BMus (Hons) Popular Music

What you'll study Overview

Academically you'll be encouraged to ask questions on how popular music has affected our cultures, identities and lives. In your final year you can choose to follow your own practical or academic interests. For example, you have the opportunity to undertake your own creative or research projects supported by tutors. In the final year, creative work is showcased wherever possible in venues outside Goldsmiths.

Year 1 (credit level 4)

In your first year you study a range of areas including creative and practical music studies, textual and contextual analysis of popular music, and an introduction to music technology.

All modules are compulsory at this level as we feel it is essential that all our students develop the necessary key skills and knowledge base before further specialisation.

The modules are:

Year 1 compulsory modules Module title Credits. Folk and Urban Musics Folk and Urban Musics 30 credits

This module will provide a foundation for understanding the key creative elements common in many forms of popular music. Term one will focus on roots of popular style in Anglo-Celtic folk music stressing the importance of orality, song form, interaction/improvisation, modality, standard progressions, rhythm and the role of social processes in shaping music. Term two and three will focus on the creative concepts at the heart of 20th century popular music in the Western world: riffs, repetition in the Blues, fragmentation, recycling/sampling, lyrics and use of new technologies.

30 credits. Popular Music Contexts Popular Music Contexts 15 credits

This module considers key issues in the cultural study of popular music.

We concentrate on three contextual areas in particular: the social and political dimensions of popular music production and reception; the analytical approach to popular music inside the university; and significant critical traditions and tropes within broader academic and non-academic popular music discourses.

In approaching these issues we make use of scholarly literature, but we also consider the different (and often competing) ways that they have been interpreted in journalistic writing and audience discourses.

15 credits. Practical Popular Music Studies Practical Popular Music Studies 30 credits

Practical Popular Music Studies allows you to develop your practical skills in the broadest sense via a weekly performance class and individual vocal/ instrumental lessons. It provides instruction in all areas of practical musicianship including aural skills, transcription, sight-reading and improvisation as well as ensemble playing and performance. You will be given supporting classes in performance technology (how to use PA, Mics etc) and other issues relating to rehearsal, practice and presentation.

30 credits. Approaches to Contemporary Music Approaches to Contemporary Music 15 credits

The aim of this module is to introduce you to the styles you will encounter, the debates you will need to consider and the critical skills you will require in studying western musics of the period 1900 to the present.

While exploring musical repertoires of various kinds, from classical to popular (and beyond), the module will:

• investigate the ways this music has been thought and written about
• explore historical cultural contexts
• develop your skills in critical reasoning, conducting research and presenting written argument

You will be encouraged to think about relationships between musicians, their works, and their contexts, and to engage as they do with appropriate ideas from such disciplines as historical studies, sociology, cultural studies, ethnomusicology and musical analysis.

15 credits. Creative Music Technology Creative Music Technology 15 credits

This module provides an opportunity for you to become familiar with a range of music technology applications, including score processing, analog and digital recording, computer- based production and sequencing.

You will develop a basic working knowledge of software packages, acquiring core skills in computer music and furthering your understanding of its potential practical applications. You will also have opportunity to work in a recording studio, developing a knowledge of good practice in this environment, including an ability to collaborate effectively.

Term 1 focuses on Recording Techniques with tuition and practical experience in music technology theory and studio practice. This also acts as an induction to both the Electronic Music Studio (EMS) and Goldsmiths Music Studios (GMS) Term 2 include three options, focused around specific software packages & music technology practices – Notation & Music Theory (Sibelius notation software), Live Audio Processing (Ableton & Max For Live software), Digital Audio Editing (ProTools & Logic).

Skills and understanding developed in this module provide a foundation for a number of Level 2 modules available across the programmes, in studio composition, media composition and commercial recording. You work both individually and collaboratively, as appropriate.

15 credits. Popular Music History Popular Music History 15 credits

This module will extend our knowledge of popular music history across the ‘long’ 20th- century, giving us a better understanding of what happened, when, and why. Through set listening and discussion, we will think about how to recognise, analyse and verbalise the workings of different historical styles and techniques of creation and production. In lectures and through set readings, we will explore concepts – like ‘tradition’, ‘agency’, or ‘emergence’ – that will enable us to think critically about key problems in popular music history.

These problems are primarily concerned with musical creativity: how do we account for the historical appearance of new genres? How has ‘influence’ worked? How freely have individuals been able to create and innovate, and how far have they been constrained or steered by context?

