Music and Philosophy BA

Consolidate your knowledge of the fundamental building blocks of music across all periods and genres.

Together we'll look at notation, mode, chord, time and texture.

You'll also develop aural awareness of harmony, melody and rhythm and gain proficiency in techniques such as figured bass realisation, counterpoint and harmonisation.

Students arrive on our degree with different backgrounds and knowledge. By the end of this module you'll start to have developed a common body of knowledge and skills for further study of music analysis, theory and history.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Build on your knowledge of the fundamental building blocks of music developed in Elements of Music 1. You'll use a variety of analytical theories and interpretative methods and look across a range of periods and genres. Example topics include:

• partimento
• jazz harmony
• approaches to form

We know our students come from different backgrounds and with different theoretical knowledge. By the end of this module you'll have a common body of knowledge and skills to take into more specialised study for the rest of your degree.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This is your main starting point to explore philosophical thinking about understanding ourselves and relationship with the world.

It introduces several different areas of philosophy, and the links between them. These include:

• philosophy of the mind
• perception
• epistemology
• agency
• normative ethics
• meta-ethics

Some of the key issues we'll look at include:

• the relationship between mind and body
• free will
• moral scepticism and relativism
• the nature of moral judgements

We know our students come with a wide range of philosophical knowledge and skills so this core first-year module helps develop a common level of:

• understanding of philosophical terms and concepts
• skills in argument and debate

This gives you the building blocks for successful study and philosophising in the rest of your degree.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Ideas are at the heart of philosophy. Creating them, arguing your case and defending your thinking is a core skill. Equally, being able to interrogate other people's arguments is essential.

The knowledge, skills and tools to do this can be learnt. And that's what we'll do together in this module. We'll help you to:

• understand the nature and structure of arguments
• acquire critical tools for assessing the arguments of others
• improve your ability to present your own reasoning in a clear and rigorous manner, particularly in essays

Philosophy isn't just about opinions and arguments. It's also about clear proof. So we'll also develop some knowledge of logic and its technical vocabulary.

As a core first year module it will help you develop some of the key skills you need to philosophise with confidence.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Topics include:

• Examining recording technologies; e.g. digital and analogue workflows; their respective advantages and limitations
• Sampling and tape loops, plunderphonics • programming, development of computer technology, MIDI
• Rights and ownership and relation to creativity
• Recording spaces; acoustics
• Performance technology, haptics

Explore a range of musical cultures beyond the traditional canon of Western art music.

Introduce the fields of ethnomusicology and popular music studies. You'll look at different:

• meanings
• practices
• theories of music

from a diverse range of cultures and communities.

We delve into musical traditions and popular culture from around the world, including case studies from Asia, the Americas, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Pacific.

As well as ethnomusicological theory and method you'll get an overview of key issues and debates in Anglophone popular music. You will also develop critical skills for the analysis of musical practice in diverse contexts.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Develop your performance skills towards a professional level.

You will work with a dedicated tutor, agreeing pieces to work on at the appropriate level.

Repertoire:

• instrumental: at least one item at DipABRSM level or equivalent (Trinity, Rockschool)
• vocal: at least two items at DipABRSM level or equivalent (Trinity, Rockschool)

You will combine 16 hours of individual tuition with group masterclasses and workshops, and personal practice using our specialised facilities. Workshop topics covered will include rehearsal strategies, diversifying repertoire choices, musician’s wellbeing, and writing programme notes.

Final assessment is through an end of year recital and supporting programme notes, in which you will have the opportunity to work with a collaborative pianist, funded by the department.

This module is worth 10 credits.

You would normally be expected to have Grade 8 ABRSM or equivalent standard before starting this module.

You'll get a thorough knowledge of European musical repertoires from the Renaissance to the turn of the twentieth century.

As well as learning about composers, styles and genres, you’ll develop an appreciation of how musical traditions have been shaped by their cultural contexts – and how cultures have been shaped by their musical traditions.

Topics covered will include:

• early opera and oratorio
• chamber music
• choral and religious music
• programme music
• historical instruments and period performance
• the invention of ‘Classical Music’
• women in music history
• histories of amateur participation
• global perspectives on European music

You'll also learn about how music history is researched and studied today, and how the stories we tell have changed over time.

As this is one of the first modules you will take at university you'll also get an introduction to the skills required to research and write essays effectively.

This module is worth 20 credits.

You'll be exploring a wide range of genres and stylistic trends in key repertoire from the late nineteenth century to the present day.

Topics covered will include:

• impressionism
• modernism
• neo-classicism
• atonality and its consequences
• nationalism
• film music
• jazz
• the work of female composers
• cross-cultural influences
• minimalism

You'll also develop an appreciation of the cultural contexts in which these repertoires developed.

As this is one of the first modules you will take at university, it will also help you develop the general skills required to research and write essays effectively.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Explore the relationship between musical raw materials and the realisation of their creative potential.

You'll examine a wide range of compositional techniques and musical styles.

Topics you will cover include:

• melody
• scales and modes
• contrasting harmonic idioms

By the end of the module you will have the ability to structure a piece of music within either a received or original style. You'll also develop a greater awareness of technical and aesthetic issues in selected periods of music history.

This module is worth 10 credits.

• What is institutional racism?
• What do feminists mean when they say, 'The personal is political'?
• Are borders unjust?
• Are direct action and criminal damage legitimate forms of protest?

These are just some of the questions you'll think about on this module.

