MA Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship: Music Pathway

Theories of Capital critically examines key theories of social, economic, cultural and symbolic capital.  The module details these conceptual capital frameworks and compliments this theoretical foundation with application in the creative and cultural industries with a focus on government policy and the unique economic characteristics of the creative industries.  For example consumer consumption of status goods will be assessed using theories of symbolic and social capital. Emphasis will be given on the role of intellectual capital in policy. Students will learn the analytical rigour to critically assess creative and cultural industry policy and market structures.  Students will be able to translate theory into practice, and practice into theory.

This module will introduce students to a range of business modelling tools, and provide insight in to the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and enterprises. The module has evolved from NESTA’s Creative Pioneer Programme and will use the Modelling Techniques that were designed and have evolved from The Academy and Insight Out which provide approaches to commercialising creativity.

It will critically review the key characteristics of successful enterprises, entrepreneurs and leaders, within the cultural and more commercially focused creative industries. It will look at the range of business models that exist and review how best to build a financially sustainable organisation.

Students will be introduced to a range of techniques:

1. Relationship Modelling – this will assist students to understand the range of business models in the creative industries, and to create the most appropriate route to market; it will consider the relationship that the originator of the creative idea has to the production, distribution and the audience/customer/client; it uncovers the student’s relationship to “reward”.

2. Evidence Modelling – this model uses Marshall McLuhan’s Tetrad Model to review the likely impact of the idea; it helps makes the enterprise tangible and to ensure that the entrepreneur remains in control of the effects of their ideas. Using the modelling technique helps students to articulate their values and the benefits of their ideas.

3. Blueprint Modelling – an approach to creating an operating plan which will move their idea to market, articulating all of the activities and responsibilities required.
Consequence Modelling – using all of the knowledge from the modelling techniques, this will uncover the financial consequences of the decisions made. It will introduce them to basic financial modelling concepts, and ensure they are comfortable with the financial language of creative entrepreneurs.

The dissertations are intended to assess the full range of students’ abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes which the programme enables students to develop. In particular it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

The dissertations and projects are intended to assess the full range of students’ abilities and to apply a range of learning outcomes which the programme enables students to develop. In particular, it enables assessment of the ability to design, develop and write an advanced research project using primary and/or secondary materials appropriate to the topic and according to the necessary conventions of scholarly work. It requires independent motivation and self-directed learning, under supervision, and enables students to demonstrate competence for critical analysis and sustained persuasive argument.

This module will introduce students to models of management, entrepreneurship and professional practice appropriate to creative, social or cultural organisations. It will examine the relationship between arts management practice, design thinking entrepreneurial practices 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.

The second part of the module is the placement, which will work where possible as or like a knowledge transfer partnership scheme. One of the key aims of knowledge transfer partnerships to help businesses ‘improve their competitiveness and productivity through the better use of knowledge, technology and skills that reside within the UK knowledge base’. So, we understand this placement as not only an important learning experience for the student but also as an important link between companies (across sectors) and academe (Goldsmiths and its offer particularly). The placement may be attached to various projects - research and consultancy – ICCE and or the Design Department is engaged with and also continuing to develop but equally may be a new initiative.

This overview of the performing arts sector will analyse the different structures of arts organisations from the small 50 seat experimental venue or touring theatre company to the large commercial or state organisations. Looking at how this range of organisations place themselves within a political, social, economic context and at how new developments in technology are changing both the structure and culture of management within these organisations. Issues of audience development relating to access and diversity as well as funding sources have a political dimension that has to be addressed in parallel with an understanding of the techniques and tools used.

The course will build on the theoretical approach of "Theories of the Culture Industry: work, creativity and precariousness" to examine one sector in greater detail (bearing in mind that there is always considerable crossover and dependency between sectors such as theatre, dance, opera, site-specific performance etc) looking at the core producing models and at the great range of ancillary support business that sustains the sector. Both traditional and new performance forms will be studied in relation to the organisational structures that are needed to sustain them, ranging from established building based enterprises to the more fluid ‘festival’ or single event forms. Some seminars will be with arts organisations – see Appendix A for partners in Learning.

On this module students will review and critically appraise:

1. The way creativity works in different sectors of business,
2. The many ways in which professional practice is organised across different sectors.
3. The professional practice that is required by creatives and managers of Innovation.
4. Applying this knowledge to building a critical approach and understanding of creativity in business to a personal plan.
5. Communicating both knowledge and understanding of business of creative industries through a formal presentation to peers and staff.

