MusM Music (Performance Studies) / Course details

Year of entry: 2025

Course unit details:
Advanced Music Studies: Research Skills in the Digital Age

Course unit fact file
Unit code MUSC60061
Credit rating 15
Unit level FHEQ level 7 – master's degree or fourth year of an integrated master's degree
Teaching period(s) Semester 1
Available as a free choice unit? Yes

Overview

This course introduces the skills and research methods needed to conduct advanced research in music, encompassing a range of primary and secondary research activity. The development of the digital humanities (specifically as a sub-discipline, and in general as part of our everyday communication and engagement) provides enormous scope for new and original research in musicology as well as posing significant challenges. Responding to the changes to our research practices brought about by the digital era, this course unit provides the necessary rigour and foundation for advanced research in the arts and humanities, and is timed to support the development of a dissertation or other parallel research project. It is complemented by related units focused on contemporary theoretical issues, disciplinary debates and specific methodological or professional training relevant to the chosen pathway.  

In this course unit, the focus is primarily on skills: students are introduced to a range of current bibliographical and other digital resources (e.g. digital collections of periodicals, music scores and recordings), learning from academic staff and guest researchers, librarians, archivists and curators. Students gain practical experience in finding, using and evaluating information in physical and digital forms, demonstrating proficiency in a range of skills through weekly exercises and the submission of two coursework assignments. The course develops techniques for engaging critically with secondary literature, for working with primary sources in physical and digital archives, the principles of research ethics and referencing, and introductory methods for web-based primary research. It thus surveys a range of methodological developments across musicology, focusing in particular on how music researchers have harnessed technological resources and engaged with broader trends in the digital humanities. Finally, the unit also introduces students to the world of postgraduate research, and the requirements of funding applications and research outlines.  

 

 

Aims

To offer advanced musicological training in the areas of literary and primary sources, bibliography, critical reading, writing and communication, together with professional skills such as producing research outlines and funding applications. 

To acquaint students with the range of digital resources available for musicological research (both secondary and primary research), and to evaluate the approaches that draw on them and capitalise on their possibilities for original research.   

To provide students with a foundation for constructing and evaluating the methodologies that inform their own research. 

Learning outcomes

  • Demonstrate a grasp of research resources and tools (in both printed and digital formats) appropriate to masters level 

  • Show an awareness of ethical issues in all areas of musicological or music-related research 

  • Show an awareness and understanding of a range of current research methods and of the nature of musicological debate relating to methodology and approach 

Teaching and learning methods

Weekly interactive classes, comprising a mixture of:  

  • An annual workshop with archivists and curators from local music archives and special collections (e.g. John Rylands’ British Pop Archive, British Music Collection (Huddersfield), RNCM Archive, Hallé Archive, Manchester Digital Music Archive, Central Library Sound Collection). 
  • Weekly academic workshops on core research skills  
  • Weekly consultation hours 

Knowledge and understanding

  • Demonstrate a grasp of research resources and tools (in both printed and digital formats) appropriate for Master’s level activities in musicology
  • Show an awareness of ethical issues in all areas of musicological or music-related research
  • Show an awareness and understanding of a range of critical thinking skills and the ways in which such critical thinking shapes foundational skills in locating, assessing, reading and writing about source material in musicology

Intellectual skills

  • Research and use primary and secondary sources appropriate for Masters level  
  • Show the ability to situate a variety of texts and sources within the contexts of different musicological methods and approaches 
  • Demonstrate the ability to discuss and assess critically the problems and benefits of particular methods and approaches used to access different types of information and sources in music studies 

Practical skills

  • Demonstrate skills in oral presentation 
  • Demonstrate the ability to write effective research and funding proposals 

Transferable skills and personal qualities

  • Demonstrate the ability to communicate complex ideas and information in academic and non-academic contexts, using both written and spoken word 

  • Demonstrate the ability to synthesize and evaluate material systematically to produce arguments and solutions that are communicated clearly in both written and oral form 

  • Show an ability to produce written work of high quality independently with critical self-awareness and within a self-directed environment 

Employability skills

Analytical skills
Analytical skills (analysing texts, performances, musical scores and other materials and media)
Group/team working
Interacting with critical peers
Project management
Time management skills (submitting presentations and texts to fixed deadlines)
Oral communication
Oral presentation skills, individual or in small groups Interacting with critical peers
Problem solving
Creative problem-solving (fulfilling a set task with the resources available) 
Research
Digital skills (information searches in databases, catalogues and other online environments)
Other
Archive and primary sources skills

Assessment methods

Assessment task  

Formative or Summative 

Weighting within unit (if summative) 

Notetaking, critical reading and reflection exercise based on one piece of set reading

Formative and Summative 

20% 

Weekly preparation tasks  

Formative  

0%  

Skills-based assignment focusing either on evaluation and comparison of two digital research tools and resources

Summative 

80%  

Feedback methods

Feedback method  

Formative or Summative 

Oral feedback on pre-class preparation, in-class tasks, exercises and presentations 

 

Formative  

Oral (group) feedback on student blog posts 

Formative  

Written feedback on both summative assignments 

 

Summative 

Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment) 

 

 

Formative 

Recommended reading

Duckles, Vincent, and Keller, Michael, Music Reference and Research Materials: An Annotated Bibliography, 5th edn. (New York, 1997) 

Cook, Nicholas and Mark Everist (eds.), Rethinking Music (Oxford, 1999) 

Crist, Stephen A. and Roberta Montemorra Marvin (eds.), Historical Musicology: Sources, Methods, Interpretations (Rochester, NY, 2004). 

Kerman, Joseph, Musicology (London, 1985). 

Sampsel, Laurie J., Music Research: A Handbook (New York, 2019). 

Santi, Matej Ed.), Music – Media – History: Rethinking Musicology in an Age of Digital Media (Vienna, 2021). 

Scott, Allen, Phillip D. Crabtree and Donald H. Foster, Sourcebook for Research in Music (Bloomington, 3rd edn 2015). 

Study hours

Scheduled activity hours
Seminars 16.5
Independent study hours
Independent study 133.5

Teaching staff

Staff member Role
Roderick Hawkins Unit coordinator

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