About Music, MMus - at Newcastle University

The MMus offers a flexible route to advanced musical study including classical, popular, world, contemporary, early, folk and traditional. You can pursue this research-based courses through creative practice (eg composition, performance, improvisation, or a blend of these) or musicological study in a field of your choosing.

Practitioners are able to study in areas such as performance, composition, studio-based work, improvisation, sound-art and mixed media – focusing in any one of these or blending them according to their creative needs. Musicologists are able to study in areas such as critical and cultural musicology, ethnomusicology and world music, folk music studies, early music, popular music studies, and music theory and analysis. It is also possible to combine practice-based and musicologically orientated projects.

The Music Masters Research Training module teaches essential skills and methodologies for the rest of the research-focused course. A series of four Elective Projects allows you to pursue research selected from a range of topics taught in staff-led seminar groups, or undertake supervised solo study in practice-based or musicological research.

The list of projects varies from year to year, but the following is a typical menu:

• Debates in the Philosophy and Theory of Music
• Popular Music and the Politics of Authenticity
• Advanced studies in Musics of the Holocaust
• Popular Music before Sound Recording
• Advanced Studies in Ethnomusicology
• Wild Pop
• Indian Music for Postgraduates
• Studies in Early Music
• Case Studies in Music History
• Popular Music Policy: Context and Case Studies
• Music Analysis for Postgraduates

The MMus can be regarded as a qualification in its own right, but also offers preparation for doctoral study, not least because of the strong research emphasis.

Delivery

This course is delivered on the Newcastle campus (with options for a short period of study abroad). You will attend seminars and tutorials during semesters one and two. As an MMus student you spend the third semester working on your final dissertation or major creative project.

The flexibility of our course benefits part-time students, though staff-led research projects normally take place during normal working hours. All students – part-time and full-time – are required to complete the Music Research Training module across their first two semesters of study.

The MMus course comprises of compulsory and optional modules.

The course is delivered through a series of one-to-one teaching (eg with an instrumental or composition teacher), lectures, seminars, specialist presentations, masterclasses, workshops and conferences in which you will have the opportunity to share your experiences and debate your ideas with other students.

You will also be able to attend music research seminars in which visiting experts address the postgraduate community. The International Centre for Music Studies (ICMuS) provides information about research-related events (including research seminars), research projects, ICMuS researchers and the impact of their research in the wider world.

You will normally be assessed by a combination of:

• portfolio work, eg composition or examples of academic writing
• essays
• commentary on creative practice work
• oral examinations
• unseen written examinations

Facilities

We have outstanding specialist music facilities, including our £4.5m purpose built Music Studios, designed with performance, multimedia and studio-based work in mind.

Additional facilities include:

• two professional grade recording studios
• a large student common room, including a work area with PCs featuring specialist music software
• a range of recently refurbished rehearsal spaces
• a full range of recently refurbished teaching facilities, including a 100-seat lecture theatre, two 50 seat lecture theatres and three 25-seater seminar rooms
• 12 practice rooms with integrated recording facilities
• a dedicated postgraduate workspace
• a project room equipped with 5.1 mixing system

The University Library also has extensive music collections (including a number of important manuscript and microfilm collections), subscribes to many specialist Music journals, has access to a significant body of online resources, and is widely recognised for the supportive service it offers students and staff.

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Entry requirements for this course

Contact Newcastle University to find course entry requirements.

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