Students will look at how creatives (and managers) within organisations, working in arts organisations, creative enterprises and social innovation enterprises and in their own practice locate themselves and negotiate the political, social, economic, environmental and technological contexts that impinge on their practices. The module will introduce students to different examples of business structure and practice of creative and cultural organisations and innovation. Students will explore how creative thinking and practice is involved in business, so that they may critically appraise and contrast different models of creative related business. The module will engage in new developments in technology are changing both the structure and culture of management within these organisations. Issues of audience development relating to access and diversity as well as funding sources have a political dimension that have to be addressed in parallel with an understanding of the techniques and tools used.

The culmination will involve both written reflection and a proposition for how this knowledge can inform their own future careers. The students will be required to make a report of their engagement with the materials and also create a presentation of their proposed professional practice plans that take this knowledge and synthesise it into their own plan.  

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.

Contemporary music ain't what it used to be. Though always multifaceted and to some extent mongrel, the musical avant-garde is now more mixed and sprawling than ever before. And yet efforts to grasp these current tendencies within the field, as well as historical contexts, often remain stuck in bubbles of either analytical specificity or generalised postmodern speculation.

This module sets out to act as a corrective to both of these tendencies by balancing grounding analytical depth with historical and cultural breadth. Accordingly, lectures apply various analytical methods to a broad range of contemporary music both to unlock the music’s workings and to explore its position as a bridge to culture more generally speaking. The module encourages students to think about the historical development and expansion of contemporary music while using analysis to prise open broader interpretative and theoretical issues.

We focus in the first instance on post-tonal musical languages such as serialism, extended tonality and atonality. We then move on to examine proliferating styles from across the contemporary spectrum, including spectral music, sound art, noise, extreme metal, new conceptualism and improvisation.

This module explores the development and deployment of critical discourses on popular music, focusing on the ways in which commentators – journalists, academics, bloggers, consumers – have used words to represent sound and to construct systems of meaning and value for the music they have loved and hated. Spanning the 20th-century but focusing on present-day practices, the module will address discourses on jazz, rock, dance and pop in which commentators have attempted to articulate the excitement and anxiety these musics inspired as they came into being. Although much critical work has been done in print, the module will also consider how other media (radio, television, the internet) have shaped their own descriptive and evaluative practices. Students will be encouraged to think about the relationship between critical listening and critical languages; between popular and academic discourses and modes of evaluation; and about the changing place and status of the popular music critic and scholar. 

To take this module you should be familiar with various styles of popular music, and have the ability to research and write in a critical manner. Knowledge of music theory is neither assumed nor necessary.

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.

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 offers an overview of the formative debates in musicology over roughly the past three decades. Through a series of thematised readings each week, students will be introduced to a variety of issues that have permeated recent musical discourse, including gender, sexuality, race, canon, technology, performance, analysis and notation.

As well as investigating topics in art music, popular music and ethnomusicology, this module will consider other fields that have influenced musicological discourse, such as anthropology, philosophy and sociology. Throughout, students will be invited to debate the ways in which the history of music has been written: how certain music and musical cultures have entered into or been excluded from canons; how recent writing on music has attempted to redress such exclusions; and what the future of musicology might hold.

With this in mind, students will be encouraged to write essays that innovatively apply the concepts and issues explored during the module to a topic of their own devising. They will also complete two or three short reviews of a mixture of recent musicological articles and presentations given in the Music Research Series. Students should come away from this module not only with a firm understanding of the field, but also with the methods by which it has been (and is being) researched.

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 traces just a few of the paths, among many that might be identified, tracked and evaluated, through late twentieth- and early twenty first-century musical cultures, focusing on some key repertoires and the debates which surround them.

The Modernisms of this period, however much their creators may have insisted on an aesthetic of rejection and beginning again from first principles, have their aesthetic, and even some of their technical, origins in early twentieth-century Modernisms, whether musical or emerging from other art forms and cultural practices. While the Postmodernisms that overlapped with, as well as succeeded, them  are frequently associated with the blurring and even breakdown of previously-erected barriers between "High Art" and "Low Art", this module will attempt to assess the significance of such movements and musical phenomena as part of a continuing tradition of "serious", even "classical" musical endeavour: a tradition whose validity and success will receive consideration here.