We'll take a critical look at some of the answers given by thinkers across the political spectrum, from right-wing libertarians like Robert Nozick to socialist anarchists like Emma Goldman.

We'll also look at some of the political contexts in which these questions have been asked and answered. This might include the:

• Peterloo Massacre
• civil rights movement
• invention of the police
• Paris Commune of 1871
• Black Lives Matter and Youth Strike4Climate movements

This module is worth 20 credits.

Philosophy develops, confronts and destroys previous thinking. It reinforces the status quo and acts as a foundation for revolution. It's a product of its time and helps to shape the future.

Together we'll become familiar with some of the main philosophical ideas and thinkers that have shaped philosophy. And you'll come to understand how and why these ideas arose and developed in response to wider contexts and movements.

Influential thinkers might include:

• Plato and Aristotle
• Ibn-Tufayl and Ibn-Rushd
• Montaigne, Locke and Wollstonecraft
• Marx and Gandhi
• Fanon, Sartre and de Beauvoir
• Murdoch

Particular topics might include:

• ancient Greek conceptions of the good life
• reason and tradition in classical Islamic philosophy
• medieval philosophy
• existentialism
• Afro-Caribbean philosophy

You won't be taught whether any of these thinkers and thoughts were right. But by the end of the module you'll be able to recognise and judge for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of arguments on both sides of each philosophical issue.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Come and explore some fundamental thinking about the world around us and our knowledge of it.

You'll look at questions such as:

• metaphysics – how should we think about the identity of things over time and through change? What does your personal identity over time consist in?
• philosophy of science – is science the guide to all of reality? Is there a scientific method?
• philosophy of language – what is truth? Is truth relative? Does language create reality?

An ideal introduction to metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Philosophy can teach us to ask hard questions and help change the world for the better. 

We'll help you develop the skills to critically understand and constructively engage with a wide range of contemporary issues. Together we'll tackle topics relevant to university life and wider society. You should finish the module with a greater understanding of:

• the value of philosophical thinking in relation to the contemporary world
• using key philosophical arguments, concepts and methods in everyday contexts

Possible topics we'll look at

• What is the purpose of education?
• Why value free speech?
• Censorship and pornography
• Race and Racism
• Sexual identities
• Disability
• Implicit bias
• People, animals and the environment
• Migration and refugees
• Drugs and sport
• Ethics and artificial intelligence
• Mental illness

This module is worth 20 credits.

All religions have a distinctive philosophical framework. Together we'll look at some of the common concerns such as:

• the variety of conceptions of ultimate reality
• goals for the spiritual life
• the nature of religious experience
• the relations of religion and morality
• explanations of suffering and evil
• human nature and continuing existence after death

As there is such a range of beliefs we'll also look at the problems of religious diversity.

Some of the sources we draw on might include (but is not limited to):

• atheists - Feuerbach, Nietzsche
• Buddhists - Śāntideva, Dōgen, Thich Nhat Hanh
• Christians - Augustine, Pascal, Weil
• Hindus - such as the writers of the Upanisads and Shankara
• Jews - Spinoza, Buber
• Muslims - Mulla Sadra, Nasr
• Taoists - Zhuangzi

More contemporary thinkers might also be included.

With such a wide range of issues and traditions the exact mix will vary - each year will focus on a few key thinkers and themes.

This module is worth 10 credits.

Get an introduction to composing music that responds to and interacts with work by non-musical artists.

By the end of the module you'll have composed two short pieces:

• a choral work on an English-language text of your choice
• a score for a short film clip

In past years, students have chosen a wide variety of texts for their choral compositions, from Romantic poetry to political speeches. Students have composed new scores for film clips from a range of films, from Dziga Vertov's pioneering Man With a Movie Camera to BBC nature documentaries.

For an example of the final work you might produce see this video - 'Apotheosis' by George Littlehales

This module is worth 20 credits.

Get a thorough introduction to the fundamental techniques and practical skills of instrumental, orchestral and choral conducting.

You'll explore the problems and challenges conducting poses from a variety of angles and gain practical experience both in class and in front of an ensemble.

Some of the topics examined will be:

• rehearsal techniques
• score literacy, knowledge and preparation
• interpretation
• psychology of conducting
• technical issues such as stance, movement, beating patterns and other relevant gestures

Through supportive workshops with your fellow students you'll practise specific pieces, with feedback coming from both group discussion and the tutor.

If you want to learn conducting this is an ideal introduction.

If you don't want to be a conductor this is a perfect way to understand more about what your conductor is doing and saying and so increase your understanding of what you are meant to be playing.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Develops core skills in digital composition.

Using Logic Pro software you'll gain professional technical skills in:

• creation of sounds using synthesis
• audio recording and sampling techniques
• audio and MIDI programming and editing
• scoring (inc. exporting to Sibelius)
• mix techniques such as dynamic processing, time-based effects (reverb, modulation), equalisation and automation to attain width, height, space and depth
• audio files and formats
• mastering (metering, loudness)

As well as technical skills you'll also:

• look across genres at how different techniques are used in particular settings
• learn to work in a professional way using industry specific composition briefs.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Express your individual creativity by developing a portfolio of electro-acoustic compositions for soloist and electronics.

The module will cover a range of contemporary music in the creation of a series of etudes in compositional areas that will encourage:

• the development of current practice
• an understanding of electroacoustic compositional ideas and related performance practice

You'll develop a thorough technical base across a wide range of areas within fixed and live electroacoustic music, including aspects synthesis, sampling, and computer music.

