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Objectives
A distinctive part of the Department's postgraduate provision in Music, the primary aim of this programme is to train students in the preparation and submission of a research project in musicology. Recognising the changing profiles and needs of advanced musicology and the music marketplace, the postgraduate Musicology programme at the University of Surrey has been designed with the flexibility necessary for you to develop to the full your individual interests in the academic or practical study of music. It is structured as a one year full-time, or two years part-time, Masters degree in which students select one 30-credit optional module from the MMus programme Musicology pathway and take a 30-credit research training module in preparation for a substantial dissertation (120 credits) in musicology. It is designed to appeal to those who wish to pursue a more focused or developed research interest than is possible in the MMus and as a possible 'fast track' to registration for the MPhil/PhD programme. Students on the programme therefore gain from complementary and integrated learning experiences, benefiting from seminar or class teaching in a specialist area of musicology, research training in seminars attended by postgraduate students working in a range of artistic fields, as well as one-to-one supervision with an academic who supports and guides the research for the dissertation.
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Entry requirements
Typical entry requirements Applicants should normally have a first degree of at least an Upper Second standard, with music usually being a prominent part of the degree. Approved equivalent qualifications will be considered, particularly in the case of overseas students. In addition, evidence or promise of a suitable research project, to be decided on the basis of previous work and through interview, is required.
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Academic title
MRes in Musicology
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Course description
MRes in Musicology Module overview
All students will take a 30-credit research training module in preparation for a substantial dissertation (120 credits) in musicology.
Optional Modules
Students will choose one of the following Musicology modules:
Popular Musicology
This module explores the recent development of academic discussion of popular music. Students will develop strategies to relate contemporary debates in musicology through the medium of popular music.
Critical Musicology
This module covers a range of recent approaches to music as a cultural practice. Rejecting the idea of art as an autonomous sphere of activity, musicologists have recently developed ways of addressing issues around power, identity and subjectivity.
Cultural Theory and Music
This module explores cultural theory models dominant in the study of popular music and popular music cultures. It engages critically with the dominant theoretical models used in contemporary popular musicology.
Analysis
Students develop a working knowledge of the most widely used analytical methodologies, together with the appropriate critical skills and an awareness of analytical and theoretical literature.
Aesthetics
Topics covered by this survey of musical aesthetics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries include: organicism, genius, nationalism, realism, the relationship between music and language, symbolism, and modernism.
Screen Music Studies
This module addresses a range of historical, theoretical and aesthetic aspects of cinema and TV media and their music, including the role of music in film form and narrative, screen music and cultural studies, film interpretation, and 'postmodern' approaches to scoring the moving image.
Programme length
12 months full-time, 24 months part-time
