Arts: Music MRes

Overview
The Arts MRes allows you to undertake a one year full-time or, two year part-time, research project in one or more of the School of the Arts’ key subject areas: Architecture, Communications and Media, English, Music and Philosophy. You will receive training in research skills and supervision from one or more academic specialists in their subject area(s).

The Arts (Music) MRes will encourage you to develop research skills whilst undertaking a major research project. This could include a dissertation or extensive composition or music-technology portfolio. The programme will enable you to acquire a critical and analytical understanding of a detailed dissertation or composition topic; engage in the wider cultural and critical aspects of the relevant area of expertise by undertaking a research skills training module and an additional module from the School of Music or the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences' pool.

This training introduces you to the inter-disciplinary nature of the field and aims to introduce the wide range of methodologies such studies entail. Further, you are required to consider how you will approach and structure the dissertation as a project in primary research. Finally, the programme will enable you to work closely with a research specialist in the broad musicological field in one of the following areas: musicology, popular music, music industries, composition, analysis, audio-visual, music-technology.

The Arts (Music) MRes provides excellent preparation for you if you’re intending to undertake a PhD in the Arts and Humanities, it is also a good choice if you wish to pursue a research project for purposes of professional development or personal interest. You will become part of a community of active researchers and will be encouraged to pursue your own research interests in collaboration with an academic supervisor.

Career prospects

The MRes Arts may enhance the career prospects of those working or wishing to work in fields associated with the study of Arts subjects or other areas of academic work and study, including teachers, librarians, and professional writers. While managerial positions often require the ability to conduct research or project-work and to demonstrate sustained and complex organisational skills in ways encompassed by this programme, its emphasis on oral and written communication skills as well as on IT-based presentation skills will be useful for many types of employment. Some students may want to take this course for its own sake and for the sake of personal development and the revitalization of subject awareness. Equally, the MRes is designed to prepare students too for further research at MPhil or PhD level, and to enable them to enter postgraduate study, thus offering a first step towards a career in academic teaching and research.

The advanced study of one or more Arts subject on this programme equips students with powers of fine discrimination and judgement that will set them apart in workplaces of many kinds. The skills it fosters are those which enable graduates to deal logically with the complex demands of a whole range of careers. These skills include:

the ability to process large amounts of information
the ability to organise disparate material into a coherent argument
the capacity to compare many different views and come to a decision about the merits of each
the independence to define a complex project and bring it to completion with minimal input.
imaginative and creative responsiveness to problems
powers of expression (both written and oral) which allow for the lucid delineation of nuanced ideas.