Studies

Year 1

• Theory and Analysis

  This course aims: 1. to develop basic music-analytical literacy, 2. to introduce basic concepts concerning counterpoint, harmony, melody and form that underpin the analysis of music, 3. to put these concepts into practice in the analysis of pieces from a variety of repertories. The course addresses the contrapuntal, melodic, harmonic and formal elements of tonal music. Weekly lectures, in which students are introduced to analytical concepts and then practise deploying them, through listening, score study and the completion of practical exercises, are supplemented by private study based on Moodle and recommended readings, to consolidate concepts learnt in the lectures and provide further opportunities to practise new skills.

• Fundamentals of Music Theory

  The aim of this course is to develop students' awareness of music theory through practical exercises and musical analysis. Through practical exercises that focus on musical literacy as well as aural awareness, students develop the ability to identify and analyse the musical parameters of metre, rhythm, pitch, harmony, counterpoint and form. In-class exercises may focus on listening, whereas exercises for self-study or small-group work may include written exercises. Tasks set for private study between classes provide a basis for students to continue their own practical training throughout their musical careers.

• Creative Composition Techniques

  This course introduces students to some fundamental techniques of music composition. The precise topics taught may change depending on the research interests of the staff responsible for teaching the course, but typically include:

  • Soundworlds and scale formations

  • The vertical dimension: chords and simultaneities

  • The horizontal dimension: melody and voice leading

  • Developments in rhythm

  • Developments in harmonic vocabulary and tonalities

  • Form in contemporary composition

  • Acoustic timbre and texture

• A Very Short History of Music

  This course introduces a wide range of repertories within the history of music. It stimulates students to relate features of musical compositions and performances to their wider historical contexts and gives students a fundamental knowledge of specific musical cultures. It provides students with opportunities to develop skills in research and information retrieval and in critical reading of primary and secondary literature, to receive formative feedback on those skills, and to build a foundation for higher-level study. The course will offer students a conceptual map of musical styles, composers and practices by introducing them to a wide chronological range of repertories, from early music to music of the twentieth century. It will emphasise questions of change, interaction and transmission through the study of specific forms and repertories in their historical context. Lectures will be designed around major repertorial moments (e.g. Stravinsky in 1910) or problems (e.g. the post-Beethovenian symphony), to bring together questions of form, style, performing practice and historical context.

• Introduction to Historical Musicology

  This course introduces concepts underlying the historical and critical study of music. It enables students to begin thinking critically about the priorities that underlie historical texts from different intellectual traditions and stimulates them to relate features of musical compositions and performances to wider historical contexts. It provides students with opportunities to develop skills in research and information retrieval and in critical reading of primary and secondary literature, to receive formative feedback on those skills, and to build a foundation for higher-level study. This course introduces students to the different kinds of historical question that we can ask about music, and interrogates some of the terminology and categories frequently used in the secondary literature (e.g. canonisation, reception, tradition, nationalism, exoticism, the work concept). Case-studies are used to illuminate specific topics and problems in the historiography of a wide variety of musics.

• Introduction to World Music

  This course introduces students to the socio-cultural contexts, functions, philosophies, techniques, and organising principles of a variety of musics of the world; musics from at least three continents will be studied. These musical traditions will be approached from both theoretical and practical perspectives, also giving a variety of opportunities for hands-on experience. Course content will vary from year to year according to staff interests, availability of musicians to provide workshops, and to ensure freshness of approach. A typical curriculum might cover the following regions and theoretical themes:

  • World Music - Introduction (culture, contact & concepts)
  • South America: Andes to Amazon (exchange)
  • Africa: Jaliya and Mbira (the musician)
  • Indonesia: Sundanese Gamelan (temporal organisation)
  • North India: The Classical Tradition (improvisation)
  • Papua New Guinea: The Kaluli (music and ecology)
  • Iran: The Persian Classical Tradition (music & religion).
• Contemporary Debates in Music

  This course introduces students to a range of key debates and issues in contemporary musicology and to a range of key issues concerning music in the contemporary world. It encourages students to think about music’s relation to social and cultural contexts and introduces them to unfamiliar musical styles and repertoires as well as broaden understanding of those closer to home. It hones students’ skills in reading a wide variety of critical and theoretical writing about music. This course will survey some of the key contemporary issues in music that have arisen from the changes of the modern world, as well as contemporary debates in musicology. The twentieth century in particular has seen a transformation of musical cultures across the world, and this course looks at a range of the issues and controversies that have emerged as a result. The study of music has broadened to include many more social, cultural and political. This course will introduce students to truly contemporary ways of studying music, combining approaches and issues traditionally associated with musicology, ethnomusicology and popular music studies, divisions which are becoming increasingly blurred. Lecture topics may include:

  • Ideas of ‘authenticity’ in music

  • Value judgements about music

  • Protection and preservation of music

  • Heritage and revivals

  • Music and tourism

  • New forms of fusion and hybridity

  • The idea of ‘world music’.

  • Music and identity

  • Music and gender

  • Music and race

  • Music and nationalism

• Solo Performance

  This course aims to further students’ skills as performers through regular (typically weekly) one-to-one vocal/instrument lessons with an approved visiting teacher.  Students will be offered opportunities to perform in practical seminars where matters of interpretation and stage manner will be discussed.  Constructive critical feedback given as well as developing students' skills in delivering feedback. 

