MusM Music (Ethnomusicology) / Course details

This course introduces the skills and research methods needed to conduct advanced research in music research, encompassing a range of aspects of primary and secondary research activity. The development of the digital humanities (specifically as a sub-discipline, and in general as part and parcel of our everyday communication and engagement) provides enormous scope for new and original research in musicology as well as significant challenges. Responding to the changes on our research practices brought about by the digital era, the 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 or followed by related units focused on contemporary theoretical issues, disciplinary debates and specific methodological or professional training relevant to the chosen pathway.  

In this unit, then, the focus is 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 using and evaluating information in physical and digital forms, demonstrating proficiency in a range of skills through weekly exercises and the submission of a coursework assignment. 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.  

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. 

• 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 

1. Introduction to music research and the principles of academic engagement  

2. What is a source in music studies?  

3. Bibliographical skills and information management  

4. Referencing and note-taking  

5. Trust issues: critical reading and writing after ChatGPT  

6. Reading week 

7. How to access an archive  

8. Online archives, physical archives, music archives  

9. Undertaking primary research online  

10. Principles of research ethics  

11. Principles of research funding and research outlines  

12. The future of music research  

Weekly interactive classes, comprising a mixture of:  

• Workshops with archivists and curators at 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). 

• Academic workshops on core research skills  

• Weekly consultation hours 

• Research and use primary and secondary sources appropriate to masters level  

• Show the ability to situate a variety of musicological texts within the contexts of current and past musicological methods and approaches 

• Demonstrate the ability to discuss and critically to assess the problems and benefits of particular methods and approaches to musicological research 

• Deploy fieldwork skills appropriate to masters level  

• Demonstrate skills in oral presentation 

• Write effective research and funding proposals 

• 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 

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).