Your portfolio will be performed at the end of the module and will be marked on both technical merit and creativity.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Build on your performance abilities developed in the first year.

You will work with a dedicated tutor, agreeing pieces to work on at the appropriate level.

Repertoire:

• one item at DipABRSM level or equivalent (Trinity, Rockschool)
• one work by a female or female-identifying composer

You will combine 18 hours of individual tuition with group masterclasses and workshops, and personal practice using our specialised facilities. Workshop topics covered will include rehearsal strategies, diversifying repertoire choices, musician’s wellbeing, and writing programme notes.

Final assessment is through an end of year recital and supporting programme notes, in which you will have the opportunity to work with a collaborative pianist, funded by the department.

This module is worth 20 credits.

There is also a 10 credit version of this module available for part-time students and students who take the opportunity to study abroad for one semester in their second year.

Jazz covers a multitude of styles from trad to free, plus any number of contemporary ‘fusions’.

We'll start by looking at its origins in ragtime and blues and then delve into a wide range of contrasting styles from 1917 to the present day. These might include:

• New Orleans and Chicago ensemble jazz
• Harlem stride piano
• swing bands
• be-bop and hard bop
• the ‘cool’ school
• modal jazz
• free jazz
• symphonic jazz
• jazz-rock and other fusion styles

We'll also take a look at jazz film scores.

Throughout the module we'll explore cultural, racial, analytical and aesthetic issues at each stage in jazz's development.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Music and philosophy are frequently intertwined. Musicians have often engaged with philosophical issues in their playing and composition while philosophers have been challenged and shaped by music.

Through a series of lectures and seminars you'll:

• become familiar with the history and the methods of philosophical discussions about music
• learn to apply critical and interpretative skills, and relate philosophical issues, to music studies

In particular we'll examine:

• the foundations of modern aesthetics in the writings of enlightenment and nineteenth-century philosophers, including Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche
• the key twentieth-century contributions from thinkers including Adorno, Barthes and Lydia Goehr

This module is worth 20 credits.

Hollywood musicals have been hugely popular from the invention of “talkies” to the present day. But how are they different to musicals written for the stage?

We'll use a range of case studies, from The Jazz Singer (1927) to The Greatest Showman (2017), to consider specific issues such as:

• theatricality and “backstage narratives”
• star casting
• dance on screen
• the role of animation in developing the form.

You'll develop a broad knowledge of the:

• range of musicals produced
• key figures in their development
• musicological debates around them.

This module is worth 20 credits.

In the eighteenth century all professional musicians had to undergo an apprenticeship of up to 10 years, either with a family member or within a church school or orphanage (conservatoire). The first three years of training involved singing and imparted essential skills in performance, improvisation, and composition. After that, apprentices would specialise in either singing, composing, or playing an instrument. If they chose to play, then they would repeat the entire three years of rudiments upon their instrument (unless they chose the keyboard, which involved a different system called partimento). 

In this module, we will undertake the same real lessons of an eighteenth-century apprentice, both sung and played. Students should expect to participate in improvisations and sing or play in class. By the end students will be able to read 84 different staves fluently (7 clefs multiplied by 12 key signatures), improvise a stylish and correct melodic composition instantaneously, and perform scores in a novel yet historically authentic way. 

This module aims to:

• develop individual and group-based research skills in a specific field of study
• undertake basic research efficiently and productively
• develop promising lines of enquiry to an appropriate level of sophistication
• develop an understanding of the potential social and environmental impact of music and musicology

You will examine the role of race in “music as drama”. Using critical race theory you'll explore issues of representation, agency, and identity in a safe, supportive and constructive environment. You will also begin to develop the connections between new musicology, theatre studies, and identity theory.

Examples will cover:

• opera (for example Aida and Madama Butterfly)
• musical theatre (for example Kiss Me, Kate, Hamilton, The Lion King)
• plays with music (for example Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia)

This module is worth 20 credits.

Get a grounding in approaches to thinking and writing about popular music critically.

You'll cover a variety of perspectives and explore key issues in relation to featured songs, music videos and performers.

We'll ask fundamental questions about the contexts of popular music and their role in forming and responding to social and political issues. We'll also explore connections with other cultural traditions and artistic media.

Overall you will develop a sense of the richness and diversity of scholarly approaches to popular music in the Anglophone world.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module looks at musical scores as material (or virtual) objects, from the earliest medieval songbooks to IMSLP and the PDF, via five centuries of music printing.

With attention to objects in the Nottingham library collections, as well as famous items online and in facsimile, we will be asking what do scores tell us about their makers, their owners and their users?

Classes will think about matters including literacy, musical interpretation and cultural memory, as well as intersections between music books and race, gender, power and social class.

This module introduces students to the analysis of European music to circa 1700, from the Ancient Greeks to the beginnings of the Baroque.

With the help of the latest scholarly conversations our classes will consider the challenges and possibilities of assessing style, structure and meaning in pre-modern musical repertories.

In particular, we will be thinking about:

• musical traditions built upon different systems of pitch, tonality and rhythm
• repertories that are partially notated, improvised or inherently variable in their transmission
• the relationship between repertories and the writings of contemporary theorists
• whether or not analysis can disclose musical meanings (hermeneutics).

Although Western Europe is our focus, the issues encountered in this course also readily pertain to popular repertories, and to musical cultures worldwide.

