MMus Popular Music

This module will not be specifically dedicated to one area of popular composition (i.e. a specialist songwriting, or jazz studies module). Instead, this will be an ideas based module where the students will be presented with different approaches and creative strategies for making work. They can they use these to develop their existing strategies and indeed to try out new modes of practice in a safe and supported environment.  It is expected that the student cohort will be experienced practitioners, each with an existing field of expertise and mode of practice (or multiple).

You will make use of the expertise of the existing Popular Music staff team but will also interact with guest VTs and one-off visiting experts. You will be presented with a lecture and set tasks and asked to generate work for an accompanying workshop the following week. New work is presented and discussed with the lecturer and peer group in a supportive forum.

The strategies covered will be drawn from (but also be applicable to) a range of popular music fields including songwriting, arranging, production/use of music technology, and improvisation.

This module locates the emergence of the study of popular music within specific historical contexts and asks how scholarship has been informed by interdisciplinary dialogues. We’ll consider the (re)valuing of the ‘popular’ as a political project, and the institutionalisation of popular music studies within academia.

We’ll explore the various intellectual legacies that feed into the study of popular music, and how musicology engages with the practices of musicians and the arguments of critics. The module focuses on a selection of contemporary debates relating to different aspects of the production, mediation, circulation, and use of popular music. The module adopts a geographically and historically broad and inclusive approach to popular music, debates about music and social life, and encourages you to bring your own musical preferences to an engagement with issues and debates from different times and places.

This module explores the development and deployment of critical discourses on popular music, focusing on the ways in which commentators – journalists, academics, bloggers, and 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 20^th 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.

Together, we’ll 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. Classes will comprise extended critical discussion leading out of weekly set readings and listening/writing exercises in which we will grapple with the problems and possibilities of representing and evaluating music in words.

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

This production-centred module provides an introduction to audiovisual composition. It covers several theoretical and practical approaches as well as video production software and techniques.

Students will learn about the history of visual music and other cultural and historical contexts for audiovisual composition. They will analyse and discuss pieces of historical significance along with modern examples.

Finally, they will produce audiovisual work using the theory and examples discussed in class to inform their compositional strategies. Production techniques taught in the module will centre on video editing and processing, but will include other aspects of production such as filming and compression for various distribution formats.

The module engages with practical and conceptual approaches to the composition of music for moving image media – commercial film, art film, television, video, and other forms. Although the module touches upon sound design and the placement of existing music within media, its central focus is music composition to moving image material.

Initial lectures will consider theories of multimedia and the aesthetics of media music, exploring the relationship of music and sound to narrative, structure and concepts in moving image media. A paired sequence of lectures followed by practice-share workshops will consider individual topics, with ensuing short coursework exercises.

Topics may include:

• narrative media scoring
• music in documentary
• library music
• the integrated soundtrack
• audiovisual incongruence and dissonance

Students are free to work within their own choice of style for any of the exercises, and will receive formative feedback and peer-feedback through the workshops. You will submit a summative portfolio of work built on coursework materials, or to your own choice of video material, including collaborations with film makers and animators both in Goldsmiths and elsewhere. A commentary is also required within the portfolio, to explain guiding concepts and content, and to place your work within a theoretical framework, as appropriate.

This module locates the emergence of the study of popular music within specific historical contexts and asks how scholarship has been informed by interdisciplinary dialogues. We’ll consider the (re)valuing of the ‘popular’ as a political project, and the institutionalisation of popular music studies within academia.

We’ll explore the various intellectual legacies that feed into the study of popular music, and how musicology engages with the practices of musicians and the arguments of critics. The module focuses on a selection of contemporary debates relating to different aspects of the production, mediation, circulation, and use of popular music. The module adopts a geographically and historically broad and inclusive approach to popular music, debates about music and social life, and encourages you to bring your own musical preferences to an engagement with issues and debates from different times and places.

The module examines the uses of ethnographic film/video in music research. It will enable you to develop the practical, technical and theoretical skills necessary to make your 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 module 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 you with a variety of approaches to ethnographic filmmaking and techniques of sound recording.

This module explores creative and technical approaches to the design of computer music systems for interactive performance, composition and/or installations in audio and audiovisual practice. The principal software used is Max (Max/MSP/Jitter), however students are welcome to use other environments for generative and interactive processes in addition to or in the place of Max, in consultation with the module coordinator. Several fundamental methods for real-time computer music are investigated, including digital signal processing, synthesis, gesture-following and machine learning. Various paradigms of Human Computer Interaction (HCI) and audio-visual interaction are explored using a range of performer interfaces, within software environments and using external devices. Music Information Retrieval (MIR) and gestural control of electronics are introduced, while the paradigm of 'computer-as-creator' is explored as well using algorithmic and generative methods, including stochastic and artificial intelligence (AI) -related approaches.  

You’ll develop a creative project that explores the compositional and musical possibilities of working with real-time systems, leading to live workshop presentation, video documentation or performance.

