Composition and Moving Image Media

The course engages with practical and conceptual approaches to the composition of music for moving image media – film, television, video and other digital forms. Initial lectures consider theories of multimedia and the aesthetics of film music, exploring the relationship of music and sound to the structure and content of film narrative. A lecture on technical issues related to synchronisation is followed by a paired sequence of lectures. There are show-and-tell workshops that consider individual topics, with ensuing short exercises. Topics may include: dramatic scoring; music in games and new media; library music; sound design; experimental film and video; new approaches to silent film; found film and sound montage.

Method of Assessment: Portfolio of compositions (as audio and/or video files) equal to 10 minutes, presented as a showreel, with accompanying commentary (maximum 1,000 words)

Compositional Techniques

This course is concerned with diverse methodologies for the generation, manipulation and control of the various musical parameters with specific focus on pitch and rhythm. No stylistic or technical orthodoxy is given particular emphasis, though the course is necessarily directed towards the developments of the last 40 years or so. While systematic approaches are discussed, these do not preclude consideration of more intuitive methods and how these might be enhanced through the application of formalised techniques. Work focuses especially on how the foreground details of music can be projected over the duration of a work. Specific techniques found in post-serial music, spectral composition, and sieve theory are examined. The relationship between metre, rhythm, tempo and texture in relation to surface activity and fundamental structure are discussed as a means of articulating larger scale formal units and shaping musical material.

Method of Assessment: A portfolio of composition exercises that apply the theories studied.

Contemporary Ethnomusicology

This course explores contemporary approaches in ethnomusicology. The focus is on theoretical issues in the field, although current concerns are situated within the history of ethnomusicological discourse. The course addresses a range of topics and issues, such as globalisation and diasporas, the ‘world music’ phenomenon, ethics, urban ethnomusicology, cognitive approaches, musical experience and phenomenology, music technology, and issues of gender, sexuality, and ‘race’. During the course, you gain familiarity with the connections between ethnomusicology and related disciplines such as anthropology, and with debates concerning disciplinary boundaries within music studies.

Method of Assessment: 5,000-word essay.

Contemporary Music: Practices and Debates

This course traces significant paths through late 20th- and early 21st-century musical cultures, focusing on key repertoires and the debates that surround them. Modernism and post-modernism, both in music and culture more widely, form a natural focus for many of these debates.  The modernisms of recent times, however much their creators may have insisted on an oppositional stance, have their origins in early 20th-century modernisms, whether in music or other art forms. While the post-modernisms that overlapped with, as well as succeeded, them are frequently associated with the blurring of barriers between ‘High Art’ and ‘Low Art’, this course assesses the significance of such movements and musical phenomena as part of a continuing tradition of ‘classical’ music – a tradition whose validity and success is also itself examined. Consideration is also given to the extent to which these terms and debates can usefully be applied to popular music.   The methodologies examined and tested include history (cultural as well as musical), cultural theory and musical analysis.

Method of Assessment: 5,000-word essay.

Critical Musicology and Popular Music

This course provides historical context by tracing the way in which popular music has posed problems for and also made a significant contribution to the development of musicology. It introduces key debates and issues, conceptual terms and methodological approaches and highlights the various legacies that feed into the study of popular music (in particular the ‘discovery’, valorisation and study of the ‘folk’ and folk song; and the ‘critical theory’ of Adorno and the Frankfurt School, the introduction of recorded sound and anxiety about ‘mass culture’). The course highlights how the development of scholarly debates about popular music have been informed by interdisciplinary dialogues, an embracement of ‘the popular’ as a political project and the gradual institutionalization of popular music studies within the academy.

Method of Assessment: 5,000-word essay.

Ethnographic Film and Music Research

The course examines the uses of ethnographic film/video in music research and enables students to develop the practical, technical and theoretical skills necessary to make their own short ethnographic film on a music topic in a critical and self-reflexive manner. Through a critical reading of key ethnographic films about music, the course will address questions of aesthetics, representation and ethics that arise in the process of filmmaking. It will also consider the use of digital media in musical ethnography more generally and assess the methods of analysis afforded by the visual documentation of music practices. In complement with theoretical seminars, practical workshops on the methods of digital video recording and editing will familiarise students with a variety of approaches to ethnographic filmmaking and techniques of sound recording.