  Students’ will develop the capacity to reflect on what constitutes good programming and fine performance.  Participation in College music events is fostered through ensemble and other activities. 

   The course consists of regular individual instrumental or vocal lessons with a teacher approved by the Department.  A series of practical seminars is run in which students perform and discuss suitable repertory under the supervision of the course co-ordinator, develop skills in the writing of programme notes to a high standard as well as concert reviews and  engage with  'professional preparation’ consisting of the development of stage presence and other relevant concerns.

• Creative Ensemble Performance

  The module aims to develop a broad range of innovative, practical, creative and collaborative musical skills. It promotes student initiative and creativity, while developing focused, critical, technical and context sensitive perspectives on selected musical repertoires/traditions/genres. It seeks to explore, reflect upon, extend and/or challenge specific musical performance conventions. The module will commence with at least two plenary lectures/seminars at the start of term one, when the module aims will be clarified, followed by fortnightly workshops and plenary meetings through terms 1 and 2. A list of student performance interests/skills will be circulated immediately after the first meeting. Students will then be requested to form their own groups. Flexibility in membership will be permitted until the end of term one when students must commit to a group with whom to be examined. Any student not integrated in a group will be allotted to one by the module tutor. All students will be required to regularly document their experience of group participation and creative practice in a performance diary.

• Introduction to Composing with Music Technology

  This module will provide the opportunity to develop skills in working with music technology, write music to a brief and develop skills in. independent creative work. The topics taught will include a selection from: introduction to media, film and game music composition; introduction to non-linear compositional techniques; the basics of digital audio; composing to a brief; interpreting images; and audio engines for games.

Year 2

• Studies in Music Analysis

  The module introduces a range of important concepts for analysing music, and of the published secondary literature in music analysis. It puts these concepts into practice in increasingly sophisticated analysis of score-based and recorded pieces from the Western musical tradition and in the reading of more complex analyses. It lays foundations for further analytical and technical work in options modules and in final-year special studies. The analytical systems and repertories to be studied will vary from year to year, but students may expect to build on theoretical and analytical foundations established in the first year, by broadening their knowledge (through scores and recordings) of a wide range of Western musical repertoire, to learn and then apply standard analytical methods in order to gain a deeper understanding of the music's construction and expressive effect, and to learn the vocabulary and technical proficiency necessary for reading and evaluating analyses of music by scholars from those traditions. The module may address pre-tonal, tonal or post-tonal music.

• Studies in Composition

  This module will: develop your knowledge of a range of fundamental techniques of musical composition with particular focus on structure, harmonic control and the manipulation of rhythmic and melodic material provide an opportunity to practise the art of musical composition and to develop skills in creative work. Developing on areas covered in first-year Composition modules, this module will provide a framework in which you will be introduced to a number of techniques from diverse schools of composition in order to encourage you to explore and develop your own creativity. Key works from the past few decades will be studied and used as models or springboards for your own musical invention. You will create a portfolio of technical exercises and a short composition written in response to a given brief.

• Studies in Music History

  This module furthers students’ understanding of music history, by exploring two case-studies defined chronologically or thematically. It develops students’ ability to critically think and write about music in historical contexts that are both familiar and unfamiliar and explores more advanced concepts underlying the historical and critical study of music. It encourages students to put these concepts into practice in increasingly sophisticated historical and critical writing about music and it lays the foundations for further historical and critical writing in options modules and in particular for final-year special studies. This module will probe moments of music history that expose the complex relationship between musical repertories and historical contexts, or the nuanced processes of historical continuity, change, and cause and effect. The case-studies will vary year by year, but sample topics include: The Rise of Musical Notation in Medieval Europe; Music and the Reformation; Monteverdi: Between Renaissance and Baroque; Nationalism in Late Romantic Music; Popular and Art Music of the 1960s.

• Studies in Ethnomusicology

  This module expands students’ knowledge of concepts characteristic of ethnomusicology and equips them with stimulating approaches to understanding, enjoying and studying their own music as well as that of others. It broadens students’ understanding of the possibilities of music as human activity and of the wider contexts in which music exists in the world. It raises issues concerning the political and ethical challenges involved with studying and writing about music across the globe, whether historically or in the contemporary world, and develops students’ ability to critically think and write about music in contexts that are both familiar and unfamiliar.

  This module will involve a combination of the study of musical repertoires from different parts of the globe and introduction to a range of methodologies that might be applied to a broad range of musics and contexts. Particular repertoires and areas will vary, but approaches and issues may include: the idea of music as culture/society; looking at music beyond concepts of ‘art’; understanding the strengths and problems of fieldwork as a methodology; looking at musical change and hybridisation; issues relating to music and gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity or religion; studying musical instruments; mapping music geographically, socially and historically; and the colonial legacy of ethnomusicology and ethical issues of contemporary research.

