- UCAS course code
- WW34
- UCAS institution code
- M20
Bachelor of Arts (BA)
BA Music and Drama
Explore your passion for performance through the interdisciplinary study of music, theatre and film.
Duration: 3 years
Year of entry: 2025
UCAS course code: WW34 / Institution code: M20
- Key features:
Scholarships available
- Typical A-level offer: AAB including specific subjects
- Typical contextual A-level offer: ABC including specific subjects
- Refugee/care-experienced offer: BBC including specific subjects
- Typical International Baccalaureate offer: 35 points overall with 6,6,5 at HL including Music
Fees and funding
Fees
Tuition fees for home students commencing their studies in September 2025 will be £9,535 per annum (subject to Parliamentary approval). Tuition fees for international students will be £28,500 per annum. For general information please see the undergraduate finance pages.
Policy on additional costs
All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).
Scholarships/sponsorships
The Department of Music will provide first-year bursaries to support undergraduate students who have demonstrated exceptional levels of achievement in their instrumental and/or vocal studies. These £1000 bursaries will be awarded in the first year of study (2024/25 academic year), paid direct to students in two instalments.
More information, including eligibility criteria, can be found here.
Course unit details:
Fixed and Electroacoustic Composition
| Unit code | MUSC20061 |
|---|---|
| Credit rating | 10 |
| Unit level | Level 2 |
| Teaching period(s) | Semester 1 |
| Available as a free choice unit? | No |
Overview
A course dealing with a broad range of compositional techniques involving the use of cutting-edge technology and building upon studio-based electroacoustic composition concepts and methodologies encountered in other related course-units, extending into a wide range of material contexts, practical techniques, performance issues and advanced sound processing.
Pre/co-requisites
| Unit title | Unit code | Requirement type | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sonic Invention A | MUSC10311 | Pre-Requisite | Compulsory |
| Sonic Invention B | MUSC10312 | Pre-Requisite | Compulsory |
Pre-requisite: The Electroacoustic component of MUSC10311/MUSC10312
Aims
- To develop studio-based compositional methodologies
- To provide enhanced skills in sound capture, processing and manipulation, including FFT and live electronics MaxMSP environments
- To explore concepts of live sound diffusion and interpretation
- To create software-based environments for interactive sonic creativity with human interface devices and computers
- To introduce issues related to performance as encountered in the medium
Learning outcomes
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Apply enhanced skills in sound processing and electroacoustic composition
- Increase imagination and techniques in developing sonic material
- Develop skills in creating and performing fixed-media electroacoustic music
Syllabus
Representative Example (will vary each year):
Introduction
- Course-unit aims and objectives, course structure.
- Project brief and example repertoire
- Sound sources /recording
- Software resources
Advanced sound processing techniques
- Granular synthesis and Cecilia, Soundhack plug-ins
- Sonic intersections: glitch and noise
Advanced sound processing techniques
- FFT analysis and re-synthesis, MAX
- Sonic intersections: ambient and electronica
Live and improvisatory sound development
- MAX: improvisatory sound development environment; live-electronics approaches
- Sonic intersections: live coding
Composing
- phrasing, patterns, time, formal designs
- Sonic intersections: sonification
Advanced shaping and mixing
- mixing and shaping techniques
- Sonic intersections: audio-visual
In-class improvisation
Delving deeper into plug-ins
- advanced techniques
Space form
- theory and in practice, sound diffusion
- Sonic intersections: multi-channel audio
Mastering audio for electroacoustic media
- compression, limiting, EQ, stereo imaging
- Sonic intersections: soundscape
Feedback and assistance on work-in-progress
- Final project tips
- Feedback and assistance on work-in-progress
Knowledge and understanding
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Demonstrate more advanced knowledge of studio-based compositional methodologies
- Understand spectromorphology and space-form as wider contexts for musical and sonic vocabulary and grammar as well as performance
- Understand methodologies relating to sonic, musical and performance in fixed media-music
Intellectual skills
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Navigate in-depth concepts relating to space and timbre;
- Develop gesture and texture driven structuring processes.
Practical skills
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Apply a technical knowledge of software techniques and sound recordings in realizing fixed media works
- Demonstrate enhanced skill in using technology to achieve meaning and expression through sound
- Implement at professional level the Format of Composition submission of audio content, designed and approved by the composition staff
- Prepare and deliver a presentation/performance through coursework as a formative experience toward completing the electroacoustic musical outcomes and tasks
- Demonstrate enhanced skills in sound processing, visual oriented programming and electroacoustic composition
- Develop sonic material more imaginatively
- Utilise a wide range of studio tools in the capture, development and performance of electroacoustic music
Transferable skills and personal qualities
By the end of this course students will be able to:
- Collaborate with other students in problem-solving dealing both with technology and creative issues
- Demonstrate organisational and management skills in making use of studio time and access, booking musicians if needed, working with technology and preparing recordings and mastering of final works, and preparing an in-class performance
- Demonstrate attention to detail through the compositional methods and the crafting and editing of recorded and transformed sound, preparing compositions to professional standards
- Demonstrate the development of dialogue through teaching and workshops, whilst developing communicative abilities and to communicate a specific point of views and compositional strategies during the creative process
Employability skills
- Analytical skills
- Analytical Skills (surveying repertoire, analysing materials for musical composition)
- Group/team working
- Team work (during workshops)
- Innovation/creativity
- Initiative and inventiveness
- Leadership
- Interpersonal and Leadership skills and roles within a group (especially in collaborative workshop tasks)
- Project management
- Working to deadlines (tasks and projects)
- Problem solving
- Creative problem-solving (especially in the transformation process and when using visual oriented objects to build signal processing systems)
- Other
- Time management and organisational skills (scheduling studio access and navigating eLearning content). Editing, transforming and mastering sound material
Assessment methods
| Electroacoustic Creative Project | 100% |
Feedback methods
- Oral feedback on in class set tasks presentation
- Written feedback on final project
- Additional one-to-one feedback (during consultation hour or by making an appointment)
Recommended reading
Periodicals held in the library:
- Computer Music Journal
- Organized Sound
Books held in the library:
- Emmerson, Simon. The Language of Electroacoustic Music
- Manning, Peter. Electronic and Computer Music
- Roads, Curtis. Computer Music Tutorial
- Rowe, Robert. Interactive Music Systems
- Rowe, Robert. Machine Musicianship
- Wanderley Marcelo M. and Battier, Marc (eds.) Trends in Gestural Control of Music
- Wishart, Trevor. On Sonic Art
Repertoire examples as indicated in-class
Study hours
| Scheduled activity hours | |
|---|---|
| Lectures | 22 |
| Practical classes & workshops | 22 |
| Work based learning | 3 |
| Independent study hours | |
|---|---|
| Independent study | 53 |
Teaching staff
| Staff member | Role |
|---|---|
| Sarah Keirle | Unit coordinator |