Welcome to the Music Department at the Open University. We teach a wide range of musical styles and techniques at all levels, offering you the opportunity to engage with music from the medieval period to the present day, from Purcell, Schubert and Wagner to film scores, jazz, Madonna and Eminem. You can include a number of interdisciplinary courses that feature a music component as as part of your degree.
The Music Department at the Open University staff includes full-time academics, research fellows and assistants, project officers and a research studio officer. Our staff have an enormous range of expertise and experience in preparing open and distance learning materials and in producing research. Our courses are recognised as among the best in the country, offering in-depth and up-to-date study of a huge range of musical styles, historical periods and themes. They include a variety of textbooks, printed musical scores, CDs and DVDs to provide a learning experience that is fresh and exciting. You have the flexibility of studying at home, but there are opportunities to meet fellow-students and tutors at face-to-face sessions, and to communicate by means of computer forums. All our courses are taught by enthusiastic and friendly Associate Lecturers with experience of supporting part-time students.
Our teaching is underpinned by extensive research and scholarship – for details of the specific interests and publications of members of the Department follow the links on the left. We have particular research strengths in western music from the Renaissance to the present day, in African music and in jazz, in music editing techniques and the history of musical instruments. Some of these innovative areas of study are incorporated in our undergraduate and taught Masters courses. You can learn how to create your own Handel edition, can see how Beethoven composed and what techniques are used in a gamelan orchestra. Within our courses you can listen to Ella Fitzgerald, look at Elgar’s manuscripts, watch performances of Indian music and study the principles of sound and acoustics. The Department includes a thriving community of full-time and part-time postgraduate research students, and we are always keen to recruit more.
Follow the links on the left for more information about department staff, their research interests and selected publications; current and planned courses and qualifications; details of postgraduate research and other items of interest.
