Music at Cambridge

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The Music Faculty

The Music Faculty at Cambridge is located on the Sidgwick Site, on the west side of town. The buildings include the old faculty building (an arts and crafts style house, which houses the administrative offices, the board room, and various offices for academics), and the new faculty building, centred on West Road Concert Hall, which was built in the early 1990s. This building has many facilities, including the Pendlebury Library, a recital room, various practice and lecture rooms, the Cudworth Room (which houses the faculty's collection of keyboard instruments), a 500-seat concert hall, and various offices for Academics.

The faculty is relatively small, and takes between 60 and 70 undergraduates a year. Many of the supervisions in the second and third year of the undergraduate course are organise centrally, rather than through the colleges as would be expected in larger subjects. Whilst the undergraduate course is split up, as all Cambridge Triposes, between Part I (years 1 and 2) and Part II (year 3), it is important to note that in the music course there is a lack of coherence in the first two years, and each of the years has its own identity. As such I will address each separately.

The Undergraduate Course

Part IA

Part IA of the Music Tripos really is a baptism of fire. All of the courses are compulsory, and span the entire range of musicological and theoretical topics that the faculty deals with. The courses at present are: Harmony (writing classical string quartets, early 19th century lieder accompaniments, baroque-style immitative writing over a ground bass), Counterpoint (Three part Palestrina-style immitative counterpoint, and Baroque fugal exposition with invertible/double counterpoint), Two historical/musicological/ethnomusicological papers, Analysis (music from 1700-1828, with an emphasis on topical/semiotic analysis), General Musicianship (Aural tests on transcription of atonal lines, three-part counterpoint, orchestration, aural analysis etc. and Keyboard tests, sightreading quartets, sight-transposition of Bach Chorales, sightreading 3 part counterpoint in alto, tenor and bass clefs, harmonising a melody at the keyboard, and realisation of a figured bass). Ok, so that's a lot of stuff, and depressingly Cambridge expect you to be good at all of it. It is extremely rare that this is the case for any of the students (last year only two students achieved a first at Part IA). Each of the six modules is examined with a three hour exam, except for General Musicianshp, which is examined by a 3 hour aural exam and a 10 minute keyboard test. It is a nasty course, you will have more supervisions than almost any other arts students, and you are consistently made to feel that you can't keep up. Thankfully, after the first year, you're allowed to bin most of the skills they've tried to make you build up, and get on with what you're interest in, whether it be musicology, composition, analysis, etc.

Part IB

Part IB really is a welcome break after the hell of first year. You have one less module, and you actually get some choice over what courses you're taking. All students must take tonal compositions (usually referred to by students as "Tonal Comp") - three compositions including a fugue, and Analysis (music from 1828-Present day). You then have a choice of papers for your other three, but must either take free composition, dissertation, or advanced keyboard skills. The other two papers tend to be based on forms of analysis or historical musicology. These other papers change each year. For these elective papers, each student is given between four and six supervisions. All courses are taught as lectures, although these tend to be slightly less formal, as many options only have about 15 students taking them.

Part II

Back to the hell of having six courses to do in a single year, but this time the format of the learning is different. There is a much wider range of courses offered. The coursework options are Tonal Comp, Free Comp, Dissertation, and Analysis Portfolio (2 analytic essays, using specified analytic approaches). There is also a chance to have your performance examined (but beware of harsh marking), and the Fugue exam, which involves 4 hours sat in a room with a pencil and paper with the hope that you'll write a fugue on one of five specified subject. There are plenty of other historical/ethnomusicological courses on a number of topics, all taught through post-graduate style seminars in which students are expected to actively contribute. Unfortunately, the fact that you have to take so many courses means that many students will have to sit papers that they are not particularly interested in. On top of this, each of the exam papers is three hours long, and you are expected to answer three questions of six set - this is a very low ratio of questions to answered compared to other arts subjects at Cambridge. As in the second year, students should expect 4-6 supervisions per module throughout the year. Expect to be busy.