However, a full appraisal of these issues will mean thinking not just about the ways music has been made, but also how it has been disseminated, listened to and talked about. Additionally, we will reflect on the processes of history writing itself, and ask questions of the pop histories that surround us in print, on TV, on the internet and in sound.

Who is included in these histories, who gets left out, and on what grounds? How much can we really learn about a period or place in social history just by listening to its music? The module will consist of lectures, in which we will examine theoretical issues, along with key historical styles and moments; and seminars, in which we will discuss and critique both music and histories constructed in various media.

Outside class, students will be expected to complete set weekly listening, reading and discussion tasks. These are designed to extend students’ knowledge and test their thinking as they develop towards their written assignments.

15 credits. Year 2 (credit level 5)

In term one you will choose from the following Group A choices:

Group A modules Module title Credits. Musicians, Commerce and Commodification Musicians, Commerce and Commodification 15 credits

Since the emergence of the printing press, the performance, dissemination and reception of music has been integrally linked to various media and industries. From the late twentieth century the internet and digital technologies have been dramatically reshaping the production, circulation and consumption of music due to the increasing shift from physical artefact (CDs, cassettes, LPs) to non-material digital distribution, with streamed access challenging the idea of owned musical artefacts.

This module examines the role of various media and industries in the music making process. It considers the historical significance of printing, recording, radio, the moving image media, digital technology and the internet. It also considers the range of different companies that have a vested interest in music making, and explores how music has become ever more significant for corporate promotion and branding. The module reflects on how these industries have provided opportunities and imposed constraints on music making. The module links a detailed focused study of how various industries and media operate to key conceptual frameworks and explanatory models drawn from cultural and social theory.

15 credits. Music and Identity Music and Identity 15 credits

For many years music has been associated with different social groups and been linked to specific cultural identities defined by gender, ethnicity, class, race and sexuality. This can be seen in everything from the close connections between the emergent bourgeoisie and the canonization of absolute music in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, to the importance of blues, jazz, soul and hip hop for changing notions of black identity up the present day. This module examines how popular and classical musics have been used to affirm a sense of collective identity and as a means of asserting difference and excluding others, exploring topics such as the social construction of identity, fandom, authenticity and authorship.

15 credits. Music in Film Music in Film 15 credits

This module introduces a number of perspectives on the use and function of music in narrative film. This includes an overview of practices from the so-called 'silent era' through to contemporary mainstream Hollywood cinema, and to those in world cinemas; a discussion of technological developments and how these influenced film music practice; distinctions between the deployment of dramatic scoring and pre-existing musics/songs/recordings; the position of music in film’s narrative apparatus; and the interaction between music and other elements of the ‘soundtrack’. Key concepts and theorists in film music and film sound scholarship are introduced, and case studies are drawn from a number of prescribed films, taken from across the history of cinema.

This module is a co-requisite for MEDIA COMPOSITION (TERM 2).

15 credits. Aesthetics, Meaning and Culture Aesthetics, Meaning and Culture 15 credits

This module examines in a structured and self-critical manner the ideas and assumptions that govern the ways in which we 1) define, 2) explain 3) evaluate and 4) justify music and music making in various cultures and subcultures. Its methods draw upon philosophy (concept analysis, hermeneutics, ethics, etc.), sociological and anthropological theory (the social relation of values and meanings), and recent forms of critical theory (with their destabilizing effect on traditions, meanings and the notion of ‘truth’). These contrasting interpretations are not simply paraded, rather their conflicting claims and ideologies are tested against each other. The issues involved are not ones that are imposed on musicians but arise naturally from their attempts to find meaning and value in what they do. The aim of the module is not to give ‘answers’ but to provide standards of argumentation, to reveal exactly why these profound problems cannot easily yield to makeshift ‘solutions’, and to encourage musicians with different interests and backgrounds to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of their own ideological positions and those of others.

15 credits.

And these Group B options:

Group B modules Module title Credits. Sonic Art Techniques Sonic Art Techniques 15 credits

This module enables you to acquire fundamental skills in the use of studio equipment and software which are relevant to experimental electronic music and electroacoustic composition. These include recording techniques, sound editing and mixing, digital audio processing and use of MIDI. You will also be introduced to a range of experimental electronic/electroacoustic repertoire and associated compositional approaches.