• Studies in Music, Media and Technology

  This module explores ways that electronic media and technology have brought about change in and opened up new possibilities for musical production, consumption, sounds, practices, experience, contexts and meanings. It considers the role of electronic media and technology in preserving and documenting musical culture as well as in changing it, and it examines how developments in electronic media and technology have affected and continue to affect dynamics of power in musical production and consumption across the world. The module explores the effects of electronic media and technology on popular, traditional and classical musics and introduces concepts and techniques for the study of the interaction of music, media and technology. It also encourages a deeper and more critical understanding of music, music making and musical culture through study in both familiar and unfamiliar cultures and contexts. The module will introduce students to a range of ways in which electronic media and technology have affected and transformed musical cultures across the world through their fundamental ability to: record and store musical sound; create new sounds, new ways of combining sounds and new ways of synching sound with other media; turn musical sound into a commodity; separate musical sound from live performance context; amplify music; mass produce music; mass disseminate music; and greatly alter dynamics of power in the production and consumption of music. The module will cover a range of key phenomena and issues in contemporary musical culture that are inextricably linked to electronic media and technology. Exact topics will vary, but may include: popular and mass-mediated music; recorded music; electronic music; the impact of technology on compositional practices; music industries; piracy; film music, video and multimedia; music and the Internet; globalisation; debates on the value of mass mediated music; and questions of power and representation.

• Practical Performance I

  This course will require you to undertake the study of an instrument or voice, with the aim of developing technical ability and musical interpretation expressed through performance. You will consciously and actively address concerns such as the acquisition of technical competence in performance, the development of powers of interpretation, strategies of practice and performance, effective communication and so on.

Year 3

• Special Study: Dissertation

  In this module you will carry out independent research providing specialist insights into a topic of your choice from the field of ethnomusicology, film studies, historical musicology, performance studies, or theory and analysis. You will look at digital sources, secondary literature, and archive material on your chosen theme, and critically engage with new thinking in musicology. You will be guided by a supervisor who will advise on the planning, organisation, development and presentation of your dissertation, which will be between 13,000 and 15,000 words in length.

• Special Study: Theory and Analysis

  The learning objective is to write a detailed essay on a topic of a technical, analytical or theoretical nature relating to music.

  You will undertake an extended piece of academic work at the level appropriate to the final year of an undergraduate degree programme, carried out independently under the guidance of a supervisor, and laying the foundations for possible further work in the field at postgraduate level.

• Special Study: Solo Performance

  This course will develop and refine students’ abilities as solo performers at an advanced level through weekly seminars in which performances will be subjected to critical scrutiny by the course tutor and members of the class.  Students will develop the ability to manage the occasion of performance at a professional level and will engage in the study and performance of music by twentieth-century or contemporary composers writing in particularly challenging or complex musical styles.

  The course consists of regular instrumental or vocal lessons with a teacher approved by the Department, regular two-hour practical seminars in which students perform suitable repertory according to a rota that requires appearance in front of their peers at least twice a term, thereby gaining platform experience in preparation for the final recital.  ‘Professional preparation’, consists of the development of stage presence and other relevant concerns, such as preparation for an audition, performance practice, interpretation and communication.  Students share participation in a public lunchtime recital.  The dates of the recitals are arranged by the Concert Office in the preceding summer vacation.

  The writing of programme notes and concert reviews to professional standard as well as the development of ensemble musicianship and/or music administration and concert management skills are key requirements.

• Special Study: Composition

  This module develops students' knowledge of advanced compositional techniques with particular focus on structure, harmonic control and the manipulation of rhythmic and melodic material. It provides opportunities to practise the art of musical composition and to develop skills in independent creative work and increases students' awareness, knowledge and understanding of issues related to contemporary composition practice in a variety of contexts. Developing on areas covered in MU2213 Composition Portfolio, the module will provide a framework for you to further explore the possibilities in your own compositional method. You will complete a structured portfolio that will properly demonstrate your increased awareness, knowledge and understanding of contemporary art music and related compositional issues. You will be assisted in acquiring a deeper confidence in experimenting with a range of compositional methods and techniques whilst being encouraged to explore the possibilities of your own compositional voice in the hope that this trend will continue into your professional life. During workshops you will be given the opportunity to have your work rehearsed and recorded by professional musicians. It is hoped that through these workshops you will discover more about the possibilities of instrumentation and the many practical compositional issues facing composers today. You should also seek to develop your own opportunities for the performance of your music in order to develop your confidence and professional activity.

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

Foundation Year

• All modules are core

Year 1

• All modules are core

Year 2

• Adorno’s Philosophy of Music
• Analysing Late Tonal Music: Riemannian and Neo-Riemannian Theories
• Bach: Context and Reception

  This module explores Bach’s output within its social, religious and cultural contexts, and students study selected works of Bach within the context of Baroque musical thought. Students are encouraged to xamine the varied reception of Bach’s music, to show how his reputation changed from that of provincial upstart to one of the greatest composers of all time.

• Baroque Performance Practice

  This module investigates primary sources of the 17th and 18th centuries as sources of information about performing styles and encourages students to experiment with historically informed techniques of vocal/instrumental performance. Students explore how vocal and instrumental styles varied according to place, culture and date in the 17th and 18th centuries, and also they learn the philosophical and critical debates raised by an attempt to recreate performance styles of past centuries.

• Britten's Operas
• Claude Debussy and French Musical Aesthetics

  This course is based in the close study of some key musical works by Claude Debussy, including his opera Pelléas et Mélisande, the orchestral works Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune, Nocturnes and La Mer, the songs for piano and voice, the piano preludes, and the three late sonatas. These works will be explored analytically, with reference to a range of extant analytical writing, considering the nature of Debussy’s musical material and ideas of musical form.

