The University of Birmingham is a public research university located in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. It received its royal charter in 1900 as a successor to Queen's College, Birmingham, and Mason Science College, making it the first English civic or 'red brick' university to receive its own royal charter. The University have a long and proud history of firsts, at the University of Birmingham; they were the first – and are now one of the largest - civic universities in the UK.

At Birmingham, the institution teach and research across the full breadth of academic disciplines, creating a vibrant community with multi-disciplinary opportunities for research and education. The University is a truly international community consisting of more than thousands of staff, students, and alumni. The student community is not only one of the largest of any UK university, it is highly diverse, with 82 per cent of home undergraduate students from state schools, 32 per cent from a BAME background, and 35 per cent in the first generation of their family to attend university.

Core modules
You will study three core modules:

Fieldwork Methods
This practice-led module will build the skills needed to conduct an independent ethnographic research project. Throughout the module, you will become acquainted with the various methods available for fieldwork and learn to assess their strengths and weaknesses in relation to varying research contexts.

Topics addressed may include: project design and planning, ethics, audio-visual documentation, interviewing, fieldnotes, transcription, and online/virtual ethnography. Instruction and assessment will be hands-on, applying theoretical readings to concrete materials and activities.
Assessment: 2,500-word research prospectus and five applied fieldwork assignments totalling 2,500 words

Introduction to Global Popular Musics
This module aims to familiarise you with a field of study that has been emerging from the intersection of ethnomusicology and popular music studies. Assigned readings, discussions, and assessments will seek to situate popular music in a global context while also attending to the ways that global processes impact local musical actors, scenes, and styles. Particular attention will be paid to ethnography and its application to the study of popular musics. Topics and cases to be explored included diasporic popular musics, musical migration, recording and production, global music industries, musical labour in the ‘creative industries’, local music scenes, urban contexts, and media theory. This module will also provide an orientation to relevant fields of study (including ethnomusicology and popular music studies) through an engagement with foundational disciplinary texts as well as current debates.
Assessment: 3,000-word research project and ten weekly reading responses totalling 1,500 words

Introduction to Musicology
This module prepares you for the field of Musicology by examining key issues, theories, and methodologies in the field. It is taught as a series of seminars by a number of staff in the Department of Music, and any research presentations organised for department staff and visiting scholars.
Assessment: Two 2,500-word essays

Optional modules
You will also choose three optional modules from a range which typically includes:

Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art
British Music Studies 1850-1975
Experimental Music and Sound Art
For more information, see our Music module descriptions.

Subject to availability, you may also select one relevant undergraduate Music module to take at the MA level; these modules change regularly and relevant information will be included with your module choice form. In addition, you may also take one relevant module from other College of Arts and Law MA programmes.

Dissertation
In addition to your taught modules, you will conduct a piece of independent research with the support of a supervisor, culminating in a 15,000-word dissertation. Students are also required attend and to write short summaries of research seminars presented during the academic year

Please note that the optional module information listed on the website for this programme is intended to be indicative, and the availability of optional modules may vary from year to year. Where a module is no longer available we will let you know as soon as we can and help you to make other choices.

You will need to book the accommodation after you have been accepted.

You can choose to live on campus or off campus in private accommodation.

• Make a booking online after you have been accepted (in this case please let us know your choice when you apply).
• Register when you arrive - its not possible to reserve a room before arriving. You can arrive a few days before and book it