The MA in Music (Popular Music Research) engages with scholarly debates and public controversies around popular music, while examining and developing both traditional and innovative ways of researching popular music. It provides a grounding in the development of popular music research as a subfield of musicology, and encourages critical thinking about musical texts, artefacts and ecologies; audiences, reception and questions of interpretation; creativity, industries and production; repertoires broad in historical range and geographical scope.

The course addresses contemporary issues of significance to academics, musicians, industries and organisations involved with popular music. You develop research skills, critical thinking and rigorous methodological expertise with a range of applications both within the academy (at doctoral level) and outside (in music related industries, marketing, arts management, museums and archives, the sciences).

Although a knowledge of and passion for popular music is vital, it is not essential that your first degree is in music or popular music. We welcome applicants from a wide range of disciplines: the course is designed to be of benefit not only to those wishing to continue their research at doctoral level, but also those wishing to reflect on their experiences as musicians, listeners, or media and arts industry professionals.

Find out more about the MA in Music.

What you study

1. Core (two courses): Critical Musicology and Popular Music; Research Methods in Music and Contemporary Culture.

2. Options (two courses): Contemporary Ethnomusicology; Contemporary Music: Practices and Debates; Ethnographic Film and Music Research; Musicological Theory; Performance as Research; Philosophies of Music; New Directions in Popular Music Research; Popular Music: Listening, Interpretation and Analysis; Sound Agendas; Working With Original Musical Documents.

3. Dissertation.

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.