Research Degrees: Music
Overview
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Staff and students pursue research on a wide range of subjects, mainly but not exclusively focused on the music of Asia and Africa (projects on Caribbean, American jazz and Eastern European music, for example, are also in progress). Staff have special interests in the music of China and Central Asia (Harris), Korea (Howard), Japan, Indonesia and Thailand (Gray), India and Nepal (Widdess), the Islamic Middle East (Wright), the Jewish world (Wood), and Africa (Durán & Impey). Music is studied as a cultural phenomenon, and also from analytical and historical perspectives.
Instrumental and vocal, sacred and secular, art and popular, traditional and modern musical forms are all of equal interest. Research methods employed include fieldwork, archive research, recording, performance, transcription and analysis, and composition.
For several years SOAS hosted the AHRC Research Centre for Cross-Cultural Music and Dance Performance. This provided a major stimulus to performance research among staff and students. The Department will continue to promote such performance-based research and to publish results as CDs, DVDs and in written form.
Postgraduate students of the Department come from a wide variety of backgrounds in the UK and from overseas. Most are performers of music as well as researchers, and there is a lively interchange of musical skills and interests. After graduating, they go on to an equal diversity of careers in music and other fields: alumni include a curator at the British Library Sound Archive, several employees of the Asian Music Circuit, a producer with the BBC World Service, lecturers in ethnomusicology at universities in Korea, Lesotho, Thailand, Ireland, the USA and the UK among others, performers, music teachers and composers.
All research students are admitted as MPhil candidates who, subject to satisfactory progress by the end of year 1, can be upgraded to PhD candidates. Applicants are evaluated on the basis of their background and academic achievements; they should normally possess a UK Master’s degree in a relevant discipline, or equivalent. Applicants who are accomplished performers or teachers or who work in the music industry may make valid claims to possess alternative qualifications, and are encouraged to apply. Partial funding for the costs of this programme may be available via the AHRC’s Doctoral Awards Scheme (see the AHRC's main website: www.ahrc.ac.uk).
Unless applicants can demonstrate prior research preparation and training (as urged by the AHRC), we may expect them to go through the MMus course before registering for a research programme. This is true especially when an applicant has graduated in a subject other than ethnomusicology, or when students want to research the music of a single culture – often their own culture. Candidates are expected to attend public and research seminars, and may also be required to attend relevant area music courses, other courses from the MA Area Studies lists, and/or undergraduate language courses. The School may also impose an English language requirement on applicants for whom English is a second language. Students must also give research seminars based on their work.
Each MPhil/PhD student is assigned an individual supervisor, or in rare cases two joint supervisors. Joint supervision may occasionally be interdisciplinary. A Supervisory Committee, consisting of three academic staff, assesses progress at regular intervals.
Structure
Destinations
- Janet Topp-Fargion, Women and the Africanisation of taarab in Zanzibar (1992), is Head Archivist, International Music Collection, British Library Sound Archive and former co-editor of the British Journal of Ethnomusicology.
- Anant Narkong, Improvisation in Thai classical drumming (MPhil 1992), is a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok and a leading broadcaster on Thai traditional music.
- Francis Silkstone, Learning Thai classical music: memorisation and improvisation (1993), has established a considerable reputation as a composer and lectures at King Alfred’s College, Winchester.
- Martin Clayton, Rhythm and metre in North Indian music (1993), is Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at the Open University and former chairman of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology.
- Charles Rowe, Music in Omoto, a Japanese New Religion (1996), is a translator of Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indonesian and Thai and writes on Japanese music and religion.
- Nathan Hesselink, A tale of two drummers: percussion band music in Cholla Province, Korea (1997), is Assistant Professor in the School of Music, University of British Columbia.
- Rachel Harris, Music, identity and representation: ethnic minority music in Xinjiang, China (1998), is Lecturer in Ethnomusicology at SOAS and co-editor of Ethnomusicology Forum.
- Roald Maliangkay, Handling the intangible: the protection of folksong traditions in Korea (1999), lectures in Korean Studies at the University of Amsterdam.
- Barley Norton, Music and possession in Vietnam (2000), is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts, Roehampton University.
- Dusadee Swangviboonpong, Thai court singing (2000), holds an AHRC research fellowship in the SOAS Department of Music.
- Robert Walser, Musical difference and cultural identity: an African musical tradition in English classrooms (2000), is an archivist for Sheffield University and teaches African music and American folk music at schools and colleges in the United States.
- Nicolas Magriel, Sarangi style in North Indian art music (2001), holds an AHRC research fellowship in the SOAS Department of Music.
- Anna Morcom, Hindi film songs and the cinema (2001), holds a Five-Year Academic Fellowship in the Department of Music at Royal Holloway, University of London.
- Gyewon Byeon, Ch’angjak kugak: writing new music for Korean traditional instruments (2002), is a lecturer at Seoul National University of Education.
- Rowan Pease, Yanbian songs: musical expressions of identity amongst Chinese Koreans (2002), is now SOAS Publications Officer and reviews editor for Ethnomusicology Forum.
- Katherine Brown, Hindustani music in the time of Aurangzeb (2003) holds a Research Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.
- Hwee-San Tan, Sounds for the dead: ritualists and their vocal liturgical music in the Buddhist Rite of Merit in Fujian, China (2003), is Lecturer in Asian Music at Universtiy College Dublin.
- Raiomond Mirza, The House of Song: musical structures in Zoroastrian prayer performance (2004), is a composer whose works include sound tracks for BBC Radio’s adaption of A Suitable Boy and The Raj Quartet and the BBC 2 television series Inspired by Islam.
- Matthew Gillan, Multiple identities in Yaeyaman folk music (2004), holds a postdoctoral fellowship at Okinawa Prefectural University of the Arts.
- James Burns, The beard cannot tell stories to the eyelash: a study of creative transformation in an Ewe funeral dance-drumming tradition (2004), is Assistant Professor of Music at State University of New York, Binghampton.
How to apply
How to apply
- Research Admissions and Applications
- Online Application
- Funding options
- English language requirements
- Tuition Fees
- Admissions Contacts
- Research Student Portal: Applying to do a PhD at SOAS
Scholarships
For further information visit the Scholarships section
Felix Scholarships
Application Deadline: 2013-01-31 00:00
Kayoko Tsuda Bursary (Japanese Studies)
Application Deadline: 2013-05-24 00:00
SOAS Doctoral Scholarships (Faculty of Arts and Humanities only)
Application Deadline: 2013-01-31 00:00
SOAS Research Scholarships
Application Deadline: 2013-01-31 00:00
Wolfson Postgraduate Scholarships in the Humanities
Application Deadline: 2013-01-31 00:00
A Student's Perspective
Marina Di GiorgiSOAS is a great place to study Ethnomusicology. It has the flavour of the world spread through the music made by the students, lecturers and guests.