Where does the mind meet the world? In sensory perception.

By perceiving, we become conscious of a reality beyond our minds. Or do we?

Mind and Consciousness explores perception and perceptual consciousness.

It asks question such as:

• Do we really perceive a world beyond our minds?
• What are the theories of perception and perceptual consciousness?
• How do we distinguish different senses – what makes seeing different from hearing?
• Can our perceptions be biased? Do our prejudices change the way we see things?
• Is dreaming perceiving, or does it belong to another category of mind like imagining?

By the end of this module, you'll be able to:

• understand the main positions in the philosophy of perception
• analyse and evaluate rival views on these topics

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module addresses issues in social metaphysics and social epistemology. We will examine the metaphysics of social kinds and explore different accounts of social kinds that have been offered. We will also examine how the fact that we are situated in a social world can affect what we can or cannot know or understand about ourselves, each other, and the social world itself. We will also address ethical and/or political issues that arise once we take account of social metaphysics and social epistemology.

In particular, we might consider whether there are special kinds of injustices that arise due to our social reality. What is epistemic injustice and how does it relate to social injustice? How do certain privileged groups structure the social world that create and maintain privilege and patterns of ignorance that perpetuate that privilege? What are some obligations that we have, given metaphysical and epistemological concerns we have explored? 

The module begins with an exploration of various theories of naming, paying particular attention to the works of Frege, Russell (including the theory of descriptions), and Kripke. We then turn our attention to various puzzles concerning the nature of meaning, including the distinction between analytic and synthetic sentences.

In the final part of the module, we move on to a discussion of some of the mainstream theories of meaning; particularly, a truth-conditional semantics, and we explore how this might be developed to take into account indexical terms such as 'I', 'now', and 'here'. Some of the skills acquired in Elementary Logic will be applied in this module.

• What is art?
• Is there a relationship between art and ethics?
• What is the relationship between art and emotion?

Together we'll explore these philosophical issues and more. By the end of the module you'll:

• have a good awareness of many of the critical debates in the philosophy of art
• recognise and judge for yourself the strengths and weaknesses of arguments on the issues

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module explores some of the major thinkers, texts and themes of Ancient Greek philosophy. Ancient Greek philosophy stands at the beginning of the western philosophical tradition and western philosophy has been shaped by a sustained engagement with Ancient Greek thought in areas of philosophy, such as epistemology, metaphysics, ethics and political theory.

Topics and thinkers may include: Presocratic Philosophy; Heraclitus; Parmenides; the Sophistic movement; Plato and Platonism; Socrates and the Socratic Schools (Cynics, Cyrenaics and Megarics); Aristotle (ethics, political theory, natural philosophy, metaphysics); Epicurus and Epicureanism; Stoicism; Academic and Pyrrhonian Scepticism; Plotinus and Neoplatonism; Pythagoreansim. No knowledge of the Ancient Greek language is required.

What is science? Is there a scientific method, and if so, what is it? Can science tell us what the world is really like? Is it the only way to know what the world is really like? Does science progress? What is a paradigm and when/how does it shift? Is science socially constructed? Can a sociological study of the practice of science tell us anything about the nature of science? Is science "value-neutral"? Should we save society from science? What are "the science wars" and who won?

These are some of the questions we will explore in this module. We will start with the positivism-empiricism of the early 20th century and culminate with the postmodernism-relativism of the late-20th century and its aftermath.

Readings will include seminal works by Ayer, Hempel, Popper, Kuhn, Lakatos, Feyeraband, Bloor, and Laudan. While we may consider various examples from the history of science, no background knowledge of science or logic (beyond elementary first-year logic) is presupposed. 

This module will introduce the European tradition of philosophical thinking prevalent over the past two centuries. It will begin with an introduction to the influence of Kant and Hegel and recurrent characteristics of European thought, before turning to focus on representative texts by key thinkers.

Texts for more in- depth study might include, for example: Ludwig Feuerbach’s Principles of the Philosophy of the Future; Henri Bergson’s Creative Evolution; Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols; Martin Heidegger’s Being and Time; Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition; and Luce Irigaray’s Speculum of the Other Woman.

Emphasis will be placed on the different images of thought at work in European philosophical texts, as well as on how differing approaches to metaphysics, ethics and politics are grounded in newly created perspectives.

We'll examine the Asian philosophical traditions, especially those of India, China, and Japan.

These Asian traditions address familiar philosophical themes - in ethics, epistemology, and aesthetics - but often approach them in ways that seem unfamiliar.

You may well find your culturally inherited presuppositions challenged. This is good! As global power relationships change understanding culture is vital to meaningful communication.

Topics we may cover include:

• Confucianism, Mohism, Daoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism the relationship between morality and religion
• etiquette, ethics and aesthetics
• the family and moral life
• social and political philoosophy
• animals, natural environments, and human flourishing
• the nature of ultimate reality and the good life
• the relation of Asian philosophies to the Western tradition

This module is worth 20 credits.

Metaethics is about how ethics works. It's not about judging whether something is morally good or bad in any particular instance but critiquing the foundations used to make the judgements. Some of the questions we might ask are:

• Are there moral facts?
• What is moral truth?
• Do psychopaths really understand moral language?

Like many areas of philosophy metaethics has several branches and by the end of this module you'll be able to:

• understand the main positions in contemporary metaethics
• analyse and evaluate rival views on these topics

This module is worth 20 credits.