• The ‘Classical’ Canon and ‘Popular' Culture since 1945

  ‘Classical’ canon and ‘Popular’ Culture introduce a range of musical texts and practices that have played a key role in the redefinition of categories of ‘high’ and ‘low’, ‘classical’ and ‘popular’ over the last 60 years. This module helps students to understand the changing reception of the canon of Western art music since 1945, with a particular focus on Europe and North America. The module will provide the students with tools and theoretical frameworks for analysing musical borrowing and intertextuality.

• Composing with Technology 1

  With a focus on commercial music, this module will cover the essential techniques necessary to compose music using a computer. This will include strengthening your technical knowledge as well as harmonic, melodic and rhythmic strategies for making compelling music. We will look at methods of programming and designing sounds, combining, for example, the simulation of acoustic ensembles and digital instruments in ways that will prepare you for professional practice. We will look at soundtrack composition, library music and contemporary pop production.

• Composing with Technology 2

  The module will carry on with all the technological and compositional techniques and methods introduced in MU2335 Composing with Technology 1 but take a more in-depth look at them and delve much deeper into the software. We will study compositional and technological techniques from the experimental and electronica fields and from the music to moving-image repertoire, including film, TV, adverts and games etc, and build up knowledge of up-to-date practices and trends to inform work with a view to making it concordant with current music industry practices.

• Composition Portfolio

  In this module you will create a mixed portfolio of compositions and develop skills in independent creative work. You will be encouraged to pursue your own individual approach to writing music with guidance from the course tutors alongside a series of group lectures.

• Contemporary Music Performance

  This module will bridge the gap between the disciplines of composition and performance and develop both practical and analytical skills.  You will gain an increased understanding of practice in contemporary music performance, extending to the world of performing with electronics.  There will be a focus on creativity and critical independence as well as examining the relationship between composition and performance. The key features of contemporary and new music, from a performance perspective that will be studied include; skills and strategies in reading differing notations, theories and practices such as extended techniques, microtonality, expressive possibilities of instruments, engaging with electronics. You will gain both practical and critical understandings of how this music can be approached, learnt and performed in a communicative and confident way.

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

  Students work solo or in small groups to create an original work for performance over the course of the module, supported by practical workshops in class, as well as lectures on topics including modes of collaboration, historical models of social creativity, recent approaches to interdisciplinary music, and creative uses of technology (across a range of hardware and software). Alongside practical work, students complete written project proposals and reflect critically on their creative processes, using their own documentation of their workshops, and drawing upon theoretical and historical perspectives on collaborative creativity.

• Digital Tools for Music Studies

  In this module you use digital tools to analyse, edit and creatively interact with music and sound, including Sonic Visualiser to represent and analyse audio files of pop and classical music via spectrograms.

• Ensemble Performance

  This module provides the opportunity to explore in depth an area of the chamber music repertory/ensemble work for a recognized instrumental or vocal ensemble (string quartet, piano trio, baroque trio, wind quintet. jazz quintet, etc.) through regular performance seminars led by the course tutor or an external teacher. It develops the capacity of the members of the ensemble to interact and respond to each other’s abilities through regular rehearsals, seminars and concerts and refines students’ individual ideas on technique and interpretation in consultation with other members of the ensemble. It develops students’ ability as an ensemble to manage the occasion of performance.

• Ideas of German Music from Mozart to Henze

  Taking as its basis an essay by Wagner, What is German?, this course will consider some of the claims made for German music, vocal and instrumental, in the context of broader political and intellectual developments. From Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Hellenism (a key moment in the ‘tyranny of [ancient] Greece over Germany’ and Mozart’s German operas, through the (perceived) centrality of German music in the Romantic and modernist eras, to the difficulties of writing and considering German music following the ‘German catastrophe’ of National Socialism and the Second World War, continuities and disruptions will be considered.

• Introduction to Jazz: Theory, Practice and Contexts

  This is an introductory course exploring jazz in its historical, theoretical and practical developments. It aims to expose students to the major historical periods of jazz and their associated musical characteristics. It also addresses important social and political influences that have fed into the making of the genre and its different scenes. A small component of the course will be dedicated to basic jazz theory and practice. There will also be critical consideration of meta-narratives in the making of jazz as a musical canon.

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

  Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image introduces analytical and critical approaches to the soundtracks of moving-image media. Each session of the module focuses on a particular critical issue, aesthetic practice, or genre, such as ‘Classical Hollywood’ film music of the 1930s-40s, or the use of preexisting music in film. The module offers the opportunity to gain an understanding of key historical developments surrounding the use of music in moving-image media, to develop students' knowledge of the technologies involved in adding sound and music to such media, to explore the use of music within the broader sonic design of moving-image texts, and to investigate the development of music’s function in creating, or enhancing, ‘meaning’.

• Korean Percussion Performance

  This course aims to develop practical, technical and theoretical competence, in solo work and also as an ensemble member, in particular Korean percussion traditions (chiefly – samulnori, but also nong-ak and pungmul). It is assumed that the students enrolling on the course will be near-beginners, but opportunities may arise for the use of existing instrumental skills (using appropriate style) in certain percussion repertoires.