Method of Assessment: Coursework Portfolio consisting of: 1. A short ethnographic film on a music topic (c.10-20mins), or other equivalent video documentation of musical practices. 2. Commentary and analysis of film/audiovisual material (c.2,000 words)

Interactive and Generative Music

This course explores creative and technical approaches to the design of computer music systems for improvised performance, composition and/or installation. The software used is Max/MSP with Jitter. A number of fundamental methods for real-time computer music are investigated, including digital signal processing, sampling and synthesis. The paradigm of 'computer-as-instrument' is explored using a range of performer interfaces, within software environments and using external devices. Machine listening and video capture are introduced as a means for musician-to-computer control. The alternative paradigm of 'computer-as-creator' is explored using algorithmic and generative methods, including stochastic and AI -related approaches. You develop a creative or analytical project that explores the compositional and musical possibilities of working with real-time systems, leading to live workshop presentation, performance or demonstration.

Method of Assessment:  EITHER: A Max/MSP project for improvised performance, installation, studio-based or notated composition. Designed and implemented in full, presented to be suitable for general use. To be accompanied by a realisation and a short evaluative statement c. 500 words. Assessment takes account of programme design and the creative work produced.

OR: An analytic essay c. 3000 words with accompanying Max/MSP data. The essay is a critical evaluation of selected patches and their use and is supported by close analysis of relevant, functioning patches that relate to a specific repertoire or research theme.

Material, Form and Structure

Taking Schoenberg's comments concerning the organisation of timbre from the end of his ‘Harmonielehre’ (1911) as a starting point, this course explores more recent investigations into the relationship between harmony, texture and form. Stockhausen's seminal article, 'How Time Passes' (1956) is used to examine the relationship between microtime (or the constitution of timbres) and the macro-temporal structures we perceive as rhythmic-metrical relationships. Areas also discussed include stochastic music, sound realism, microtonality, arborescences and complexity. The notion of ‘material’ in relation to instrumental usage, orchestration and notation is studied. Standard and extended playing and vocal techniques are studied, with particular reference to instruments encountered less often. Guidance is given on how to develop an individual approach to instrumental colour and function. The course also studies the musical notations employed by composers and improvisers who have rejected Western musical notation as a tool. The course provides opportunity to experiment with different types of notation in a practical setting.

Method of Assessment: A portfolio of composition exercises that apply the theories studied.

Musicological Theory

This course looks at the way in which musicology has dealt with the uneasy relationship between fact, value, interpretation and purpose in relation to the discipline. The course is taught through a combination of concept analysis and the history of traditions in relation to musicological theory. The course covers the origins of musicology as a discipline, and the patterns of change that have occurred since, together with their causes. It describes some major influences on the discipline (critical theory, gender studies, deconstruction, analytic approaches, post-modern theory, etc) and illustrate their effects on the interpretation of musical works and events. Additionally it reflects on the history of historical writing, and how we have come to favour particular narratives in relation to music, and how these might depend on the historical situation of the historians involved. Finally it will reflect on future trends in historical musicology and its increasing rapprochement with cultural theory.

Method of Assessment: One 5,000-word essay.

EITHER a) critically reflect upon a recent interpretative methodology OR b) assess the contribution of a particular musicologist OR c) analyse an important concept in the historico-social situating of works

New Directions in Popular Music Research

This course provides a critical appraisal of the philosophical, conceptual and methodological limitations of existing approaches to researching popular music, whilst exploring ways of overcoming these and finding new research directions. The course surveys a cross section of studies that have been conducted in different contexts, with varied methodologies informed by contrasting agendas: This includes scholarship focussing separately on industries and production, texts and meaning, reception and consumption and scientific research on music. You think across disciplinary boundaries, informed by an oft-repeated maxim; that innovative and significant research entails the art of asking the right questions. Hence, you ask new questions of old research, and set up new questions for potential future research. The course will complement musicological techniques by drawing from methods deployed across the arts and humanities, business and the sciences when exploring methodological techniques for researching such questions.

Method of Assessment: 5,000 word essay: an individual research project.

