Course summary
The MA in Music (Popular Music Research) engages with scholarly debates and public controversies around popular music, while examining and developing both traditional and innovative ways of researching popular music. The Masters provides a grounding in the development of popular music research as a subfield of musicology, and encourages critical thinking about:
- musical texts, artefacts and ecologies
- audiences, reception and questions of interpretation
- creativity, industries and production
- repertoires broad in historical range and geographical scope
Modules
You take the following compulsory modules: Critical Musicology and Popular Music 30 credits Popular Music and its Critics 30 credits Option modules You choose 60 credits of option modules. Options change on an annual basis, and recent examples include: Advanced Music Studies 30 credits Contemporary Ethnomusicology 30 credits Contemporary Music: Practice and Discourse 30 credits Ethnographic Film and Music Research 30 credits Music Management 30 credits New Directions in Popular Music Research 30 credits Performance as Research (Ethnomusicology) 30 credits Research through Musical Performance 30 credits Sound Agendas 30 credits Philosophies of Music 30 credits Dissertation Dissertation 60 credits *Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
Assessment method
Dissertation, essays, discussions.
Entry requirements
You should have (or expect to be awarded) an undergraduate degree of at least upper second class standard or equivalent. Your qualification should comprise a substantial academic element relevant to the selected MA pathway and option choices. A detailed transcript of your degree is preferred. Students who have completed up to 90 credits (not including final 60-credit projects or dissertations) of a comparable degree at another university can apply for recognition of prior learning status as part of their application for a place on the programme, where such credits are carried forward into your study at Goldsmiths. If English isn’t your first language, you will need an IELTS score (or equivalent English language qualification) of 6.5 with a 6.5 in writing and no element lower than 6.0 to study this programme.
Fees and funding
Tuition fees
No fee information has been provided for this course
Additional fee information
Provider information
Goldsmiths, University of London
New Cross
Lewisham
SE14 6NW