• Late Beethoven

  This course explores the idea of a late style in the music of Beethoven, looking in detail at the late works themselves as well as considering issues of reception and types of critical response to this music.

• Mahler and Viennese Modernism, 1897-1918

  This module introduces the music of Gustav Mahler in the context of his own biography and the history of his two principal genres, the Lied and the Symphony. In the course of this module, students explore the ways in which his music might be understood in relation to movements within the broader artistic, political and social culture of Vienna, 1897-1918.

• Mozart's Operas

  This course will consider Mozart’s operas both individually and as part of a recognised corpus. Naturally, some works will receive greater consideration than others, but there will be considerable scope for students to follow and to nurture their own interests. An especial focus will be the variety of ways in which the operas may be considered. Historical context may perhaps enjoy a particular privilege, but an integral part of the course will be to ask how historical study might be combined with analytical, dramatic, and reception-based perspectives, amongst others.

• Musical Aesthetics

  This module explores some key issues in the aesthetics of European music over the last 200 years. It examines different ways in which questions of musical meaning and value have been dealt with in the context of philosophical aesthetics, including theories of the nature of music, its capacity for expression and representation, its political function, and its relation to the natural and social world. It approaches each topic in three ways to develop: (a) an understanding of the historical development of aesthetic concepts from the late 18th century to the present; (b) a capacity to articulate and critique contemporary aesthetic debates about music; (c) an ability to relate these ideas to specific musical examples.

• Music and Gender

  This course aims to give students a wide-ranging understanding of music, performing arts and gender in different periods and different parts of the world, including Europe. It aims to introduce students to theoretical approaches to the study of gender through richly comparative case studies that will include western classical music as well as musical cultures from other parts of the world. The course will also develop the analytical and writing skills of students.

• Music and Video Games

  This module examines aspects of music in video games, not only in order to understand music within games, but also for critically exploring wider musical practice through games. Each week focuses on a different aspect of music and video games. After explaining and interrogating a musical topic within the frame of games (by engaging with histories, theories and case studies), the issues raised are partnered with broader, cultural, analytical, historical issues of music. In this sense, the course looks both ‘inwards’ to dealing with game music in depth, but also ‘outwards’ to other musical practices. Beyond the learning outcomes identified above, students will also engage in new aesthetic experiences and improve their skills in critical thinking, analysing multimedia texts, reading, and appraising scholarly work, researching in an academic context, and writing essays.

• Music Pedagogy

  This module aims to equip you with the skills necessary in order to confidently teach an instrument or voice in a one-to-one or group setting as well as develop and enhance your critical reflection on your own performance practice.  It aims to equip you with a knowledge of appropriate teaching styles and methods and a contextualised understanding of these as appropriate to different teaching situations (ages, aspirations, individual or group lessons). 

• Music, Power and Politics

  Music is seen across the globe as something that transcends the mundane or has special powers, from the ability to move people emotionally (capitalised on by film-makers and advertisers), to the ability to put people in trance or to heal sickness, to a route to stardom and idolisation, to a means of seduction. Music has been used consciously in many political and nationalist movements and may be tightly controlled by certain regimes. Sometimes less obvious is music’s role in inscribing or subverting gender norms or distinctions of class or status. This course examines a range of these ways in which music holds power and importance in society and culture. It focuses in particular on music’s performative nature, its embodied nature, and its social and communicative nature. It refers to musical genres, practices and cultures from across the world, involving familiar and unfamiliar territory.

• Music and Society in Purcell's London

  This module explores music’s role in the social and political upheavals in London between 1650 and 1700. During Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, music was banned from most public venues. Then with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, music was reinstated at court and used as royal propaganda. Music returned to churches and theatres, with a rich culture of public concerts developing. Italian and French musicians flocked to London, and women were permitted to perform music in public for the first time.

• Popular Music and Musicians in Post-War Britain and North America

  From the arrival of the blues in Britain, to America's invasion by the Beatles: American and British popular musics and musicians have maintained a relationship of exchange, convergence and divergence. This module considers popular music in post-war British and North American culture from the blues revival and skiffle in the 1950s to current pop hits through shared patterns of production, dissemination and consumption between the two regions. In addition to acquainting students with the musicians and musical features that define important styles and genres of popular music, lectures will situate musical developments within broader social contexts of race, class, gender, politics, and economics. Through the lectures and readings students will also acquire knowledge of and familiarity with a range of methodologies and theoretical approaches for studying popular music.

• Practical and Creative Orchestration

  This module introduces students to the principles of orchestration: examine and compare techniques and approaches to the discipline; help to develop further technical skills in musical notation; aid in the development of students' creative imagination; give students the opportunity to practise the art of orchestration for themselves.

• Practical Conducting (Choral and Orchestral)

  This module aims to provide students with the technical skills, confidence, and abilities to direct choral and orchestral forces in rehearsal and performance. The practical aspect of the course will consist of regular workshops teaching skills of baton technique and/or hand gesture, as well as communication and rehearsal skills. All students will be expected to sing or play an instrument to form ensembles for practical sessions. The theoretical part of the course comprises lectures on aspects of preparation of scores, organisation of rehearsals, the understanding of vocal techniques and warm-up exercises, understanding the instruments of the orchestra, the programming of repertoire, and the interpretation of music from different periods and genres.

