Popular Music MA

In this module, you will learn about a range of research methodologies appropriate to the development of analytical and critical research skills. Topics covered in taught sessions may include: fieldwork methods, ethnography, practice-based research, retrieval skills, referencing and academic writing. You will apply these methods to create an analytical piece of work. 

In this module, you will develop a substantial research-led project. The potential output of work can take various forms. Some may choose to develop practical work, which could culminate in performances, live shows, exhibitions, workshops, lectures or presentations, whereas others might present their work as portfolios, pre-recorded media, or written dissertations.     

The project created will provide an opportunity for you to evidence increased breadth and depth as creative practitioners, and the ability to critique a range of suitable theories, practices and scholarly frameworks. Those choosing to develop practical work can work individually or with their peers, with undergraduate students of the division or with external contacts and agencies.

This module provides you with the exciting opportunity to investigate and develop your own personal and creative practice. Work created will be specific and appropriate for the individual subject discipline and may include: performance, composition, arrangement, exhibition, recording, film, production of coursework or a portfolio.  

Lectures, seminars and workshops will encourage you to identify current debates and practices in relation to your individual subject disciplines. In this way, you will foster a strong sense of your emerging artistic identities and produce work demonstrating flair and fluency within your chosen idiom. In addition, you will have the opportunity to work in state-of-the-art studios and use a variety of analogue and digital equipment.

This module will provide you with the opportunity to expand upon and develop greater knowledge and depth of inquiry within your own personal and creative practice. Work created will be specific and appropriate for the individual subject discipline and may include: performance, composition, arrangement, exhibition, recording, film, production of coursework or a portfolio.  

Lectures, seminars and workshops will encourage you to consider how you might further refine your creative practice and offer distinctive and original interpretations of forms, practices, and established traditions. You will move closer to establishing their artistic niche and be able to situate your practice in comparison to other practitioners within your field of study.

In this module, you will continue to develop your personal creative practice, but this time with an emphasis upon developing a more distinctive and original synthesis. Work created will therefore push or challenge conventions of style and/ or genre, demonstrate innovation, as well as a high degree of specialist skill, artistic control and stylistic flair.  

Lectures, seminars and workshops will enable you to develop and discuss your individual practice with an advanced level of critical self-reflection. You will learn how to confidently discuss the significance of your work by referring to current research, trends, movements, theories and advanced practice within your discipline.   

This module will examine methodological approaches to the analysis of Popular Music. 

It will include socio-cultural approaches, performance studies, musicology of production techniques and musicological (‘content’) analysis to provide an analytical toolbox for performers, composers, producers and musicologists to develop a critical awareness of their own (and others’) disciplines.

It will also facilitate the application of analytical methodologies on the work of others in order to inform and challenge the students' own practices.