Teaching
Teaching is provided through lectures, seminars, workshops, masterclasses and small-group supervisions.
In your first year, you can usually expect to have 4 lectures, 3 supervisions, and aural and practical musicianship classes each week.
In later years, you’ll have fewer lectures and more seminar, small-group and one-to-one teaching.
You can also work with individual staff members on your own projects, whether as an advanced performer, composer, historian, analyst, ethnomusicologist or music scientist.
Assessment
Assessment takes place at the end of each year through:
- written examinations
- submission of portfolios
- compositions
- essays
- dissertations
- recitals
You won't usually be able to resit any of your exams.
Year 1 (Part IA)
The first year consists of compulsory papers in 3 major areas, and 2 half-papers chosen from a range of options. These papers provide a secure and interconnected foundation for your further study. You take:
- historical and critical studies – two papers covering issues involved in understanding music and its relationship to society and culture. These include studying historical topics in Western music and thinking broadly about the place of music in contemporary societies (world music, popular music, new music)
- tonal skills and general musicianship – one and a half papers giving you a thorough technical grounding in music of the Western tonal tradition, through writing music in a range of historical styles, aural work, and the acquisition of basic practical skills
- music analysis – a paper that gives you an understanding of what makes music work. You will study different approaches to analysing a broad range of music
- two half papers chosen from the following: extended essay, performance, composition, music historiography
Year 2 (Part IB)
You take a further paper in each of the core areas in year 1 (historical studies, analysis and applied tonal skills). Subject to Faculty approval, you can replace one of these papers with an option.
You then choose 3 more papers from a range of different topics. Subjects change from year to year but normally include:
- in-depth historical topics
- jazz, popular music and media
- ethnomusicology
- notation
- keyboard skills
- music and science
- performance studies, including recital
- composition
- a dissertation of 5,000 to 7,000 words
Year 3 (Part II)
In the final year, you have even more choice.
There are no compulsory papers – you choose 6 papers from a wide selection of options which reflect your own interests and which may also develop the skills and knowledge you need for your chosen career path.
Options available vary each year but recent examples include:
- advanced performance
- advanced performance skills (keyboard or choral)
- a dissertation of 7,000 to 10,000 words
- composition
- Beethoven: the Late String Quartets
- Musical Countercultures of the 1960s
- Exploring Music Psychology
- Parisian Polyphony
- Music, Nationalism and Politics in Spain
- Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem in Context
- Decolonising the Ear
For further information about studying Music at the University of Cambridge see the Faculty of Music website.
Changing course
It’s really important to think carefully about which course you want to study before you apply.
In rare cases, it may be possible to change course once you’ve joined the University. You will usually have to get agreement from your College and the relevant departments. It’s not guaranteed that your course change will be approved.
You might also have to:
- take part in an interview
- complete an admissions test
- produce some written work
- achieve a particular grade in your current studies
- do some catch-up work
- start your new course from the beginning
For more information visit the Faculty website.
You can also apply to change to:
You can't apply to this course until you're at Cambridge. You would usually apply when you have completed 1 year or more of your original Cambridge course.
You should contact your College’s Admissions Office if you’re thinking of changing your course. They will be able to give you advice and explain how changing courses works.