Performance as Research

The course develops your knowledge and understanding of musical performance as a research technique, particularly in relation to the music of other cultures. It addresses practical, theoretical and conceptual issues concerning music performance, including the nature of musicality, processes of learning, theories of improvisation, modal theory, and the body in music performance. Theoretical understanding is developed in conjunction with practical, experiential learning. You develop a research-centred performance project by learning to perform from a repertory outside their primary music culture, or by developing expertise in a new area of performance practice. This may include learning to perform a new instrument and/or genre; developing improvisation skills; or the arrangement and performance of pieces from a particular music tradition. You present a short performance that demonstrates your developing skills.

Method of Assessment: Performance Project consisting of a performance (about 15 minutes) and an essay or reflexive diary (3,000 words) relating to the performance and/or the learning process.

Philosophies of Music

The course examines concepts that play a role in the ways in which we define, understand and evaluate music. All students of music encounter philosophical questions of these kinds, whether performers (the ontology of the work and ‘authentic’ performance), composers (the identity of the work and the laws of copyright), critics (questions of value or meaning), or arts administrators (justifications for support and existence of certain works). This course analyses them systematically in relation to the writings of important figures in the field. The course surveys major issues by concept (definition, ontology, musical meaning, intentionality and expression, performativity, formalism, evaluation, etc). Theories of particularly influential writers and movements are examined in detail – Adorno, Hanslick, Scruton, Deconstruction, Relativism, etc. Your essay presents an argument on a philosophical issue of existence, or meaning, or evaluation, or justification in relation to music applied to specific musical examples.

Method of Assessment: 5,000-word essay. The essay should present a discourse or argument on a philosophical issue of existence, or meaning, or evaluation, or justification in relation to music centred upon specific musical examples, events or phenomena.

Popular Music: Listening, Analysis and Interpretation

This course explores ways in which analytical listening and writing can – and perhaps cannot – help us to understand individual and generic working methods within, and to locate and construct ‘meaning’ for, popular music. Key topics covered include the problems of the popular music ‘text’, and of the analytical methods that might be used to access it; the representation of popular music in writing, notation and visual image; the use of close listening and analysis in the investigation of individual, cultural and historical musical subjects (in both senses of that term); the variety of ‘analytical’ popular musical knowledge as it appears in scholarly, journalistic and audience discourses.

Method of Assessment: 5,000 word essay.

Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis

The course covers the theory and analysis of atonal music in the 20th and 21st centuries, including serialism and integral serialism. You examine and apply the techniques of pitch-class set theory, motivic analysis, formal and structural analysis. The repertoire is drawn mainly from Western art music (c. 1910 to the present), with particular emphasis on the Austro-German and French traditions. This course provides a strong technical grounding in the analysis of new music of particular relevance to composers, who may go on to apply related methods in subsequent creative work.

Method of Assessment: 5,000 word essay.

Research Methods in Music and Contemporary Culture

This course aims to provide both a practical and theoretical introduction to a range of research methodologies relating to the study of music in contemporary culture. You engage with issues such as the use of the internet and other information technology resources in musical research, techniques and technologies relating to interviews for both ethnographic and oral history purposes, issues of textual representation in relation to both life writing and musical sound, and research ethics.

Method of Assessment: A portfolio of four exercises consisting of a review of information technology in relation to a given research area drawn from an agreed list; an interview and associated transcription; a transcription or other representation of an extract of musical sound from an agreed list; a review essay of 2,000 words on a topic agreed with the course co-ordinator.

Sound Agendas

The course develops a theoretical framework for practice –with reference to core concepts in sonic art, and current thinking studio-based composition. Pivotal historical developments in the application of audio technologies are studied, placing compositional techniques in a wider context. We consider the theoretical underpinnings of musique concrète, elektronische musik, futurism and fluxus, interactivity, silence and noise, post-digital aesthetics, plunderphonics, utterance and text-sound composition, audiovision, acoustics and architecture, perception, acoustic ecology and phonography. These issues and their artistic manifestations provide a basis for experiment and evaluation through creative work and/or theoretical writing. This can provide support for work in your Portfolio/Creative Project.