For a good pre-module introduction to the subject have a read of chapter six of Ethics for A level by Mark Dimmock and Andrew Fisher. It's an open-source resource so free to access.

We all have opinions about moral matters. But for most of us, our moral opinions are not very well-organised. Indeed, upon reflection we may discover that some of our beliefs about morality are inconsistent.

Normative ethics is the branch of moral philosophy that attempts to systematize everyday judgements about the rightness and wrongness of actions.

It's a wide area of study and we'll focus on two traditions within it:

• contractualism - which holds that the rightness and wrongness of acts depends on principles no one could reasonably reject
• character ethics - which emphasises the relationship between right action and good and bad character

By the end you'll have a clear understanding of:

• the aims and methodologies of involved
• some of the main theories, such as consequentialism, deontology, contractualism and virtue ethics (and some of their influential variants)

You'll also be able to:

• reason to a well thought-out position on various topics in ethics
• develop your own views, drawing upon the sources on which the module focuses

This module is worth 20 credits.

• Are you obliged to obey the law even when you disagree with it?
• What features must a state have in order to be legitimate?

In this module we will approach these classic questions of political philosophy by examining the work of a number of important past political philosophers. This might include Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau but this isn't a fixed list - it may vary according to particular issues and student input.

We will look at both:

• why the thinkers' works have been open to different interpretations
• evaluate their arguments under these different interpretations

This module is worth 20 credits.

We look at some fundamental metaphysical questions about the cosmos. A selection of the following topics will be studied:

• Objects: concrete vs. abstract; existence and nothingness
• Sets and mereology
• Properties, Property bearers, Relations
• States of affairs and non-mereological composition
• Modality (including counterfactuals) and possible worlds
• Time, persistence, change, and the non-present

This module takes formal logic beyond the basics (as covered in first year Reasoning, Argument, and Logic). We’ll cover Propositional Logic, First-Order Logic, and Modal Logic (going into more detail where these were covered in first year).

We’ll learn about existence, identity, possibility, and necessity, and we’ll learn formal techniques for testing the validity of arguments. We’ll apply these logical techniques to help us make sense of challenging concepts and arguments in metaphysics and philosophy of language.

Develop your creative voice by composing at least 15 minutes of original music.

In this module, you will receive individual support in regular tutorials, alongside group sessions exploring different aspects of composition. You will also have the chance to work with a professional guest ensemble.

The module will culminate in a performance of your own work that you'll organise yourself.

Your compositions will be judged on both technical merit and originality.

By the end of the module you will have an advanced understanding of the practical realities of contemporary composition.

This module is worth 40 credits.

Your opportunity to pursue an extended individual project in the areas of musicology, analysis, or transcribing and editing.

The topic covered will be your choice and agreed before you start with the module convenor.

Supported through a series of seminars and tutorials, you'll demonstrate original research and critical thinking in producing a 8,000‒12,000 word written project (or equivalent).

You'll give a presentation on aspects of your project at a Finalists Conference and get additional on-the-spot feedback from staff and students

This module is worth 40 credits.

Music production covers creation, performance, recording, mixing and delivery.

You’ll look at current production processes and explore:

• artistic expression via musical direction and arrangements
• factors affecting performance (such as acoustic environment)

Through examples and discussion you’ll assess the impact of the role of Producer and its application within various genres and fields of practice.

Specific topics you'll cover include:

• Arrangement (linear and vertical)
• Sonic, stylistic and artistic considerations
• Microphones: types, polar patterns, theory and practical application of techniques
• Recording media and considerations of their respective workflows
• Signal path
• Multi-track recording technique
• Mixing: dynamics, EQ and FX; ITB and OTB
• Mastering, files and formats: recording and delivery

Practical work will give you:

• an understanding of demands and expectations of commercial project briefs
• the capacity to produce creative product to a precise brief and deadline

This module is worth 20 credits.

Build on your performance skills developed in your second year.

You will work with a dedicated tutor, agreeing pieces to work on at the appropriate level.

Repertoire:

• at least two items from DipLRSM level or equivalent (Trinity, Rockschool)

You will combine 20 hours of individual tuition with group masterclasses and workshops, and personal practice using our specialised facilities. Workshop topics covered will include rehearsal strategies, diversifying repertoire choices, musician’s wellbeing, and writing programme notes.

Final assessment is through an end of year recital and supporting programme notes, in which you will have the opportunity to work with a collaborative pianist, funded by the department.

This module is worth 40 credits.

The recording studio is one of the key spaces where technology and creative musical practice meet.

You'll develop professional skills in:

• applications of microphones and their placement within a variety of acoustic spaces, and for a variety of instrumentation.
• mixing techniques with reference to current standards
• audio processing, signal paths and workflows
• file-types applicable to recent trends in musical consumption

You'll work in small groups to allow you to specialise in techniques and styles for your particular music interests such as chamber music, jazz ensemble, rock or ethno-music groups.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Develops core skills in digital composition.

Using Logic Pro software you'll gain professional technical skills in:

• creation of sounds using synthesis
• audio recording and sampling techniques
• audio and MIDI programming and editing
• scoring (inc. exporting to Sibelius)
• mix techniques such as dynamic processing, time-based effects (reverb, modulation), equalisation and automation to attain width, height, space and depth
• audio files and formats
• mastering (metering, loudness)

As well as technical skills you'll also:

• look across genres at how different techniques are used in particular settings
• learn to work in a professional way using industry specific composition briefs.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Get an introduction to composing music that responds to and interacts with work by non-musical artists.

