Music with Political Studies

Core Modules

Year 1

• Introduction to Politics and Government

  This module will introduce you to the academic study of politics and to the ‘real world’ of contemporary politics. As a foundational course, it will give you all the essential tools to understand the nature of politics and analyse the way different political systems work. You will be introduced to key concepts such as politics, power, rights, ideologies, democracy and representation, and will learn about the different actors, institutions and processes that make up politics today.

Year 2

• All modules are optional

Year 3

• All modules are optional

Optional Modules

There are a number of optional course modules available during your degree studies. The following is a selection of optional course modules that are likely to be available. Please note that although the College will keep changes to a minimum, new modules may be offered or existing modules may be withdrawn, for example, in response to a change in staff. Applicants will be informed if any significant changes need to be made.

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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

   

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Practical Ethics
• 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.

• 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.

• 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’.

• Intercultural Performance: Theory and Practice
• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Hearing the Orient: Critical and Practical Approaches to the Middle East

• Understanding the European Union: Politics and Theory

  In this module you will analyse the contemporary politics of the European Union and its institutions, amid the challenges of the triple crisis of economics, migration and Brexit. You will learn about the political history of European integration after 1949 and the contemporary theory of European integration. The first term will begin with an introduction to the European Union as a political system followed by an overview of the European Union's historical development. The second term will focus on contestation of the European Union and the theories that underpin this, in order to explain how the EU developed and the challenges that it faces. Topics will include Euroscepticism, party politics, public opinion, Brexit and EU-UK relations, and European Parliament elections. The theory sessions comprise of federalism, neo-functionalism, liberal intergovernmentalism and the new institutionalisms.

• Democracy in Britain

  Democracy in Britain explores the theory and practice of modern British politics. It’s designed primarily to familiarise students with the ways in which British democracy has evolved, how it operates today and some of the challenges that confront it. You’ll gain knowledge of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of the political system and you’ll learn about how and why the system operates in the way it does, the quality of contemporary democratic governance and key features of political behaviour in Britain. The first half of the module will focus on the character, development and institutions of Britain’s ‘traditional’ democratic system. The second half will focus on dynamic elements of British democracy, including political parties and party competition, political and especially voting behaviour, and attitudes towards democracy.

• Contemporary Political Theory

  This module concerns the theories underlying discussion of political problems and issues today. Examining a range of key ideas and the thinkers who have developed them, the module will consider what lies at the roots of contemporary debates about laws, policies, protest, and resistance, and it will it enable you to make sense of these debates. Topics covered will likely include liberty, equality, human rights, punishment, democracy, gender, race, multiculturalism and cultural hegemony, civil disobedience, resistance and political violence – as well as other issues in domestic and international justice. Throughout, the module aims to show how abstract theories have practical relevance, and conversely how questions about what states, citizens and other actors ought to do are illuminated by thinking about them theoretically. In general, it offers a broad survey of political theorising today.

• Modern Political Thought

  This module introduces students to major political thinkers from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, including the works of Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Wollstonecraft, Mill, Marx, Nietzsche, and Douglass. The module will introduce you to the themes, argumentative strategies, and critical interpretations of these thinkers, and critically assess these interpretations against the texts themselves. It also aims to show how study of these thinkers illuminates contemporary discussion of freedom, pluralism, sovereignty, and legitimacy, even where no reference is made to them.

• Introduction to Political Communication

  The purpose of this module is to provide a broad overview of how citizens, politicians and the media interact across Western democracies during both electoral and governing periods. The first part of the module will focus on the production and consumption of political news, while the second part will address campaigns and their effects as well as focusing on contemporary debates in political communication, including ethical issues. While the module will cover key aspects of political communication in the United Kingdom, the focus will be mostly comparative across countries. Seminars are centred on practical activities that allow students to apply the knowledge presented in the module to contemporary real-world examples of political communication in action. Examples include analysis of political speeches, advertisements, candidate debates, campaign strategies, and news coverage of political issues.

• Politics Outside the West

  This module is a key bridge between the first year modules in comparative politics and international relations and the third year modules in the politics of Africa, China, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia. It is designed to equip you with a critical understanding of the most important features of the history of international development which build the foundations of our modern world: the transition from empires to states, colonialism, de-colonisation, and the subsequent post-colonial political issues facing the Global South. This means you don’t necessarily learn about politics “outside the West”, as if it’s a phenomenon separate from the West, but, instead, develop ideas of politics and international relations from the vantage point of the Global South, including its prominent political thinkers.

