Report by Rebekah Donn and Ian Pace
The Society for Music Analysis are committed to supporting research, teaching and study into music analysis. In this article, Rebekah Dohm and Ian Pace consider the role it has across undergraduate music curricula in the UK. They consider ways in which the discipline of music analysis has developed since the last major book-length publications in English, the meaning of the term ‘analysis’, and then provide granular information on its representation in different types of courses, considering each of the four regions of the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) separately, and then dividing into different types of institutions – Russell Group, Mid-Ranking, Post-1992, Colleges of Higher Education, Conservatoires, and Alternative Educational Providers. They also consider how the representation of either theory or analysis depends upon the nature of the course – whether pure ‘Music’, or the various more vocationally-oriented programmes in Music Production/Technology, Commercial Music, Musical Theatre and others. They conclude by identifying a major distinction between Russell Group (unquestionably the part of the sector with the greatest concentration on analysis) and Post-1992 institutions in particular in this respect, with greatly varying provision in the Mid-Ranking sector, and pose some wider questions about the implications in terms of the training available to students from a range of backgrounds, and the meaning of musical education which does not require literacy or theory.
The-Representation-of-Music-Analysis-in-UK-Undergraduate-Curricula.