MA in Music (Contemporary Music Studies), Goldsmiths, University of London

MA in Music (Contemporary Music Studies)

Length:
1 year full-time or 2 years part-time.

Applying:

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You will normally be required to attend an interview, and you may be asked to submit examples of your written work in advance. If you wish to be exempted from interview, you should send at least one example of your written work in English (such as an essay of at least 1,500 words on a relevant topic), certified to be your own.

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Entrance requirements:

You should normally have, or expect to have, a first-class or upper second-class Honours degree in Music, or an equivalent qualification. Your qualification should comprise a substantial academic element relevant to the selected MA pathway and option choices. For the generic MA in Music award you should write a detailed proposal explaining the rationale for your choices and how these provide a coherent programme of study leading to dissertation. A detailed transcript of your degree is preferred.

We also encourage applications from people without formal qualifications who can demonstrate equivalent professional experience, in which case you are advised to enclose with your application examples of your written work.

If your first language is not English, please check our English Language requirements.

Fees:
Please see Tuition fees.

Staff research interests:
Please see Staff research interests.

Contact the department:
Contact Keith Potter

About the department:
Music

Download a booklet [PDF, 712KB]

The MA in Music (Contemporary Music Studies) examines aspects of methodology, repertoire studies and cultural theory within a wide-ranging programme of investigation into the role of contemporary music in the society for which it is created. You explore the key methodologies appropriate for scholarly study of the music of the present and recent past, such as oral history and contrasting approaches to musical ‘close reading’.

Musical repertoires, and notions of repertoire, are examined, and you are encouraged to ask such questions as whether the boundaries often considered to exist between, for example, ‘contemporary concert music’ and ‘popular music’ are still meaningful for practitioners, listeners and scholars today. Various approaches to cultural theory are viewed in the light of what they might bring to the study of contemporary music of different kinds.

The understandings developed in your coursework culminate in the methods and approaches demonstrated in your dissertation. This gives you the opportunity to address particular challenges of studying and writing about the music of our time arising from your own musical and theoretical enthusiasms.

The programme appeals to a wide range of students concerned to develop their understanding of today's music and keen to harness this to relevant intellectual skills. While designed as an open-ended programme of study that can subsequently be applied in many ways within, and outside, the musical profession, it will be of especial value to those preparing for further postgraduate research, and those considering careers in teaching, journalism, arts administration or the culture industries.

Find out more about the Popular Music: Listening, Analysis and Interpretation.

What you study

The programme comprises:

1. Core (two courses): Contemporary Music: Practices and Debates, Research Methods in Music and Contemporary Culture.

2. Options. (two courses): Contemporary Ethnomusicology, Critical Musicology and Popular Music, Popular Music: Listening, Interpretation and Analysis, Musicological Theory, Philosophies of Music, Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis, Sound Agendas, Sources and Resources, Soviet Music and Politics.

3. Dissertation.

Skills

You'll develop:

investigation and evaluation skills
intellectual skills in music
specific research skills

Careers

While designed as an open-ended programme of study that can subsequently be applied in many ways within, and outside, the musical profession, it will be of especial value to those preparing for further postgraduate research, and those considering careers in teaching, journalism, arts administration or the culture industries.

Register your interest

If you register your interest in this programme we will keep you informed about open days and send you relevant further information. If you subsequently decide to apply for this programme you will be able to use the same login details to apply.