This MA allows you to build an individual, ‘tailor made’ programme of study, which incorporates the intellectual concerns, skills and understandings that lead to a clearly focused research dissertation. You choose four courses, including at least one of two core courses, which provide you with specific research skills relevant to your interests.

This route is appropriate for those who have a particular interest they wish to develop not covered by one of our specialist pathways, or for those who are seeking a broadly based programme of music study at postgraduate level (taking both core courses, for example, would provide exceptional training for those going on to doctoral study). Applicants should note that departmental timetable restrictions apply; consequently, part-time study offers the most flexible range of potential course combinations.

The programme appeals to a wide range of students developing intellectual skills in music, perhaps as preparation for further postgraduate research, prior to entering teaching, or as a basis for a employment in arts administration, journalism, or other occupations in the creative and cultural industries.

Find out more about the MA in Music.

What you study

The programme comprises:

1. Core: Research Methods in Music and Contemporary Culture or Sources and Resources.
2. Options (three courses): Contemporary Ethnomusicology; Critical Musicology and Popular Music; Ethnographic Film and Music Research; Contemporary Music: Practices and Debates; Musicological Theory; New Directions in Popular Music Research; Performance as Research; Philosophies of Music; Popular Music: Listening, Interpretation and Analysis; Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis; Research Methods in Music and Contemporary Culture; Sound Agendas; Sources and Resources; Soviet Music and Politics; Traditions of Practice; Working with Original Musical Documents.
3. Dissertation.