MA Music

Program Overview

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Course overview

The MA Music advances your exploration of today’s music in all its complexity. From a range of stimulating pathways, you choose one that best suits your interests. Modules are shared across pathways, and are rooted in academic and practice-based research.

The MA Music delivers core skills for academic research into music. Providing a uniquely creative approach to graduate studies, the degree accommodates diverse interests and approaches.

The programme and pathways available are:

Musicology (Pathway A)

Ethnomusicology (Pathway B)

Popular Music Research (Pathway C)

Audiovisual Cultures (Pathways D)

The MA Music equips graduates to take up careers in music such as journalism, teaching, broadcasting, librarianship, historically informed performance, contemporary composition, and arts administration. The programme’s modules explore music as an evolving subject, covering repertories from Western art music through to electronic, popular, audio-visual, non-Western, and contemporary repertories.

You develop systematic, critical and creative approaches, exploring musical practice, discourses, and contexts.

You develop an independent and original approach to current questions and debates.

You explore interrelationships between music and other subjects, between theory and practice, and between performance and structural interpretation.

The MA Music is an academic rather than a practice-based degree. If you're keen to study composition or performance, please explore our MMus programme and its pathways.

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Contact the department

If you have specific questions about the degree, contact

Dr Berta Joncus

.

Program Outline

What you'll study

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Overview

Each Masters degree is awarded after the accumulation of 180 credits. You take:

Compulsory module(s) (30 credits each)

Optional modules (30 credits each)

Dissertation or Major Project (60 credits)

The topic of your dissertation or project relates closely to the programme outcomes of your pathway and its compulsory modules and is agreed with your pathway leader.

The options provide you with a choice of modules relevant to your chosen pathway. We will offer advice at interview and/or enrolment about your options. Please note that the availability of options may depend upon the department timetable.

Download the

programme specification

. If you would like an earlier version of the programme specification, please contact the

Quality Office

.

Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.

For 2021-22 and 2020–21, we have made some changes to how the teaching and assessment of certain programmes are delivered. To check what changes affect this programme, please visit the

programme changes page

.

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Fees, funding & scholarships

To find out more about your fees, please check our

postgraduate fees guidance

or contact the

Fees Office

, who can also advise you about how to pay your fees.

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Additional costs

In addition to your tuition fees, you'll be responsible for any additional costs associated with your course, such as buying stationery and paying for photocopying. You can find out more about what you need to budget for on our

study costs page

.

There may also be specific additional costs associated with your programme. This can include things like paying for field trips or specialist materials for your assignments.

Please check the programme specification

for more information.

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Funding opportunities

Find out more about

postgraduate fees and explore funding opportunities

. If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an application deadline.

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Scholarships

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BAME Music Scholar's Fee Waiver

This full-tuition fee-waiver scholarship aims to support a BAME student who intends to progress through postgraduate study and into an academic research position.

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Sarah Caple Award

Funding to enable students to further their studies or musical development.

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How to apply

Apply now

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system.

Before submitting your application you’ll need to have:

Details of

your academic qualifications

The

email address of your referee

who we can request a reference from, or alternatively a copy of your academic reference

Copies of

your educational transcripts

or certificates

A

personal statement

– this can either be uploaded as a Word Document or PDF, or completed online.

Please see our guidance on writing a postgraduate statement

You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.

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When to apply

We accept applications from October for students wanting to start the following September.

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place that is conditional on you achieving a particular qualification.

Late applications will only be considered if there are spaces available.

If you're applying for funding, you may be subject to an earlier application deadline.

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Selection process

You will normally be required to attend an interview, and you may be asked to submit examples of your written work in advance (such as an essay of at least 1,500 words on a relevant topic).

Find out

more about applying

.