MA Arts Administration & Cultural Policy: Music Pathway

This module will address a range of issues relevant to cultural policy and practice in the UK and other European countries. We will discuss the relationship between cultural production and policy and deal with issues of ‘what is culture’ in different cultural contexts and countries. The module has two distinct elements: the first will deal with post-war arts policy and practice within the UK, exploring the main developments that have contributed to the evolution of current policy. It will examine the interrelationship of the many functions and responsibilities of the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS), the Arts Councils of, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and their regional offices, and how policy is managed at a national, regional and city level. This section of the module will also map the relationship of the ‘cultural industries’ to the economy of access, accountability and cultural/national identity will be explored as well as specific areas of arts and tourism, arts and regeneration, arts education and the globalisation of culture. In general the module will concentrate on policy in relation to the performing arts although reference will be made to visual arts and the heritage sector. 

The second section of the module will provide an introduction to cultural policy models and cultural policies in other European countries, and the structures and priorities that govern arts support. It will look in particular at the situation in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland as well as the specific issues facing arts policymakers in Central and Eastern Europe. Reference will also be made to the role of the European Union in cultural policy development.

 
Through presentations, discussions and group work, considers a range of strategies and practical tools and processes that can be used in a range of disciplines and cultural contexts.

This is a non assessed module aimed to develop your skills.

This module considers the ethical and operational issues involved with fundraising, taking you through both fundraising processes and the development of strategy, from research, approach and delivery to monitoring and evaluation.

This module is not assessed and is aimed to develop your skills.

In this module you will have the opportunity to discuss with senior members of the cultural management profession how policies are reflected in their organisations. To deliver this module the programme works with some of our ‘Partners in Learning’.

This module will introduce students to models of management and professional practice appropriate to arts organisations. It will examine the relationship between arts management practice and the culture in which that practice is situated. The module is in two parts, the first through presentations and seminars will equip students to develop a critical approach to both general management policy and practice and to practice has been developed to meet the characteristics and requirements of the arts sector. Students will be introduced to key ideas in organisational management from Weber to Handy and Belbin and current writing on leadership. Students will also be introduced to different forms of legal structures for organisations and basic issues relating to employment.

In the second part through undertaking a placement with an appropriate arts organisation students will be able to observe, account for and analyse contemporary management practice. Placements will take into account the particular specialised interests of students. Students will prepare a placement report that concentrates on evaluating the appropriateness of management policies and practice in relation to the organisation's stated mission. Assessment through a placement report will concentrate on analysing and commenting on the ‘culture’ of management in the organisation framed by an understanding of theory organisational culture. Work placements while being tailored to student needs and that of the host organisations will be of roughly 3 months duration for 2-3 days a week. 

Normally work placements relate to particular projects within an organisation therefore the most appropriate level of attendance can be negotiated with the organisation on a case-by-case basis with tutorial support. As the course enjoys considerable goodwill within the profession there is normally a suitable placement to develop the interests of each student. A further period of placement may be available at the end of the taught section of the course. Care is taken to match the individual with a suitable organisation, in relation to their overall academic ability (reading, writing and speaking). All students submit an application and shortlisted candidates will be interviewed. You will be participating in the organisation and therefore representing them so they have to be assured you can communicate well. 

Please Note

We cannot guarantee a placement with any specific arts organisation, but we take you through a supportive process to gain a placement with an appropriate arts organisation. Care is taken to match the individual with a suitable organisation, in relation to their overall academic ability (reading, writing, and speaking). All students submit an application and shortlisted candidates will be interviewed. You will be participating in the organisation and therefore representing them so they have to be assured you can communicate well.

This module will introduce you to a model for producing a business/strategic plan for an arts organisation. This is the key document required by all arts organisations, particularly those within the subsidised sector and those wishing to join it. It is currently common practice to write a business plan that considers a three-year period, which is then rolled forward on an annual basis. It is a document that should have an external and internal purpose (i.e. be suitable to send to funders, businesses, banks etc), in addition to being a reference point for staff, and board members. It should refer to all aspects of an organisation’s activities, including the artistic and educational programming, management and staffing, location and resources, finances, marketing and development.

All students will write a Dissertation on an aspect of Arts Administration and Cultural Policy. You start preparing your dissertation in term one with sessions on study skills. These are followed by a series of seminars, primarily with practitioners, which introduces you to key issues of how policy is implemented in practice. Sessions are normally two hours long, initiated by a presentation that outlines the history, remit and policy of an arts organisation followed by a discussion on the key areas of current concern. You will then be able to discuss (in timetabled discussion groups and on Virtual Learning Environment forums) and expand on the issues raised and make connections with the policy areas studied in Cultural Policy and Practice (CP&P). These seminars also introduce you to a range of specialist practice that is only briefly covered in CP&P, such as reminiscence theatre or gallery education programmes.