Method of Assessment: EITHER a creative project with 3,000-word s essay. This is a practice-based assignment informed by research into historical precedence, contextual enquiry, and reflective practice (compulsory for MMus Studio Composition). OR a 5,000-word analytical essay. This will demonstrate your ability to apply critical reasoning to a set question, conduct independent research and produce an academic argument that can be supported by evidence and examples.

Sources and Resources

This course deals with research skills, sources and resources (libraries, internet, published items, etc.) pertinent to understanding, making, assessing and using different types of musical editions with sophisticated understanding by all types of musicians (performers, historians, composers, etc.). It explores the interface between musicology and performance, The various typologies of editions will primarily be dealt with through an examination of how their features affect musical performance and recording. The course also includes a survey of the many ways a composition might be preserved (paper, recording, computer-file, oral tradition, etc.) and how these affect the notion of a ‘best version’. This investigation is supported by a study day hosted by the British Library. There is also a study skills component relevant to dissertations and the professional presentation of written work on the various pathways of the MMus and MA in Music.

Method of Assessment: EITHER 5,000-word essay comparing two significantly different editions of the same work, OR an equivalent exercise in the field of editing. This requires the compilation of relevant bibliographic items, engagement with the original materials, and assessment of the appropriateness of each edition to its aims

Soviet and Post-Soviet Music and Politics

This course is for students with a strong research interest in Russian culture. The emphasis is on history, and on different aspects of social and political life in Russia and Eastern Europe, and particularly their current relevance. Much of the course will be devoted specifically to the Soviet period, to the ‘socialist realism’ rules in creative arts. Seminars explore Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Schnittke and post-Soviet composers, in relation to the ‘official’ propaganda in Soviet Union, Stalin’s decrees and the official line of the Communist Party cultural ‘programme’. Particular attention is also given to the development of Russian music after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Students will be given the opportunity to work at Goldsmiths’ unique archives – Prokofiev, Schnittke archives and the special collection of post-Soviet scores and documents.

Method of Assessment: 5,000-word essay.

Strategies for Performance

This course consists of lectures and performance seminars where you performand discuss significant issues related to music performance skills and the psychology of performance. This will result in a final performance exam (20-30 minute duration), to be recorded on CD with the sleeve notes (1,500 words).

Method of Assessment: Final recital (80%), 20 minutes (singers), 30 minutes (all other instruments), with the sleeve notes for the CD (1,500 words) (20%).

Studio Practice

The course enhances your skills in a range of studio techniques and creative methods, supported by an understanding of related key concepts, with reference to the Electronic Music Studios. These include recording, editing and mixing, field recording, spectral manipulation, sound synthesis and placement, and electroacoustic compositional methods. The software used includes Pro Tools, Audiosculpt, and Metasynth. Special attention is given to multi-channel sound work using the EMS Multi-channel Studio and 5.1 Studio. Issues related to technology-based composition are explored, such as listening, spatialisation, transformation, site/location and context. This module includes an opportunity to collaborate with students taking theatre writing/performance courses.

Method of Assessment: A portfolio of selected creative/technical investigative projects, each with a short evaluative statement c. 500 words.

Traditions of Practice

This course takes an overview of certain aspects of musical practice in the Western art music tradition. It considers a range of ideas, sources and resources relating to historically informed performance, including engagement with the so-called ‘authenticity’ debate. The aural tradition of Western art music is reviewed through the study of recordings, and the essentially immutable aspects of such recordings are contrasted with the role of improvisation in Western art music performance. The Russian school of performance will be a particular case study, and time will also be devoted to a specific consideration of performance practice in contemporary music.

Method of Assessment: EITHER a 5,000-word essay on a selected and agreed topic; OR a 2,500-word essay supplemented by a performance of between 10-15 minutes that exemplifies ideas contained in the essay.

Working with Original Documents

The course provides detailed study of selected manuscript and printed sources, with a guide to their notational systems, palaeographic features, their relation to other copies of the same repertory (stemmatics) and their construction as documents (codicology). It also teaches methods of dating documents, locating them geographically and institutionally, and the conventions of transcribing them. The course will necessitate visits to repositories of original sources (eg. Sotheby’s British Library).

Method of Assessment: EITHER a critical edition of an older musical source, which would include a critical commentary and accompanying contextualising essay, OR a professional description of an older musical source with a contextualising essay (5,000 words).