   

• Practical Performance I

  This course will require you to undertake the study of an instrument or voice, with the aim of developing technical ability and musical interpretation expressed through performance. You will consciously and actively address concerns such as the acquisition of technical competence in performance, the development of powers of interpretation, strategies of practice and performance, effective communication and so on.

• Silent Film Performance

  This course will include lectures on the various theatrical contexts of early film exhibition and its pre-history. It will consider various sound practices: including speaking to the screen; speaking behind the screen; live sound effects; song slides; mixed film programmes; live film prologues; the history of actual film accompaniment (including ‘film funning’, cue sheets, photoplay music, improvisation, ‘special music’). Students will explore the use and development of technologies for providing sound (gramophone records; piano rolls; sound effects machines; early sound synchronisation technologies; keyboard-driven instruments, etc.). Lectures will introduce the gradual institutionalisation of sound practices and the emergence of an industry around sound practices.

• Solo Performance

  This course aims to further students’ skills as performers through regular (typically weekly) one-to-one vocal/instrument lessons with an approved visiting teacher.  Students will be offered opportunities to perform in practical seminars where matters of interpretation and stage manner will be discussed.  Constructive critical feedback given as well as developing students' skills in delivering feedback. 

  Students’ will develop the capacity to reflect on what constitutes good programming and fine performance.  Participation in College music events is fostered through ensemble and other activities. 

   The course consists of regular individual instrumental or vocal lessons with a teacher approved by the Department.  A series of practical seminars is run in which students perform and discuss suitable repertory under the supervision of the course co-ordinator, develop skills in the writing of programme notes to a high standard as well as concert reviews and  engage with  'professional preparation’ consisting of the development of stage presence and other relevant concerns.

• The String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

  This module will introduce students to one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic and moving bodies of chamber music. Students will examine various methodological approaches to studying Shostakovich’s chamber music against the unique cultural and political background of the Soviet regime, as well as developing analytical skills for how to understand and interpret this music. There will be a special focus on improving students’ abilities to present arguments about music within the context of socio-political issues. By the end of this module, students will have a working knowledge of all of Shostakovich’s 15 Quartets, and an understanding of the unique political and cultural background against which this music was written.

• Wagner's Ring

  This course examines the operatic cycle that lies at the heart of Wagner’s output: Der Ring des Nibelungen. The chronological range of the course spans Wagner’s earliest thoughts on setting the Nibelung myth in 1848 and their eventual realisation at the première of the complete cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in the summer of 1876. The methodology and scope of the course are interdisciplinary, taking account of Wagner’s writings in the context of the social upheaval of 1848-9 and examining his debt to German philosophy. Individual seminars devoted to each of the four music dramas examine the cumulative effect of Wagner’s changing compositional practice through the cycle, and the relation of practice to theory.

Year 3

• Adorno’s Philosophy of Music
• Analysing Late Tonal Music: Riemannian and Neo-Riemannian Theories
• Bach: Context and Reception

  This module explores Bach’s output within its social, religious and cultural contexts, and students study selected works of Bach within the context of Baroque musical thought. Students are encouraged to xamine the varied reception of Bach’s music, to show how his reputation changed from that of provincial upstart to one of the greatest composers of all time.

• Baroque Performance Practice

  This module investigates primary sources of the 17th and 18th centuries as sources of information about performing styles and encourages students to experiment with historically informed techniques of vocal/instrumental performance. Students explore how vocal and instrumental styles varied according to place, culture and date in the 17th and 18th centuries, and also they learn the philosophical and critical debates raised by an attempt to recreate performance styles of past centuries.

• Britten's Operas
• Claude Debussy and French Musical Aesthetics

  This course is based in the close study of some key musical works by Claude Debussy, including his opera Pelléas et Mélisande, the orchestral works Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune, Nocturnes and La Mer, the songs for piano and voice, the piano preludes, and the three late sonatas. These works will be explored analytically, with reference to a range of extant analytical writing, considering the nature of Debussy’s musical material and ideas of musical form.

• Composing with Technology 1

  With a focus on commercial music, this module will cover the essential techniques necessary to compose music using a computer. This will include strengthening your technical knowledge as well as harmonic, melodic and rhythmic strategies for making compelling music. We will look at methods of programming and designing sounds, combining, for example, the simulation of acoustic ensembles and digital instruments in ways that will prepare you for professional practice. We will look at soundtrack composition, library music and contemporary pop production.

• Composing with Technology 2

  The module will carry on with all the technological and compositional techniques and methods introduced in MU2335 Composing with Technology 1 but take a more in-depth look at them and delve much deeper into the software. We will study compositional and technological techniques from the experimental and electronica fields and from the music to moving-image repertoire, including film, TV, adverts and games etc, and build up knowledge of up-to-date practices and trends to inform work with a view to making it concordant with current music industry practices.

• Composition Portfolio

  In this module you will create a mixed portfolio of compositions and develop skills in independent creative work. You will be encouraged to pursue your own individual approach to writing music with guidance from the course tutors alongside a series of group lectures.

