Composition

Undergraduate students take weekly academic classes in addition to their principal study. The classes are designed to complement and add to every student’s creative development.

BMus Core Modules, Years 1 and 2

• Principal Study/Specialism

  Principal Study/Specialism is the core of your programme. It is taught in individual lessons with your Principal Study Professor and through a range of activities organised by your department.

• Analytical Skills

  The module provides a grounding in the basic materials of tonal common-practice harmony and counterpoint, and the analysis of smaller-scale musical form.

• Aural Skills

  Aural Skills develops the skills necessary to receive, form, understand and use musical structures in your inner ear, thus giving your performance authentic power and expressive meaning.

• Contexts for Performance

  This module in year 1 develops your understanding of the broader social and cultural contexts of the repertoire and performance practices of Western music from ca. 1600 to 1850. You will explore the stylistic and cultural significance of music at different times and in different places; become more familiar with composers, performers and musical institutions that have shaped music throughout history; and gain a broader understanding of the different ways music has participated in ideas, events and changes in society more widely. In the second year, Contexts for Performance develops your understanding of the broader social and cultural contexts of the repertoire and performance practices of Western music from ca. 1850 to the present day.

• Repertoire

  This module focuses on 20th and 21st century repertoire and explores a number of pathways that might include for example, what is 'modernism', possible mergence of underrepresented voices, the influence of non-classical genres, vocal composition, commercial music theatre, etc.