Writing the dissertation will draw on areas studied throughout the three terms. You are encouraged to explore current issues through research, analysis and debate and will be supported by tutorials. You are also encouraged to be resourceful in researching areas where there is little published material and interviews with practitioners and policymakers may be a primary resource.

This explores contemporary approaches in ethnomusicology. The focus is on contemporary theoretical issues in the field, although current concerns will be situated within the history of ethnomusicological discourse. The module will address 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 module, you will gain familiarity with the connections between ethnomusicology and related disciplines such as anthropology, and with debates concerning disciplinary boundaries within music studies.

This module does not require prior knowledge of ethnomusicology. 

This module will provide historical context by tracing the way in which popular music has posed problems for and also made a significant contributions to the development of musicology as a discipline. It will introduce students to key debates and issues, conceptual terms and methodological approaches and highlight the various intellectual legacies that feed into the study of popular music (such as the ‘discovery’, valorisation and study of the ‘folk’ and folk song; and the ‘critical theory’ of Adorno and the Frankfurt School seen as a response to commodification, the introduction of recorded sound and anxiety about ‘mass culture’; the cultural politics associated with the ‘counter-culture’ and ‘new social movements’). The module will highlight how the development of scholarly debates about popular music has 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.

To take this module you should have: Prerequisite skills: a general awareness of theoretical debates about popular music; a familiarity with various styles of popular music and musicians; an ability to write in a critical and analytical manner.

Coordinator: Professor Keith Negus

This module is divided into two parts. The first concentrates on orchestration and contemporary developments in instrumental techniques, and the second considers the nature of material in relation to the articulation of formal structures.

Taking Schoenberg's comments concerning the organisation of timbre from the end of his ‘Harmonielehre’ (1911) as a starting point, the module explores the more recent investigations into the relationship between harmony, texture and form. Areas also to be discussed will include stochastic music, spectral composition, sound realism, microtonality, arborescences and complexity. The notion of ‘material’ in relation to orchestration and notation will be studied. The module is designed to develop further an understanding of instrumental usage. Consideration of both standard and extended playing techniques of individual instruments will be included, with particular reference to those instruments encountered less often.

Guidance will be given on how to develop an original and individual approach to instrumental colour and function. Issues related to writing for the voice will also be addressed. The module will also study issues raised by the musical notations employed by composers since c. 1950 and by improvisers in different fields who have (more or less) rejected Western musical notation as a tool. The module provides opportunity for composers to experiment and engage with different types of notation in a practical setting.

To take this module you should have: the ability to read advanced notation and scores, including a basic knowledge of standard orchestral instruments and playing techniques; some knowledge of recent developments in contemporary ‘classical’ music and familiarity with the developments of 20th Century compositional thought from Webern to Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti, etc.

This module 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 module 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 module 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.

Everyone has philosophical ideas about music. They tend to come to the fore when we want to dismiss certain works as ‘noise’ (the ‘definition’ problem), or bypass historical context by claiming an interest in ‘the music itself’ (the ‘ontological’ problem), or assert a belief in the profundity of music, or the embodiment of emotions in music, or the parallels between music and language (these are semantic and epistemological problems). They arise too when we defend ourselves by saying that all values are relative (except, apparently, that one, which is supposed to be a universal truth), and that non-western cultures and subcultures have every right to make a claim on the notions of art and the aesthetic.

And philosophical issues also lie at the heart of the ethical decisions that arts administrators and politicians have to make about the distribution of funds in a world of scarce resources – should we allow ourselves to weep at Tosca whilst ignoring tragedy in the streets?

This module provides a gathering-point for discussion and examination of the many concepts that play a role in the ways in which we define, understand, evaluate and justify music. Its aim is to say things so clearly that we can tell when we are talking nonsense, and it does this by analysing ideas systematically in relation to the writings of important figures in the field (see the bibliography on learn.gold).

This module explores ways in which analytical listening and writing can – and perhaps can’t – help us to understand individual and generic working methods within, and to locate and construct ‘meaning’ for, popular music. Key topics that will be 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. 

To take this module you should have: a working knowledge of basic music theory and terminology; familiarity with various styles of popular music; an ability to research and to write in a critical manner. Prior knowledge of art music analytical systems (Schenker, Riemann, etc.) is neither assumed nor necessary.