By the end of the module you'll have composed two short pieces:

• a choral work on an English-language text of your choice
• a score for a short film clip

In past years, students have chosen a wide variety of texts for their choral compositions, from Romantic poetry to political speeches. Students have composed new scores for film clips from a range of films, from Dziga Vertov's pioneering Man With a Movie Camera to BBC nature documentaries.

For an example of the final work you might produce see this video - 'Apotheosis' by George Littlehales

This module is worth 20 credits.

Jazz covers a multitude of styles from trad to free, plus any number of contemporary ‘fusions’.

We'll start by looking at its origins in ragtime and blues and then delve into a wide range of contrasting styles from 1917 to the present day. These might include:

• New Orleans and Chicago ensemble jazz
• Harlem stride piano
• swing bands
• be-bop and hard bop
• the ‘cool’ school
• modal jazz
• free jazz
• symphonic jazz
• jazz-rock and other fusion styles

We'll also take a look at jazz film scores.

Throughout the module we'll explore cultural, racial, analytical and aesthetic issues at each stage in jazz's development.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Music and philosophy are frequently intertwined. Musicians have often engaged with philosophical issues in their playing and composition while philosophers have been challenged and shaped by music.

Through a series of lectures and seminars you'll:

• become familiar with the history and the methods of philosophical discussions about music
• learn to apply critical and interpretative skills, and relate philosophical issues, to music studies

In particular we'll examine:

• the foundations of modern aesthetics in the writings of enlightenment and nineteenth-century philosophers, including Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche
• the key twentieth-century contributions from thinkers including Adorno, Barthes and Lydia Goehr

This module is worth 20 credits.

In the eighteenth century all professional musicians had to undergo an apprenticeship of up to 10 years, either with a family member or within a church school or orphanage (conservatoire). The first three years of training involved singing and imparted essential skills in performance, improvisation, and composition. After that, apprentices would specialise in either singing, composing, or playing an instrument. If they chose to play, then they would repeat the entire three years of rudiments upon their instrument (unless they chose the keyboard, which involved a different system called partimento). 

In this module, we will undertake the same real lessons of an eighteenth-century apprentice, both sung and played. Students should expect to participate in improvisations and sing or play in class. By the end students will be able to read 84 different staves fluently (7 clefs multiplied by 12 key signatures), improvise a stylish and correct melodic composition instantaneously, and perform scores in a novel yet historically authentic way. 

This module aims to:

• develop individual and group-based research skills in a specific field of study
• undertake basic research efficiently and productively
• develop promising lines of enquiry to an appropriate level of sophistication
• develop an understanding of the potential social and environmental impact of music and musicology

Hollywood musicals have been hugely popular from the invention of “talkies” to the present day. But how are they different to musicals written for the stage?

We'll use a range of case studies, from The Jazz Singer (1927) to The Greatest Showman (2017), to consider specific issues such as:

• theatricality and “backstage narratives”
• star casting
• dance on screen
• the role of animation in developing the form.

You'll develop a broad knowledge of the:

• range of musicals produced
• key figures in their development
• musicological debates around them.

This module is worth 20 credits.

Express your individual creativity by developing a portfolio of electro-acoustic compositions for soloist and electronics.

The module will cover a range of contemporary music in the creation of a series of etudes in compositional areas that will encourage:

• the development of current practice
• an understanding of electroacoustic compositional ideas and related performance practice

You'll develop a thorough technical base across a wide range of areas within fixed and live electroacoustic music, including aspects synthesis, sampling, and computer music.

Your portfolio will be performed at the end of the module and will be marked on both technical merit and creativity.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module will address issues relevant for professional performing musicians including:

• injury prevention and treatment
• nutrition
• exercise
• integrative medicinal approaches.

We will explore research on topics such as:

• healthy movement for musicians (including Tai Chi / Qi Gongand Yoga)
• therapeutic approaches such as physiotherapy and Alexander Technique
• the latest directions in working with performance anxiety and stage fright such as visualisation, mindfulness and “smart practice” methods as well as time and stress management.

Seminars will introduce readings on these topics supplemented by occasional guest lectures and practical activities, discussion and student presentations.

This module is worth 20 credits.

To develop a capacity for instrumental or vocal performance normally well beyond Grade VIII standard and sufficient in some cases to enable further development towards a professional standard.

Performers may elect at the start of the module (and with the agreement of their teachers and the module convener) to be examined as duos, trios or quartets rather than as individual candidates.

The recital should usually include items selected from the appropriate syllabus of the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (http://www.abrsm.ac.uk/diplomas.html).

• Instrumental recital: two items at LRSM level
• Vocal recital: three items at LRSM level.

Get a grounding in approaches to thinking and writing about popular music critically.

You'll cover a variety of perspectives and explore key issues in relation to featured songs, music videos and performers.

We'll ask fundamental questions about the contexts of popular music and their role in forming and responding to social and political issues. We'll also explore connections with other cultural traditions and artistic media.

Overall you will develop a sense of the richness and diversity of scholarly approaches to popular music in the Anglophone world.

This module is worth 20 credits.

You will examine the role of race in “music as drama”. Using critical race theory you'll explore issues of representation, agency, and identity in a safe, supportive and constructive environment. You will also begin to develop the connections between new musicology, theatre studies, and identity theory.

