Two core modules develop specialised knowledge and skills in production and recording.
The rest is free choice across all our areas allowing you to deepen a specialisation or explore a topic not already studied.
Dissertation or Editorial/Analytical Project
Your opportunity to pursue an extended individual project in the areas of musicology, analysis, or transcribing and editing.
The topic covered will be your choice and agreed before you start with the module convenor.
Supported through a series of seminars and tutorials, you'll demonstrate original research and critical thinking in producing a 8,000‒12,000 word written project (or equivalent).
You'll give a presentation on aspects of your project at a Finalists Conference and get additional on-the-spot feedback from staff and students
This module is worth 40 credits.
Jazz: Origins and Styles
Jazz covers a multitude of styles from trad to free, plus any number of contemporary ‘fusions’.
We'll start by looking at its origins in ragtime and blues and then delve into a wide range of contrasting styles from 1917 to the present day. These might include:
- New Orleans and Chicago ensemble jazz
- Harlem stride piano
- swing bands
- be-bop and hard bop
- the ‘cool’ school
- modal jazz
- free jazz
- symphonic jazz
- jazz-rock and other fusion styles
We'll also take a look at jazz film scores.
Throughout the module we'll explore cultural, racial, analytical and aesthetic issues at each stage in jazz's development.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Aesthetics of Music
Music and philosophy are frequently intertwined. Musicians have often engaged with philosophical issues in their playing and composition while philosophers have been challenged and shaped by music.
Through a series of lectures and seminars you'll:
- become familiar with the history and the methods of philosophical discussions about music
- learn to apply critical and interpretative skills, and relate philosophical issues, to music studies
In particular we'll examine:
- the foundations of modern aesthetics in the writings of enlightenment and nineteenth-century philosophers, including Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche
- the key twentieth-century contributions from thinkers including Adorno, Barthes and Lydia Goehr
This module is worth 20 credits.
The Art of 18th-Century Performance Improvisation - Research Seminar
In the eighteenth century all professional musicians had to undergo an apprenticeship of up to 10 years, either with a family member or within a church school or orphanage (conservatoire). The first three years of training involved singing and imparted essential skills in performance, improvisation, and composition. After that, apprentices would specialize in either singing, composing,or playing an instrument. If they chose to play, then they would repeat the entire three years of rudiments upon their instrument (unless they chose the keyboard, which involved a different system called partimento). They learned to create music on the spot. They did not need scores.
In this module, we will undertake the same real lessons of an eighteenth-century apprentice, both sung and played. Students should expect to participate in improvisations and sing or play in class. By the end students will be able to read 84 different staves fluently (7 clefs multiplied by 12 key signatures), improvise a stylish and correct melodic composition instantaneously, and perform scores in a novel yet historically authentic way.
The Hollywood Musical
Hollywood musicals have been hugely popular from the invention of “talkies” to the present day. But how are they different to musicals written for the stage?
We'll use a range of case studies, from The Jazz Singer (1927) to The Greatest Showman (2017), to consider specific issues such as:
- theatricality and “backstage narratives”
- star casting
- dance on screen
- the role of animation in developing the form.
You'll develop a broad knowledge of the:
- range of musicals produced
- key figures in their development
- musicological debates around them.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Approaches to Popular Music
Get a grounding in approaches to thinking and writing about popular music critically.
You'll cover a variety of perspectives and explore key issues in relation to featured songs, music videos and performers.
We'll ask fundamental questions about the contexts of popular music and their role in forming and responding to social and political issues. We'll also explore connections with other cultural traditions and artistic media.
Overall you will develop a sense of the richness and diversity of scholarly approaches to popular music in the Anglophone world.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Composition Portfolio
Develop your creative voice by composing at least 15 minutes of original music.
In this module, you will receive individual support in regular tutorials, alongside group sessions exploring different aspects of composition. You will also have the chance to work with a professional guest ensemble.
The module will culminate in a performance of your own work that you'll organise yourself.
Your compositions will be judged on both technical merit and originality.
By the end of the module you will have an advanced understanding of the practical realities of contemporary composition.
This module is worth 40 credits.
Performance 3
Build on your performance skills developed in your second year.
You will work with a dedicated tutor, agreeing pieces to work on at the appropriate level.
Repertoire:
- at least two items from DipLRSM level or equivalent (Trinity, Rockschool)
You will combine 20 hours of individual tuition with group masterclasses and workshops, and personal practice using our specialised facilities. Workshop topics covered will include rehearsal strategies, diversifying repertoire choices, musician’s wellbeing, and writing programme notes.
Final assessment is through an end of year recital and supporting programme notes, in which you will have the opportunity to work with a collaborative pianist, funded by the department.