• Contemporary Music Performance

  This module will bridge the gap between the disciplines of composition and performance and develop both practical and analytical skills.  You will gain an increased understanding of practice in contemporary music performance, extending to the world of performing with electronics.  There will be a focus on creativity and critical independence as well as examining the relationship between composition and performance. The key features of contemporary and new music, from a performance perspective that will be studied include; skills and strategies in reading differing notations, theories and practices such as extended techniques, microtonality, expressive possibilities of instruments, engaging with electronics. You will gain both practical and critical understandings of how this music can be approached, learnt and performed in a communicative and confident way.

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

  Students work solo or in small groups to create an original work for performance over the course of the module, supported by practical workshops in class, as well as lectures on topics including modes of collaboration, historical models of social creativity, recent approaches to interdisciplinary music, and creative uses of technology (across a range of hardware and software). Alongside practical work, students complete written project proposals and reflect critically on their creative processes, using their own documentation of their workshops, and drawing upon theoretical and historical perspectives on collaborative creativity.

• Digital Tools for Music Studies

  In this module you use digital tools to analyse, edit and creatively interact with music and sound, including Sonic Visualiser to represent and analyse audio files of pop and classical music via spectrograms.

• Ensemble Performance

  This module provides the opportunity to explore in depth an area of the chamber music repertory/ensemble work for a recognized instrumental or vocal ensemble (string quartet, piano trio, baroque trio, wind quintet. jazz quintet, etc.) through regular performance seminars led by the course tutor or an external teacher. It develops the capacity of the members of the ensemble to interact and respond to each other’s abilities through regular rehearsals, seminars and concerts and refines students’ individual ideas on technique and interpretation in consultation with other members of the ensemble. It develops students’ ability as an ensemble to manage the occasion of performance.

• Ideas of German Music from Mozart to Henze

  Taking as its basis an essay by Wagner, What is German?, this course will consider some of the claims made for German music, vocal and instrumental, in the context of broader political and intellectual developments. From Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s Hellenism (a key moment in the ‘tyranny of [ancient] Greece over Germany’ and Mozart’s German operas, through the (perceived) centrality of German music in the Romantic and modernist eras, to the difficulties of writing and considering German music following the ‘German catastrophe’ of National Socialism and the Second World War, continuities and disruptions will be considered.

• Introduction to Jazz: Theory, Practice and Contexts

  This is an introductory course exploring jazz in its historical, theoretical and practical developments. It aims to expose students to the major historical periods of jazz and their associated musical characteristics. It also addresses important social and political influences that have fed into the making of the genre and its different scenes. A small component of the course will be dedicated to basic jazz theory and practice. There will also be critical consideration of meta-narratives in the making of jazz as a musical canon.

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

  Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image introduces analytical and critical approaches to the soundtracks of moving-image media. Each session of the module focuses on a particular critical issue, aesthetic practice, or genre, such as ‘Classical Hollywood’ film music of the 1930s-40s, or the use of preexisting music in film. The module offers the opportunity to gain an understanding of key historical developments surrounding the use of music in moving-image media, to develop students' knowledge of the technologies involved in adding sound and music to such media, to explore the use of music within the broader sonic design of moving-image texts, and to investigate the development of music’s function in creating, or enhancing, ‘meaning’.

• Korean Percussion Performance

  This course aims to develop practical, technical and theoretical competence, in solo work and also as an ensemble member, in particular Korean percussion traditions (chiefly – samulnori, but also nong-ak and pungmul). It is assumed that the students enrolling on the course will be near-beginners, but opportunities may arise for the use of existing instrumental skills (using appropriate style) in certain percussion repertoires.

• Late Beethoven

  This course explores the idea of a late style in the music of Beethoven, looking in detail at the late works themselves as well as considering issues of reception and types of critical response to this music.

• Mahler and Viennese Modernism, 1897-1918

  This module introduces the music of Gustav Mahler in the context of his own biography and the history of his two principal genres, the Lied and the Symphony. In the course of this module, students explore the ways in which his music might be understood in relation to movements within the broader artistic, political and social culture of Vienna, 1897-1918.

• Mozart's Operas

  This course will consider Mozart’s operas both individually and as part of a recognised corpus. Naturally, some works will receive greater consideration than others, but there will be considerable scope for students to follow and to nurture their own interests. An especial focus will be the variety of ways in which the operas may be considered. Historical context may perhaps enjoy a particular privilege, but an integral part of the course will be to ask how historical study might be combined with analytical, dramatic, and reception-based perspectives, amongst others.

• Musical Aesthetics

  This module explores some key issues in the aesthetics of European music over the last 200 years. It examines different ways in which questions of musical meaning and value have been dealt with in the context of philosophical aesthetics, including theories of the nature of music, its capacity for expression and representation, its political function, and its relation to the natural and social world. It approaches each topic in three ways to develop: (a) an understanding of the historical development of aesthetic concepts from the late 18th century to the present; (b) a capacity to articulate and critique contemporary aesthetic debates about music; (c) an ability to relate these ideas to specific musical examples.

• Music and Gender

  This course aims to give students a wide-ranging understanding of music, performing arts and gender in different periods and different parts of the world, including Europe. It aims to introduce students to theoretical approaches to the study of gender through richly comparative case studies that will include western classical music as well as musical cultures from other parts of the world. The course will also develop the analytical and writing skills of students.