Examples will cover:

• opera (for example Aida and Madama Butterfly)
• musical theatre (for example Kiss Me, Kate, Hamilton, The Lion King)
• plays with music (for example Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s Emilia)

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module introduces students to the analysis of European music to circa 1700, from the Ancient Greeks to the beginnings of the Baroque.

With the help of the latest scholarly conversations our classes will consider the challenges and possibilities of assessing style, structure and meaning in pre-modern musical repertories.

In particular, we will be thinking about:

• musical traditions built upon different systems of pitch, tonality and rhythm
• repertories that are partially notated, improvised or inherently variable in their transmission
• the relationship between repertories and the writings of contemporary theorists
• whether or not analysis can disclose musical meanings (hermeneutics).

Although Western Europe is our focus, the issues encountered in this course also readily pertain to popular repertories, and to musical cultures worldwide.

This module looks at musical scores as material (or virtual) objects, from the earliest medieval songbooks to IMSLP and the PDF, via five centuries of music printing.

With attention to objects in the Nottingham library collections, as well as famous items online and in facsimile, we will be asking what do scores tell us about their makers, their owners and their users?

Classes will think about matters including literacy, musical interpretation and cultural memory, as well as intersections between music books and race, gender, power and social class.

This module investigates different kinds of contemporary logic, as well as their uses in philosophy. We will investigate the syntax and semantics of various logics, including first order logic, modal logics, and three-valued logics, as well as ways to apply formal techniques from these logics to philosophical topics such as possibility and necessity, vagueness, and the Liar paradox.

We’ll cover ways to reason and construct proofs using the logics we study, and also ways to reason about them. We’ll look at proofs regarding the limits of formal logic, including proofs of soundness, completeness, and decidability.

This module will focus on a critical examination of core aspects of Buddhist thinking, with emphasis on some of its basic psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical conceptions.

These include, in particular: the origin and nature of suffering; the no-self thesis; enlightenment; consciousness; experiential knowing; and the doctrine of Emptiness (the lack of inherent nature in all things and impermanence).

This module will teach you how to communicate philosophy through a variety of different mediums, assessing them in each. We will look at how philosophy can be communicated through legal documentation, press releases, handouts, lesson plans, webpages, funding bids and posters (with optional presentations).

A number of the sessions will be delivered by professionals from outside the university, with support from the module convener. Seminars will be used to develop each of the items for assessment. You will be invited to draw upon your prior philosophical learning to generate your assessments, except in the case of handout where you will be set a specific philosophical task and asked to complete some (very basic) independent research.

The aim of this module is to provide you with an opportunity to write an 8,000-word dissertation on a philosophical topic, the precise subject of which is by agreement with the supervisor. At the completion of the module, you will have had an opportunity to work independently, though with the advice of a supervisor.

This module involves the study of a set of related issues concerning the nature and explanation of action and the requirements for free action and free will. Questions to be discussed are likely to include all or most of the following:

• What would it take for an action to be free (or an exercise of ‘free will’) in a sense that would make it an action for which we are morally responsible?
• Is there is any way in which our actions could be free in the relevant sense, whether or not determinism is true?
• How do actions differ from bodily movements that are not actions?
• Actions are typically (perhaps always) done for reasons, but what exactly is the relation between the reasons and the actions?
• Do the reasons cause the corresponding actions - and if they do, can this be the same kind of causation as is involved in ordinary ‘mechanistic’ causal explanation?
• And what about the fact that at least some of our actions seem to have purely physical causes?
• If they do, doesn’t this make any ‘mental causes’ of those actions redundant?
• What is the connection between intentional or voluntary action and rational action?
• In particular, it seems that we sometimes intentionally and voluntarily do things that we ourselves regard as irrational - but how is such ‘weakness of will’ possible?

Karl Marx's thoughts and words have had an enormous impact on history. Revolutions have been fought, economic policies pursued and artistic movements established by followers (and opponents) of Marxism.

Together we'll examine some of Mark's original writing and explore his thinking. Specific themes we'll cover include:

• alienation
• the materialist conception of history
• ideology
• the labour theory of value

By the end of the module you should have a good overview of Marx's attempt to synthesise German philosophy, French political theory, and British economics.

This module is worth 20 credits.

There is perhaps no more vivid example of the exercise of state power over individuals than through the institution of criminal law. This power relationship raises a host of important philosophical questions, such as:

• Is there a general obligation to obey the law? If so, what is the basis for this obligation?
• What sorts of acts should be criminalised, and why?
• What does it mean for someone to be responsible for a crime, or for the state to hold someone responsible?
• Is criminal punishment justified? If so, why?
• What is the proper role for the presumption of innocence: Who must presume whom to be innocent of what? 
• Is the state ever justified in imposing legal restrictions on offenders even after they have completed their punishment?
• How should the criminal law function in the international context?

We'll look at thinking from across history, from seminal figures such as Plato, Bentham, and Kant, to more contemporary philosophers such as Hart, Hampton, Duff, and others.

No experience of criminal law necessary. Ideal for both philosophers and practitioners.

This module is worth 20 credits.

This module is an extended discussion of utilitarian approaches to moral and political philosophy, including utilitarian accounts of:

• the nature of wellbeing
• reasons and rightness
• rights and justice
• democracy
• individual decision-making
• praise and blame

Illness, ageing, death and dying are universal experiences. Yet discussion about them often only happens in times of emotional distress.