This module is worth 40 credits.
Creative Orchestration
This module will introduce students to the art of writing for orchestral instruments including strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and keyboard with some coverage of writing for popular instruments.
The Social Life of Scores
This module looks at musical scores as material (or virtual) objects, from the earliest medieval songbooks to IMSLP and the PDF, via five centuries of music printing.
With attention to objects in the Nottingham library collections, as well as famous items online and in facsimile, we will be asking what do scores tell us about their makers, their owners and their users?
Classes will think about matters including literacy, musical interpretation and cultural memory, as well as intersections between music books and race, gender, power and social class.
Analysing Early Music
This module introduces students to the analysis of European music to circa 1700, from the Ancient Greeks to the beginnings of the Baroque.
With the help of the latest scholarly conversations our classes will consider the challenges and possibilities of assessing style, structure and meaning in pre-modern musical repertories.
In particular, we will be thinking about:
- musical traditions built upon different systems of pitch, tonality and rhythm
- repertories that are partially notated, improvised or inherently variable in their transmission
- the relationship between repertories and the writings of contemporary theorists
- whether or not analysis can disclose musical meanings (hermeneutics).
Although Western Europe is our focus, the issues encountered in this course also readily pertain to popular repertories, and to musical cultures worldwide.
Film Music
Music is often integral to the success of a film. It can set the mood, heighten drama, enhance emotions and provide a sense of continuity. Together we'll look at the various styles of film music developed during the history of cinema, and consider aesthetic and technical issues around them. You'll also develop an awareness of historical, commercial and social factors in the entertainment industry, including music for television and videogames.
Topics will include:
- silent film
- the golden era of Hollywood
- characteristics of different genres (such as animation, musical comedy, film noir, science fiction, etc.)
- European cinema
- animation
- documentary film
- uses of pop, jazz and classical music in film scoring
In your coursework, you'll be encouraged to apply the general lessons learnt from seminars and lectures to specific areas of film you are particularly interested in.
This module is worth 20 credits.
The Broadway Musical
Look at the development of the Broadway musical from the 1920s to the present.
Examine themes including:
- adaptation
- stardom
- collaboration
- commercialism
Sessions will include:
- Rodgers and Hammerstein and the musical play
- Stephen Sondheim and the art musical
- the Disney musical on stage
Composition Portfolio
Develop your creative voice by composing at least 15 minutes of original music.
In this module, you will receive individual support in regular tutorials, alongside group sessions exploring different aspects of composition. You will also have the chance to work with a professional guest ensemble.
The module will culminate in a performance of your own work that you'll organise yourself.
Your compositions will be judged on both technical merit and originality.
By the end of the module you will have an advanced understanding of the practical realities of contemporary composition.
This module is worth 40 credits.
Creative Orchestration
This module will introduce students to the art of writing for orchestral instruments including strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion and keyboard with some coverage of writing for popular instruments.
Composing for Words, Theatre and Moving Image
Get an introduction to composing music that responds to and interacts with work by non-musical artists.
By the end of the module you'll have composed two short pieces:
- a choral work on an English-language text of your choice
- a score for a short film clip
In past years, students have chosen a wide variety of texts for their choral compositions, from Romantic poetry to political speeches. Students have composed new scores for film clips from a range of films, from Dziga Vertov's pioneering Man With a Movie Camera to BBC nature documentaries.
For an example of the final work you might produce see this video - 'Apotheosis' by George Littlehales
This module is worth 20 credits.
Electroacoustic Composition
Express your individual creativity by developing a portfolio of electro-acoustic compositions for soloist and electronics.
The module will cover a range of contemporary music in the creation of a series of etudes in compositional areas that will encourage:
- the development of current practice
- an understanding of electroacoustic compositional ideas and related performance practice
You'll develop a thorough technical base across a wide range of areas within fixed and live electroacoustic music, including aspects synthesis, sampling, and computer music.
Your portfolio will be performed at the end of the module and will be marked on both technical merit and creativity.
This module is worth 20 credits.
Digital Composition
Develops core skills in digital composition.
Using Logic Pro software you'll gain professional technical skills in:
- creation of sounds using synthesis
- audio recording and sampling techniques
- audio and MIDI programming and editing
- scoring (inc. exporting to Sibelius)
- mix techniques such as dynamic processing, time-based effects (reverb, modulation), equalisation and automation to attain width, height, space and depth
- audio files and formats
- mastering (metering, loudness)
As well as technical skills you'll also:
- look across genres at how different techniques are used in particular settings
- learn to work in a professional way using industry specific composition briefs.
This module is worth 20 credits.
You must pass year three which counts two thirds towards your final degree classification.