Course description
Career opportunities
Entertainment and cultural industries have seen a marked growth in the need for technology-centred skills in recent years. Sophisticated sound design and digital music can be heard in all forms of contemporary media production, from advertising to computer games, film and radio. Enhanced skills and understanding are needed in order to make a strong and innovative contribution, and the MA in Music, Technology and Innovation provides an environment in which you can achieve this whilst developing your own capacity for self-expression and originality. The research training provided by the programme also imparts skills vital to the effective use and understanding of modern electronic information environments, as well as the conceptual tools and knowledge of the field that will facilitate progress to more advanced research, such as the PhD. A substantial area of employment opportunity also lies in education, with a burgeoning need for technologically skilled teachers at all levels of the national curriculum, and a growing number of opportunities for creative animateurs through publicly-funded projects facilitated by the Arts Council and NESTA. Recent graduates from the Music, Technology and Innovation course have gone on to work in all of these areas: multimedia production, broadcasting, composition for computer games and lecturing at College and University levels.
Further information
The MA in Music, Technology and Innovation allows you to develop your skills in practice-based and scholarly research, in either full-time or part-time study (one and two calendar years respectively). The course is suited both to new graduates wishing to extend or apply their creative talents in new ways, and to experienced practitioners seeking to update and expand their horizons. The course centres around a major practical or scholarly project, which can take the form of either a portfolio of creative work (such as compositions, audiovisual work, installations or original software) or a written dissertation (such as an historical, analytical or cultural study). A contextual dimension is essential to any work at this level, and this is supported through taught modules focusing on key historical and aesthetic issues in music technology. A module on research methods addresses the processes and practice of research in the various forms relevant to the discipline, including both traditional literature-based methods and new views of research conducted through creative practice. However you decide to focus the core of your study, the programme is designed to maximise your intellectual and artistic potential through detailed study of the technological, aesthetic and social implications of the creation of music with digital technology.
