Music research at the OU is developed through high-profile individual and collaborative projects focussing on a wide range of approaches to music (including historical, social, empirical and technological) with a distinctive emphasis on innovation and interdisciplinary research.
Our current strengths can be grouped roughly as follows:
- Historical study, including
Editions of performance texts; Performance practice; Instruments and their use; and Documentary and archival research of the social, cultural and biographical contexts of music-making
- Social and cultural theory and analysis, including
Ethnomusicology; Sociology; Social psychology; Anthropology; Human geography; and Social history of music
- Interdisciplinary research in the humanities, including
Music in literature, and Music in religion
- Empirical investigation of performance, including
Analysis of recorded music; Video analysis of performance, and Acoustic analysis of instrumental performance and soundscapes
- Computing applications in music, including
Human-computer interfaces, Object-oriented programming and Pervasive interaction
- Music education and pedagogy
Research groups
Acoustics Research Group
Gender in the Humanities research group
Literature and Music Research Group
Music computing
Research projects
Cultures of Brass
“G. F. Handel: The Collected Documents”
Migrating Music
The Listening Experience Database
What is Black British Jazz?
Interdisciplinary network
Creativity, Innovation and Labour in Music (CILM)
Music Department
Follow the people link to read more about who does research on music at the OU.
Research events
Contact: Follow this link to email us.