To take this module you should be able to:

• apply basic IT skills
• demonstrate understanding of the fundamentals of digital audio
• demonstrate knowledge of studio or notated composition, and/or improvised music and/ or contemporary music performance
• use and edit basic Max patches that will be provided (students are recommended to familiarise themselves with Max prior to the module)

The module introduces you to the principles of managing music creatively and critically, covering a variety of musical contexts and industries: popular music, jazz, western art music and the sonic arts, with contributions from industry specialist guest lecturers. The module focuses on the relationship between creative practice and creative management, of taking control of your work within rapidly changing arts, economic and social environment. You’ll explore finance and funding streams as well as gain practical experience of the necessary skills and considerations the module teaches by undertaking a real-world music management project.

Key topics will include:

• curation and entrepreneurialism in the music industry
• developing a project plan and researching your business model and method
• researching your musical field
• honing and pitching your idea or story, including publicity
• audiences and marketing
• event planning and production e.g. gigs, performances, launches
• finding the right venue or space
• maximising the potential of your idea through evaluation, problem solving, creative and lateral thinking

The aim of the module is to develop knowledge and understanding of musical performance as a research technique, particularly in relation to the music of other cultures. It will address practical, theoretical and conceptual issues concerning music performance, including issues such as the nature of musicality, processes of music learning, theories of improvisation, musical gesture and the body in music performance.

Theoretical understanding will be developed in conjunction with practical, experiential learning. You’ll develop a research-centered performance project by either learning to perform from a repertory outside your 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 music improvisation skills; or the arrangement and performance of pieces from a particular music tradition. You’ll be required to give a short performance demonstrating the development of your performance skills and to theorise your performance practice and experiential learning in a written form.

This module explores the development and deployment of critical discourses on popular music, focusing on the ways in which commentators – journalists, academics, bloggers, and 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 20^th 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.

Together, we’ll 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. Classes will comprise extended critical discussion leading out of weekly set readings and listening/writing exercises in which we will grapple with the problems and possibilities of representing and evaluating music in words.

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

This module enhances your skills in a range of studio techniques and creative methods, supported by an understanding of related key concepts. 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 modules.

To take this module you should be able to: 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the fundamentals of digital audio and studio-based production 2. Apply a good, working knowledge of a professional audio editor/mixer (eg. at least one of the following: Pro Tools, Logic, Digital Performer, Cubase) 3. Compose studio-based or electronic music that demonstartes an understanding of contemporary techniques and concerns

This module – based at Goldsmiths Music Studios – allows students to develop extended technical skills and creative strategies in a recording/production context, in order to create fully realised recordings of their composition work. Classes will focus on advanced recording and production techniques as well as critical listening and analysis of production choices in popular music, enabling participants to work practically towards attaining a unique, innovative production sound. The module will also feature lectures from guest producers discussing their production aesthetic and the strategies they employ to achieve it.

This module considers music both as the object of philosophy and as an artefact that may both engage with and communicate philosophical ideas. It does so through a joint focus on reading philosophical texts and the examination of musical ‘works’, practices, and approaches.

The module will address the intersections of these ideas through an examination of the methods of the philosophy of music—examining the ontology, epistemology, phenomenology, and aesthetics of music through these—and through key topics for the philosophy of music such as the body, the voice, materiality and instrumentality. In examining questions in these topics, you’ll draw on examples from your own musical background as well as those introduced in the module. Seminar discussions will be a key part of the work.

In addition, the module will consider world traditions of philosophy and their implications for the assessment of global music, and the intersection of aesthetics and society in the study and philosophy of musical works. Finally, the philosophy of music beyond the ‘musical’ will be considered, extending philosophical ideas about music into the experience of sound in everyday life.

Given the emphasis on original creation, the Popular Music Project offers essential (optional) ‘destinations’ for the expression of your practice in popular music. Popular Music practice in this instance refers to the creation of music through a mixture of performance, songwriting, arranging, production, and collaboration, in vernacular and post-vernacular styles.

You will be expected to develop creative strategies for performance and recording, including either:

Creating / authoring a 45-minute performance, assembling and directing an ensemble (if relevant), or programming complex, digital-performance technology setups, and to manage & rehearse a large-scale project, including the consideration of lighting, video etc.

Or:

Creating / authoring and recording an album of work  (approximately 45-minute in duration), assembling, directing and recording an ensemble (if relevant), sequencing or programming complex analogue or digital recording setups, production, mixing and mastering of a large-scale project, including the consideration of release format and cover art.

The strategies covered will be drawn from (but also be applicable to) a range of popular music fields including songwriting, composition/arranging, use of performance technology, improvisation and/or other strategies for performance: live/performance art, mixed media performance.

The teaching for this module includes:

• 20 hours of bespoke one to one tuition (instrumental, technical, creative)
• 5 hours of academic/creative tutorial supervision
• A series of workshops, masterclasses and studio technical support