• Music and Video Games

  This module examines aspects of music in video games, not only in order to understand music within games, but also for critically exploring wider musical practice through games. Each week focuses on a different aspect of music and video games. After explaining and interrogating a musical topic within the frame of games (by engaging with histories, theories and case studies), the issues raised are partnered with broader, cultural, analytical, historical issues of music. In this sense, the course looks both ‘inwards’ to dealing with game music in depth, but also ‘outwards’ to other musical practices. Beyond the learning outcomes identified above, students will also engage in new aesthetic experiences and improve their skills in critical thinking, analysing multimedia texts, reading, and appraising scholarly work, researching in an academic context, and writing essays.

• Music Pedagogy

  This module aims to equip you with the skills necessary in order to confidently teach an instrument or voice in a one-to-one or group setting as well as develop and enhance your critical reflection on your own performance practice.  It aims to equip you with a knowledge of appropriate teaching styles and methods and a contextualised understanding of these as appropriate to different teaching situations (ages, aspirations, individual or group lessons). 

• Music, Power and Politics

  Music is seen across the globe as something that transcends the mundane or has special powers, from the ability to move people emotionally (capitalised on by film-makers and advertisers), to the ability to put people in trance or to heal sickness, to a route to stardom and idolisation, to a means of seduction. Music has been used consciously in many political and nationalist movements and may be tightly controlled by certain regimes. Sometimes less obvious is music’s role in inscribing or subverting gender norms or distinctions of class or status. This course examines a range of these ways in which music holds power and importance in society and culture. It focuses in particular on music’s performative nature, its embodied nature, and its social and communicative nature. It refers to musical genres, practices and cultures from across the world, involving familiar and unfamiliar territory.

• Music and Society in Purcell's London

  This module explores music’s role in the social and political upheavals in London between 1650 and 1700. During Oliver Cromwell’s Commonwealth, music was banned from most public venues. Then with the Restoration of King Charles II in 1660, music was reinstated at court and used as royal propaganda. Music returned to churches and theatres, with a rich culture of public concerts developing. Italian and French musicians flocked to London, and women were permitted to perform music in public for the first time.

• Popular Music and Musicians in Post-War Britain and North America

  From the arrival of the blues in Britain, to America's invasion by the Beatles: American and British popular musics and musicians have maintained a relationship of exchange, convergence and divergence. This module considers popular music in post-war British and North American culture from the blues revival and skiffle in the 1950s to current pop hits through shared patterns of production, dissemination and consumption between the two regions. In addition to acquainting students with the musicians and musical features that define important styles and genres of popular music, lectures will situate musical developments within broader social contexts of race, class, gender, politics, and economics. Through the lectures and readings students will also acquire knowledge of and familiarity with a range of methodologies and theoretical approaches for studying popular music.

• Practical and Creative Orchestration

  This module introduces students to the principles of orchestration: examine and compare techniques and approaches to the discipline; help to develop further technical skills in musical notation; aid in the development of students' creative imagination; give students the opportunity to practise the art of orchestration for themselves.

• Practical Conducting (Choral and Orchestral)

  This module aims to provide students with the technical skills, confidence, and abilities to direct choral and orchestral forces in rehearsal and performance. The practical aspect of the course will consist of regular workshops teaching skills of baton technique and/or hand gesture, as well as communication and rehearsal skills. All students will be expected to sing or play an instrument to form ensembles for practical sessions. The theoretical part of the course comprises lectures on aspects of preparation of scores, organisation of rehearsals, the understanding of vocal techniques and warm-up exercises, understanding the instruments of the orchestra, the programming of repertoire, and the interpretation of music from different periods and genres.

   

• Silent Film Performance

  This course will include lectures on the various theatrical contexts of early film exhibition and its pre-history. It will consider various sound practices: including speaking to the screen; speaking behind the screen; live sound effects; song slides; mixed film programmes; live film prologues; the history of actual film accompaniment (including ‘film funning’, cue sheets, photoplay music, improvisation, ‘special music’). Students will explore the use and development of technologies for providing sound (gramophone records; piano rolls; sound effects machines; early sound synchronisation technologies; keyboard-driven instruments, etc.). Lectures will introduce the gradual institutionalisation of sound practices and the emergence of an industry around sound practices.

• The Music Film
• The String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

  This module will introduce students to one of the twentieth century’s most enigmatic and moving bodies of chamber music. Students will examine various methodological approaches to studying Shostakovich’s chamber music against the unique cultural and political background of the Soviet regime, as well as developing analytical skills for how to understand and interpret this music. There will be a special focus on improving students’ abilities to present arguments about music within the context of socio-political issues. By the end of this module, students will have a working knowledge of all of Shostakovich’s 15 Quartets, and an understanding of the unique political and cultural background against which this music was written.

• Wagner's Ring

  This course examines the operatic cycle that lies at the heart of Wagner’s output: Der Ring des Nibelungen. The chronological range of the course spans Wagner’s earliest thoughts on setting the Nibelung myth in 1848 and their eventual realisation at the première of the complete cycle at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in the summer of 1876. The methodology and scope of the course are interdisciplinary, taking account of Wagner’s writings in the context of the social upheaval of 1848-9 and examining his debt to German philosophy. Individual seminars devoted to each of the four music dramas examine the cumulative effect of Wagner’s changing compositional practice through the cycle, and the relation of practice to theory.