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Modules

The four-year music programme allows you the same breadth and depth of study of musicological and practical modules available to students on the three-year programme, so you can still specialise in performance, composition, conducting, or musicology across a broad range of repertoires. However, there are specific professional modules at each level that are core to the four-year professional training programme.


Level 1

Core Modules:

  • Careers with Music - this module gives students an overview of the range of career opportunities available in the music business.
  • Harmony - This module covers a number of styles from the 18th century to the 20th century. As well as composing pastiche exercises, you will also study the harmony and counterpoint of Bach, Schubert, Schumann and Mahler.
  • Study Skills - This module is designed to equip you with the basic skills required for effective academic study of Music at university level. It also incorporates keyboard skills through individual and group piano lessons.
  • Understanding Music 1 and 2 - These modules introduce the basic principles of, and ideologies behind, current approaches to the study of a wide range of musical styles. In addition to Western classical music from the Renaissance to the present day, these modules also cover film music, jazz, world music and popular music.

Compulsory Modules:

  • Analysis - You will be introduced to various analytical techniques applicable to tonal music from the 18th and 19th centuries.
  • Ensemble 1 - You will receive coaching in chamber music and all aspects of ensemble playing. You will participate in orchestras, choirs, workshops, seminars, and management of departmental concerts.
  • Knowledge of Instruments - You will be taught all the basic musical characteristics of most instruments and how to write for them.

Optional Modules (choose three):

  • Composition 1 - you will study a wide range of styles of contemporary repertoire and be given a number of compositional tasks. The emphasis is on exploration and experimentation and you will be encouraged to pursue your own musical interests. All musical styles are perfectly acceptable.
  • Music Industry 1 - This strand covers a number of aspects of the music industry from market exploitation to recording contracts. It also considers the more sociological aspects of music consumption.
  • Orchestration and Arrangement - This module provides an introduction to orchestration and arrangement techniques covering a variety of musical styles and relevant to a variety of professional situations. Typical exercises include transcribing an orchestral extract for piano and arranging a vocal score of a Broadway song or jazz standard for a small pit band.
  • The Science of Sound - you will be introduced to some fundamental aspects of acoustics and technical subjects in order to provide a grounding for further study in music technology.
  • Solo Performance 1 - you will receive frequent and regular lessons in your first study instrument in order to help you develop your instrumental skills. You will have the opportunity to take full advantage of all the performing opportunities within in the department.

Level 2

In addition to the two core modules, C course students also take Professional Training Preparation, although this is marked at Level P as part of the Professional Training experience.
Professional Training Preparation – covers administrative issues relating to professional training, writing CVs, interview techniques, work and organisational culture, developing the professional self.

Core Modules:

  • Arts Policy and Practice – Building upon what you learned in Careers in Music, you will be introduced to the arts funding system and the policies and issues that shape and influence the arts and music professions.
  • Music Administration and Management – You will be introduced to the principles and practice of project and arts management with specific reference to the production, promotion and management of arts/music events, how to achieve funding for arts projects, budgeting, and effective meetings. You will also gain practical experience in the organisation of music events, working as a team.

Optional Modules:

