Birmingham City University

M.A - Musicology

Whatever your interests, our Musicology course gives you the unique opportunity to pursue your own research project within a lively and exciting Conservatoire environment.

Our flexible course enables you to mold a program of study to your own needs and aspirations and maybe approached as preparation for a research degree in music.

It is important that a musicologist also develops complementary skills and/or knowledge outside their specialism which will help equip them for a future career: professional musicologists typically find themselves, amongst other things, teaching, managing and administering; some even maintain parallel careers as professional performers or composers.

Therefore, we provide you with a choice of Professional Development Options (shared across our postgraduate programs) alongside your musicological work to give you the opportunity to develop and/or expand your interests across a range of complementary areas.

The Conservatoire team—which comprises a large number of research-active staff—has a vast array of expertise, allowing us to supervise a wide range of projects, and we are particularly keen to attract those interested in pursuing Masters-level research in our specialist areas.

These include Late Medieval Music; French Music of the 17th, 18th and 20th centuries; Italian Baroque Music; 18th and 19th Century British, Russian or Austro-Germanic Music; Contemporary Film and Television Music; Theory and Analysis; 20th-Century Music Theory and Analysis; and Music Critics and Criticism.

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire also hosts a significant collection of historical instruments and we welcome studies with a focus on performance practice and/or critical editing.

Recent research projects include:

• An exploration of Music Performance Anxiety in a Conservatoire Woodwind Department.
• The Music of Hans Zimmer, US Military Intervention and "The Other" in Film; the Sound of the Unbelievable.
• Easy Listening: Jerry Lanning and the BBC Radio Orchestra 1979-81.
• The Emergence and Evolution of the Piano Study in the Years 1797-1837.
• Voices from a Non-Place: An Investigation into Language, Space and the Sung Voice.
• The Lute and Non-Nobility in Elizabethan England.
• Alexei Stanchinsky (1888-1914): Context and Influences.
• Clara Schumann as Pedagogue.
• Italian Film Music During the 1930s: Political Appropriation and Socioeconomic Agendas.
• Constructive or Destructive? Assessing the Impact of Feedback in Instrumental Piano Lessons.
• Irish Rebel Music 1969-1995: Appropriation and Hidden(?) Agendas.

Our MA Musicology course can be studied as a standalone course, but it is also intended to help prepare you for a research degree.

Please note we consider applications throughout the year for this course, it does not close for applications in October.

What's covered in the course?

Most postgraduate conservatoire degrees are focused on performance or composition and don’t cater for musicologists.  This is not the case at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, where this course provides you with the opportunity not only to develop your skills as a musicologist but to supplement them with complementary studies unique to a Conservatoire environment.  

Your own research project will be at the heart of your course, and alongside this you will choose from the Conservatoire’s menu of postgraduate Professional Development options, which will allow you either to hone your skills in complementary areas, or to develop and expand your interests, providing the opportunity to interact and network with fellow musicians and a range of staff, as well as enjoying the excellent facilities the Conservatoire boasts.

You will benefit from the Conservatoire’s excellent library resources, as well as the opportunity to get involved with our performance departments, and our wider research community of students and staff through seminars, study days, social activities and other events.