Year 3

• Solo Performance

  The module 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, thereby gaining platform experience in preparation for the final performance.  ‘Professional preparation’, consists of the development of stage presence and other relevant concerns, such as preparation for an audition, performance practice, interpretation and communication.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

   

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Practical Ethics
• 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.

• 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.

• 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’.

• Intercultural Performance: Theory and Practice
• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

• Hearing the Orient: Critical and Practical Approaches to the Middle East
• Practical Performance 2
• 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.

• 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.

• European Union Public Policy

  In this module you will develop an understanding of regulation in the European Union, including delivery of policy and administration. You will look at how the world's largest market operates, with a focus on EU public policy, including de-regulation, re-regulation, budgets and spending. You will examine the concept of the single market, the Euro and its crisis, justice, home affairs and counter-terrorism, the EU budget, agriculture, regional development, and social and environmental policies.

• Radical Political Theory
• Young People's Politics
• Leadership, Power and the British Prime Minister
• Visual Politics
• American Political Development
• The Politics of Russia and Eastern Europe
• The Politics of International Development
• Issues in Democratic Theory
• Political Theories of Freedom
• Comparative Political Leadership

  Party leaders, and their public image, are increasingly considered important for a party’s electoral success, for the smooth running of government and for regime legitimacy. Perhaps the most important variable for successful politicians is their ability to effectively communicate and connect with their audiences. This module will first, show you the techniques most frequently used my politicians, communicators and speechwriters to effectively deliver their messages in different contexts and settings. Next, you will analyse how these techniques have been used by the greatest leaders in the word to justify their regimes. By the end of the module you will be able to evaluate leadership styles during and after elections and design communication strategies that will deliver political messages effectively.

   

• Global Environmental Politics

  This module examines both the domestic and international politics of the environment. The first part of the module consists of defining the environmental problems faced globally, highlighting similarities and differences to other issues. This part also identifies the key actors, interests, and institutions that are necessary to understand the politics of climate change. The second part of the module focuses on three varieties of theories of environmental politics: collective action problems, distributional politics, and ideational conflict. The third part then examines a variety of topics in environmental politics, building upon the analytical approaches outlined in the first two parts of the course. The chosen topics allow for both understanding how politics shapes environmental outcomes, for example through international agreements, as well as how climate change and the environment affects political outcomes, for example by fostering political conflict.

   

   

• Parliamentary Studies

  This final-year half module offers students the opportunity to obtain an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the British parliament and its place in British democracy. It will help you to evaluate the work and role of Parliament and parliamentarians, appreciate ongoing debates about contemporary legislative practice, and engage critically with previous academic scholarship in this area. It will also help you to develop you own awareness and experience of conducting research.

• Latin American Politics

  This module is designed to introduce advanced undergraduates to the major themes of contemporary Latin American politics and, consequently, democracy and political development. Although the module does not assume that you already have knowledge of the region, you are expected to be familiar with basic concepts of comparative political analysis. While the module stresses the political aspects of the developmental process, its objective is to show the linkages between economic, social, cultural, and political variables--both at national and international levels.

   

   

• Gender and Political Representation

  This module examines the contemporary literature on gender and politics, with a particular focus on women’s participation and representation in British politics. It introduces you to feminist theories of representation, debates over women’s interests, and feminist institutionalism. It applies these frameworks to consider why the number of women in our parliaments might matter and what difference – symbolic, substantive and affective – sex and gender make to elected political institutions, the policy process, political outcomes, and healthy democracies.

• Politics of South Asia

  The politics of South Asia – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh - are central to understanding some of the themes at the core of modern politics: poverty and development, security and warfare, migration and transnationalism, decolonisation and postcolonialism, the international economy and globalisation. This module deals with the social and political development of these countries since independence from British rule in 1947. We will analyse issues including caste politics, the role of religious violence and the place of women in politics and society. Sources will come from a range of disciplines – politics and IR, history, sociology, anthropology, novels and films. We will study regional cooperation and conflict including the troubled relationship between India and Pakistan over Kashmir and their nuclear status. By the end of the module you will have a specialised understanding of the major social, economic and political developments in the region.