Convenor: Dr. Tom Perchard

The course offers provides a series of case studies addressing entrepreneurial practices and modes of production. You will cover essential topics in music management and music in the creative industries. 

You will deal with creative sector issues and case studies within this discipline, taking into account the cross-over with other areas. As well as studying producing companies, this also includes consideration of creative agencies. 

Topics covered include: ensemble management; orchestral management; concert programming and curatorial work; education and public outreach; film, TV, music for games; record production and record labels; copyright, PRS, publishing; social media and music; freelance perspectives: marketing and publicity.

Through lectures, discussions and tutorials – including reference to core theoretical concepts in sonic art as well as current thinking concerning studio-based composition and artistic practices using sound – the module develops a theoretical framework for practice. Pivotal historical developments in the application of audio technologies in sonic art are presented, placing compositional techniques in their wider context. The issues and genres considered include: theoretical underpinnings of musique concrète, elektronische musik, futurism and fluxus; interactivity and live electronics; silence and noise; post-digital aesthetics; sampling and plunderphonics; utterance and text-sound composition; audiovision; acoustics and architecture; perception and interpretation; acoustic ecology and phonography. The factors that gave rise to these issues and genres and the artistic results are considered. This understanding provides a basis for experiment and critical evaluation through creative work and subsequent theoretical investigation. 

In the twenty-first century, scholars and performers of music no longer have to rely on published scores, but can work directly from digitized originals or create their own editions.

This module delivers the expertise to do both, and illuminates the processes, both historical and contemporary, through which scores are prepared. Students are trained to work with scholarly resources and all manner of music sources, from manuscripts to digitized autographs to early recordings. Skills are absorbed in lectures and workshops that explore different editorial methods, and the rationales and biases that undergird them. Private tours to London collections, and seminars on cutting-edge editorial projects, complement lectures and workshops. Students learn to command specialist terminology, to assess an edition’s quality, and to use and critique sources of all kinds.

The module is designed for students with strong research interest in Russian culture and Russian history. The emphasis is on history, and on different aspects of social and political life in Russia and Eastern Europe, particularly on current issues. Much of the module will be devoted specifically to the Soviet period, to the ‘socialist realism’ rules in creative arts. Special lectures/seminars will be devoted to Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Schnittke and post-Soviet composers, in relation to the ‘official’ propaganda in Soviet Union, Stalin decrees and the official line of the Communist Party cultural ‘programme’. Particular attention will be given to the current issues, and 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, Stravinsky Collection, and the special collection of post-Soviet scores and documents.

To take this module you should have: competence in academic writing, with a particular focus on the issues of culture and politics.  Experience in musical score reading would be helpful, but isn’t compulsory for this module..

What do we perform and how do we perform it effectively and engagingly?

Apart from developing a solid instrumental or vocal technique and applying ‘good musical instincts’, how do we go further and make reasoned and ultimately convincing choices in performance based on a composer’s instructions? What do we need to perform a musical work other than thorough knowledge of the score and ‘musical ability’?

This module seeks to answer such questions through student performance seminars, analytical discussions of musical works, and lectures that draw on critical writings and recordings to illustrate various approaches to classical performance.

The module will provide 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 will also teach methods of reading, investigating and dating documents, of locating them geographically, historically,  and institutionally, and of transcribing them in accordance with the conventions of modern editorial methods. The module will necessitate visits to repositories of original sources (e.g. Sotheby’s, British Library, etc.). For historical musicologists this module – along  with Sources and Resources – provides an essential foundation for their dissertation work.

Everyone has philosophical ideas about music. They tend to come to the fore when we want to dismiss certain works as ‘noise’ (the ‘definition’ problem), or bypass historical context by claiming an interest in ‘the music itself’ (the ‘ontological’ problem), or assert a belief in the profundity of music, or the embodiment of emotions in music, or the parallels between music and language (these are semantic and epistemological problems). They arise too when we defend ourselves by saying that all values are relative (except, apparently, that one, which is supposed to be a universal truth), and that non-western cultures and subcultures have every right to make a claim on the notions of art and the aesthetic.

And philosophical issues also lie at the heart of the ethical decisions that arts administrators and politicians have to make about the distribution of funds in a world of scarce resources – should we allow ourselves to weep at Tosca whilst ignoring tragedy in the streets?

This module provides a gathering-point for discussion and examination of the many concepts that play a role in the ways in which we define, understand, evaluate and justify music. Its aim is to say things so clearly that we can tell when we are talking nonsense, and it does this by analysing ideas systematically in relation to the writings of important figures in the field (see the bibliography on learn.gold).