  • 18th-Century Harmony and Counterpoint - The module is designed to increase your technical understanding of 18th-century harmony and counterpoint by working through a number of pastiche exercises.
  • 19th-Century Studies - You will explore a range of repertoire from the 19th century and address relevant historical, critical and stylistic issues. You will also consider the repertoire in relation to its cultural context.
  • Advanced Arrangement - This module develops existing arrangement skills to an advanced level with the emphasis placed on popular styles. It is designed to complement Advanced Orchestration but may be taken separately.
  • Advanced Orchestration - This module develops existing orchestration skills to an advanced level with the emphasis placed on romantic and contemporary orchestral styles. It is designed to complement Advanced Arrangement offered but may be taken separately.
  • Classical Studies - This module aims to help the student develop an understanding of the context, historical and practical, within which the classical symphony evolved. A number of classical symphonies will be analysed through the course.
  • Composition 2 - At level 2, students are expected to demonstrate an enhanced individual style and interact with confidence with performers of their music. The module assessment includes the rehearsing, performing and recording of compositions as well as the preparation of scores.
  • Conducting - This module provides an introduction to the practical study of conducting.
  • Early Modernism - This module focuses on the period c.1885-1920, placing the work of significant composers in the context of contemporaneous developments in art and wider thought of the period.
  • Electronic and Experimental Music - You will be introduced to the theory, aesthetics and repertoire of 20th-century electronic and experimental music. Topics will include history and influence of electronic music equipment, the development of electronic music, graphical scores, electronic music in film, and listening skills.
  • Ensemble 2 - At level 2, ensemble includes a course in conducting as well as performing in various chamber and large ensembles.
  • Free Improvisation - To explore musical creativity through a theoretical and practical introduction to freely improvised music making.
  • Historical Performance Practice - This module aims to develop understanding of issues in the historically informed performance of music from the late 17th to the early 19th centuries.
  • Jazz Studies 1 – This module develops historical and analytical understanding of the main styles of jazz from the late 19th century to the present day.
  • Music Industry 2 – This is the second of a two-part strand enabling students to plan a career in the music industry. This strand covers contract law, payments, issues regarding live performance, entrepreneurship and ethical issues.
  • Popular Song Analysis - During this module you will analytic strategies pertinent to a range of recorded popular song, and to evaluate competing theoretical positions.
  • Research Project - Students are free to choose their own topic for a detailed study. The project will help develop your research and writing skills.
  • Screen Music Studies - This module gives a historical, theoretical and aesthetic overview of how music is used in film, TV, documentary and other places where it plays a secondary, narrative role. Topics will include the functions of film music, music as a branding tool and the convergence of music and sound design.
  • Solo Performance 2 - At level 2 you will receive intensive training on your first study instrument through a generous quota of individual lessons. You will be expected to take full advantage of the performing opportunities within the department and present a performance diary at the end of the year.
  • Tonal Analysis - This module develops further the analytical techniques learnt in level 1 analysis. These are now applied to the expanded tonal styles of the late 19th and early 20th century.
  • World Music – This module introduces the student to styles and genres of music outside the Western classical and popular traditions, and also to ways of thinking about such musics.

 

Level P - Professional Training Period

The Senior Professional Placement Tutor will work with you to analyse your strengths and interests, to prepare you for the placement period and to help you choose and organise an appropriate placement and host organisation. The following are the core modules which make up the Level P mark, worth 10% of the degree:

  • Professional Training Preparation – This module is taken during the second year, in preparation for approaching employers, undertaking interviews and starting work.
  • Workplace Assessments (by visiting tutors) – You will be assigned a tutor who will make three visits during the placement to help you reflect upon, and make the most of, the training experiences encountered.
  • Mid-Placement Report – This is a report of no more than 2,500 words submitted by the student to articulate and reflect upon the experience and learning to that date.
  • Final Report – This is a report submitted in final year of no more than 3,500 words which critically reviews the main tasks, achievements and learning of the placement.
  • Employer’s Report – This is a report written by the employer post-training period that assesses your development as an employee across the period of the placement.
  • Oral presentation – This is a professional presentation which reviews and reflects upon the professional training experience, given by the student upon return to university to an audience of staff and peers. (Note that this is not the same as the compulsory HE3 Oral Presentation module.)


Level 3

The final year again allows you to design your own programme of studies. There are two core modules and you can choose from a wide range of optional modules.

Core Modules:

  • Professional Investigation - students conduct their own research to produce a report on an area of professional practice which could benefit practitioners working in the music/arts professions.
  • Music Administration and Management Issues - this discussion-based, student-led module explores current arts research and developing theories and issues in arts management of direct relevance to the music/arts professions.

Compulsory Module:

  • Oral Presentation - For this module you will be expected to make an oral presentation on a topic of your choosing and offer summaries and critiques of departmental Research Seminars which are given by UniS staff and visiting speakers in aspects of composition, performance and musicology.

Optional Modules: