How Will You Study?

Throughout your time in Durham, you’ll enjoy participating in a rich array of lectures, seminars, and tutorials (including one to one supervision), as well as instrumental or vocal tuition (in your chosen specialism) and composition workshops. The number and balance of these activities change over the course of the programme in accordance with your module choices.

Timetabled contact is only the beginning of your learning experience, providing a starting point for your development as an independent, self-motivated learner. Typically, classroom teaching and learning form around 25% of the time spent on your studies during the 22 teaching weeks of each year; on top of that, you are expected to spend the remaining 75% of your time on independent research – delving deeper into the ideas and themes explored in class, and working on assignments. Students are also encouraged, as an integral part of their studies, to take advantage of other opportunities including participating in performance groups (including staff-led ensembles) and attending research and composition seminars.

In the first year, the weekly lectures introduce you to a broad range of questions and current issues at the heart of Music’s various sub-disciplines. Seminars give you the opportunity to engage with the topics introduced in lectures, discuss key issues in small groups, and look in detail at music and at writing about music. Instrumental or vocal lessons will help you develop your abilities as a performer, and composition seminars and workshops enable you to test out your compositions through live performance. Practical training in both generic study skills and music-specific skills such as using notation software, recording equipment, and transcribing music are embedded within the core modules. To encourage your musical study beyond the class context, throughout the year, you are given carefully compiled reading lists, assignments, presentation briefs, and online materials.

In the second year, there’s an increased emphasis on the development of critical and analytical skills. As modules specialise more strongly in particular areas of performance, musicology, ethnomusicology, analysis, original composition, pastiche composition, and music psychology, the approaches to learning and teaching vary more markedly between modules. The kinds of contact you experience will depend to a great extent on the modules you take. As in the first year, you’re expected to undertake around three times as much independent study as there are contact hours, although it’s common for students to devote even more time to pursuing their musical interests!

In the third year, there’s a greater emphasis on the development of independent research skills, culminating in a double weighted project, which can be a dissertation, a composition portfolio or a public performance recital, counting for one third of your marks for the year. This project gives you the opportunity to engage, at an advanced level, with creative cutting-edge research at the forefront of the discipline, working closely with a personal supervisor through a series of one-to-one meetings (for research projects or composition portfolios) or through extensive practical lessons in performance. Other modules on offer include single-weighted projects in musicology, composition, and performance, as well as taught courses in areas of staff research expertise.

Throughout the programme, all students also have access to an academic adviser who provides them with academic support and guidance. Each student meets with their adviser three times a year, in addition to which all members of teaching staff have weekly office hours when they are available to meet with students on a ‘drop-in’ basis.

The department also offers an exciting programme of research events (seminars, guest lectures and workshops) which undergraduate students are strongly encouraged to attend. In addition, there’s a busy programme of musical performance, both within and beyond the walls of the music department, which complements students’ academic programme by providing opportunities both to listen to and to perform a wide variety of music. The many musical ensembles to which students can contribute include both independent societies (including orchestras, choirs, opera, and musical theatre as well as a Javanese gamelan) and department-run ensembles such as the New Music Ensemble and Korean percussion group.

You will also have the opportunity to get hands-on involvement with the department’s own professional concert series, MUSICON, which brings world-class musicians to the town for concerts and workshops throughout the academic year. As well as attending the concerts and participating in workshops, you can assist with the Executive Committee, which runs the series, overseen by a member of staff.