The postgraduate course

Mphil

The mphil is broken down into 3 sections 1. Composition (one person on it at the moment) 2. Ethnomusicology (medieval) 3. Musicology (what majority do)

Musicology

Again split into three parts... 1. Introduction to Musicology and its debates: The abstracts 2. 3 seperate courses (change each year) The essays 3. The thesis

Introduction to musicology

• Affectionately called 'boot camp', it will give you an insight straight away into the academic world and give you a basis of most major strands of musicology (mostly from the 20th Century onwards). It is 3 hours long.
• You will get each week a reading list of required (and non required readings) meant to be a starting point. The first week in 2009 saw 13 required texts and around 350 pages to read and analyse. Its tough. Names from the first week included Adler, Kramer, Brett, McClary. It seems the list changes each year as one of the readings was from the August addition of a 2009journal.

Tips before you get the reading material

• In the week you have after you move and before induction go to the University library. Explore Music and find out where the photocopyers are and activate your photocopying account (thats free). note, its 10p to copy in the UL and not all books can be photocopied.
• Then go to the Pembrooke library. Learn how to search, get a photocopying card (£2.50). Photocopying in the library is 8p.
• Then go to your college library. If you are in a 'biggy' like Trinity your fine, learn how to photocopy, etc., if your not in a biggy, do check out the facilities and learn how to print as you'll need to print Jstor texts at some point.
• Write down all of your passwords on a piece of paper for the first week. There are around 4 you need.

Tips after you get the reading material On the first day (yes, the first day) decide if you want to photocopy everything. I recommend in the first week you do as its a bit hectic. If you do, spend that day and the next finding al the books you need - it is a two day job. MAKE SURE YOU WRITE ALL THE CLASSMARKS DOWN. Just do - trust me. Things to point out

• Opening times of the libraries are 'interesting' they all close by around 7.
• By the second day some will have inevitably taken out the only copy of one of the books. You request it and guess it'll be back in a couple of days... guess again... they have a week to return a book from the UL.
• Therefore, you need to know the people on your course. Remember names, grab emails and make note of their college. This year I was saved by one who was in a random college with the book who could go and photocopy a copy for me. If someone needs a copy, do one for them without worrying about money. At some point they'll return the favour!
• Put aside around 20 quid in the first week for photocopying. After this, you will be better equipped at finding things and you can decide whether or not to photocopy things. If you do, I suggest you create a photocopying group. One person takes a book and photocopies it, it takes 5 minutes. If they collect money from others then they can just place their photocopy in the top of the copier and make loads of copies at one time and then give them out (for personal use). Then someone else can take a book and do the same thing. It will cut time out.
• Don't underestimate how much time it takes to read and understand the text.

I'm going to add more to this after I've had my first lecture to tell you what to focus on when reading

The essay courses

As far as we can tell these are different each year. In January you submit 1 essay (your first deadline) of 2500 words. In April you submit essays 2 and 3.

The thesis

The only help we have been given so far is not to leave it until the last minute.

• Thesis is due in in August but should always be in your mind.
• In January you submit the title and abstract, July is the last change to modify it.

I'll add more as I hear more

Other things

Colloquia. This is 100% compulsory. The musicology lectures will comment on the colloquia so make sure you attend. This is a series of lectures done by lecturers here, grad students and visiting academics.

• Some will be interesting, some not but more importantly these are giving you at insight into the academic world. Most (and I say most) who apply for an mphil in musicology at Cambridge do so because they are interested in academia. I would say, that is the point of this course. If you don't want to be an academic then seriously consider if you want to apply here. Don't just do it because of the prestige - you won't cope on the course. As I was saying during the colloquia you meet hte academics, you have dinner with them afterwards, same as some conferences. You listen, ask meaningful questions, learn the weird little rules about conferences. Then if you stay for PhD, in turn you shall talk at them to prepare for conferences. These happen each week one lateafter/evening (for example, this year it is Tuesday, 4 - 7).
• There are other things advised to go to. At mphil these are limited because of the nature of the course (its tough) but you are advised to go to a coupl eof lectures from outside your discipline, or language workshops or something.

All will be updated as I get further into the course
On a final note, if you are prospective student and I have missed something out, email me, Riotgrrrl and I'll add it to here. Or if you are not sure if its for you as its quite a specialized course!

PhD