Together we'll explore philosophical issues related to human mortality in an open, supportive and compassionate way.

As well as a deeper understanding of the issues you will also build capacity to think sensitively and humanely about the human experience of ageing, illness, and dying.

Typical topics might include:

• experiences of being chronically ill
• psychiatry and mental health
• the oppression of ill persons · illness narratives
• the moral and spiritual significance of illness
• the experience of dying
• empathy, grief, and mourning
• death and the meaning of life
• the significance of human mortality to wider philosophical issues and concerns

This module is worth 20 credits.

In this module we'll ask questions like:

• How should human beings interact with the non-human natural world?
• Is nature intrinsically valuable, or does it possess value only by being valuable to us?

As part of this we'll cover topics such as:

• the moral status of animals
• the ethics of zoos
• responsibility for climate change
• whether there is any connection between the twin oppressions of women and nature
• the environmental impact of having children
• the ethics of restoring nature after it has been damaged by human development

This module is worth 20 credits.

The philosophy of mind addresses philosophical questions about the mind and aspects of the mind: mental or psychological states and capacities. Advanced topics in the philosophy of mind will focus on a specific area (or areas) of the philosophy of mind.

Which specific area (or areas) of philosophy of mind is in focus may vary from year to year. So the topics for this area of philosophy of mind may include:

• the nature of perception
• the nature of perceptual consciousness
• the directness or indirectness of perception
• the perception-knowledge link
• what properties or kinds perception can present
• issues about the senses
• specific issues about vision and audition

This module is a discussion of some philosophical problems pertaining to art. Topics could include definitions of art, the objectivity versus the subjectivity of aesthetic evaluations, emotional response to art, the ontological status of artworks, and Walton's theory of make-believe.

This module aims to promote a deeper understanding of philosophical issues pertaining to art. By the end of the module, you should be able to discuss and evaluate different views of the expressive power of art, to explain certain current views on the status of aesthetic evaluations, and to present the main contemporary viewpoints pertaining to the nature of artworks.

Typically, this module introduces you to some advanced topics in contemporary analytic metaphysics. The module focuses on important topics, which have received recent attention. The topics covered will include:

• metaphysical nihilism (why there is something rather than nothing, and the subtraction argument)
• causation (the counterfactual theory and other accounts)
• the metaphysics of grounding (and concerns with such a notion)
• the metaphysics of absolute and relational space and time, and vagueness and indeterminacy

The module presupposes a certain basic familiarity with general issues in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, but is designed to serve as an advanced introduction to new topics that is completely accessible to the uninitiated.

Politics and truth have always had a complicated relationship. Lies, bullshit, spin, and propaganda are nothing new.

Polarization is on the rise in many democracies and political disagreements have spread to disputes about obvious matters of fact.

But have we really entered the era of 'post-truth' politics? Is debate now framed largely by appeals to emotion disconnected from the facts?

In this module, we'll explore questions such as:

• Should the existence of widespread disagreement in politics make us less confident in our own views?
• Are voters morally or epistemically obligated to vote responsibly?
• Is it rational for citizens to base their political views on group identity rather than reasoned arguments?
• Should we have beliefs about complex policy questions about which we are not experts?
• Is democracy the best form of government for getting at the truth?

This module is worth 20 credits.

One often hears the opinion that ethics is subjective. But what does this mean, exactly?

And one often hears the view that ethics is relative. But relative to what?

And what is ‘ethics’ anyway?

And if ethics is subjective, or relative, what does that mean for ethics as a discipline? Does it mean, for example, that our ethical pronouncements can never be incorrect, never be challenged, or never disagreed with?

This module addresses these and other questions about the foundations of ethics, and gives you the material to develop your own views of this peculiarly human phenomenon.

Education plays a fundamental part in all our lives. It shapes who we are as individuals, our value systems, our political and religious outlooks. As a consequence it changes how society looks, how it operates, and what we think society ought to be like. Education then, is of the most profound importance.

As philosophers we are uniquely placed to think long and hard about education:

• what is its role?
• what should its role be?
• who gets to decide what is taught?

Rising to this challenge this module creates the space, and provides the tools, for you to do just this.

This module is worth 20 credits.

We expect recompense when we work but appear to do recreational activities just for their own sake.

You'll use philosophical tools to examine the meaning and value of such recreational activities, exploring questions such as:

• Is recreational sex and drug consumption merely about pleasurable sensations?
• Why do we put such great effort into achieving seemingly arbitrary goals in sport?
• Does it make sense for fans to feel elated if they played no part in a team’s success?
• Is there something special about being in a zone of effortless attention whilst playing an instrument?
• Could risking death seeking sensations of the sublime by climbing a mountain be better than safely siting on your sofa watching trash tv?

• How many people have you had sex with?
• Is there a difference between sex work and working in a supermarket?
• What is love? Do we chose who we love?
• What is gender? What do we mean when we say 'trans women are women'?

These are some of the many philosophical questions which arise when you start thinking about sex and related topics.

During this module we will tackle the conceptual, moral, political, and metaphysical issues raised by sexual activity. Possible topics we'll look at include:

• the nature of sexual desire
• sexual consent
• sexual objectification
• prostitution
• pornography
• sexual orientation

Together we'll look at the experiences and testimony of a variety of groups, including those considered sexual and gender minorities. Then we'll use philosophical tools to explore the issues that such testimony raises.

This module is worth 20 credits.