Indicative repertoire:

Pierre Schaeffer - Quatre études de Bruits (Four Studies in Noise) (1948)

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Gesang der Jünglinge (1956)

Steve Reich - It's Gonna Rain (1965)

Alvin Lucier - I Am Sitting In A Room (1969)

Jonathan Harvey - Mortuos Plango, Vivos Voco (1980)

This module is a co-requisite for L2 Sonic Art Practice , and a pre-requisite for L3 Phonography and Live Electronics.


Learning outcomes:

1. Basic proficiency in the use of studio equipment and software including the mixing desk, recording media, effects processors, Apple Mac computer, ProTools and Audiosculpt.
2. Detailed knowledge of selected approaches to contemporary electroacoustic composition
3. An ability to evaluate by listening electroacoustic music, demonstrating an awareness of compositional method and structure.
15 credits. Performance: Ensemble Performance: Ensemble 15 credits

This module guides you through a range of repertoire to develop enhanced stylistic awareness and both individual and group musicianship skills. By participating in a weekly ensemble class, you experience a variety of learning situations from full notation and lead sheets to working purely by ear or verbal instructions. In addition, you will be encouraged to evolve performance in the broadest sense, developing awareness of the effects of personal physicality, how to use the performance space and other issues of presentation.

Learning outcomes:

1. Increased instrumental/vocal competence
2. Understanding of the collective nature of popular music performance
3. Ability to work with other musicians effectively
4. Ability to organise and contribute to rehearsal process
5. Ability to respond to musical direction
6. Ability to communicate in performance both visually and musically
15 credits. Songwriting Songwriting 15 credits

This module explores the many dimensions of the songwriting craft, including standard (and non-standard) song conventions, lyric writing, strategies and sources for inspiration, sound and identity.

You will explore differences in the work of composer-songwriters and singer-songwriters, together with related issues such as the influence of commerce, authorship, and interpretation. You will be set weekly songwriting tasks, designed to help develop a variety of creative skills. You will have the opportunity to ‘show and tell’ your draft songs in workshops, and to present your work both in live and recorded formats at the end of the course.

After successfully completing this module you will gain a technical understanding of standard and extended song formats and have an enhanced understanding of approaches to lyric writing. You will also be familiar with a range of songwriting strategies and conventions and issues of authorship and interpretation.

15 credits. Techniques in Jazz and Popular Music Techniques in Jazz and Popular Music 15 credits

This module provides an introduction to the harmonic vocabulary of jazz and popular music. It studies: tonality, modality, chord/scale relationships, standard chord progressions and chord symbols, basic re-harmonisation. You are also instructed in the conventions of jazz and popular music notation, including the presentation of lead sheets and rhythm charts. It is taught through lectures, and individual tutorial at the end of the term. Technical support for the use of Sibelius is also provided.

Students are strongly recommended to take this module as preparation for L2 Arranging in Jazz & Popular Music in Term 2.

Learning outcomes:

1. Systematic understanding of diatonic harmony
2. Systematic understanding of chord/scale relationships & modality
3. Ability to voice & voice-lead chords in up to 4 parts
4. Systematic knowledge of diatonic / non-diatonic harmonic progressions
5. Understanding of conventions of jazz and popular music notation
15 credits.

In the second term you will choose from the following Group A option:

Group A modules Module title Credits. Music of Africa and Asia Music of Africa and Asia 15 credits

The module introduces the diverse musical traditions of Africa and Asia. It concentrates on traditional musical practices, although some attention also will be given to newly created styles. Geographical areas covered will include Southern Africa, West Africa, North Africa, Central Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia (mainland and island), Oceania and East Asia. You are expected to become familiar with the sounds of the music of these areas, and to understand something of their underlying structural principles and the social and cultural contexts in which they are performed.

15 credits. What is Jazz? What is Jazz? 15 credits

The 1956 Columbia album What is Jazz?, on which Leonard Bernstein – by that time one of America’s most famous musicians and public educators – delivers a lecture on that music’s technical and stylistic features, is where this module takes its cue. Blue notes, vocalised instrumental tones, the transformation of song material through improvisation, all these things are illustrated by Bernstein’s guests across a variety of styles, and the programme ends with Miles Davis and John Coltrane pitching an old pop tune into a supermodern vortex of altered chords and right-angle phrasing.

This, then, was jazz, or at least that part of it that Bernstein called ‘the music itself’. But what would become of jazz later, when many of its musicians discarded those supposedly fundamental techniques, indeed refused the J-word