Study Music at the Open University

28/05/2026

Are you dreaming of studying music at Masters level but worried about the cost?

The Margaret Wooder Studentships could cover your full tuition fees for our MA Music programme.

✅ Part One fees fully funded
✅ Part Two fees funded on passing Part One at merit or distinction level

To apply, send the following to [email protected] by 30 June 2026:
• Completed application form (https://fass.open.ac.uk/music/ma/studentships)
• CV of no more than two pages
• Latest degree certificate or transcript

⚠️ Please do not register for the MA until you’ve been notified of the outcome of your application. Studentships are not available to those in receipt of full funding from another funding body.

💬 Got questions? Reach out informally to our Head of Discipline: Dr Naomi Barker.

📅 Deadline: 30 June 2026. Don’t miss out!

P.S. Screenshot this post to make the links clickable from your camera roll.

26/05/2026

This week we're inviting you to notice how music lives in time with Beethoven, Grosse Fuge, Op. 133 (1825).

When it premiered, critics called it "incomprehensible". Today it's considered one of his greatest achievements. Stravinsky called it "an absolutely contemporary piece of music that will be contemporary forever."

The invitation this week isn't to understand it. It's to feel it: specifically, to notice how it plays with your sense of time.

Every piece of music has a pulse (its underlying heartbeat), a tempo (how fast or slow), a metre (how that time is organised into patterns), and rhythm (the play of long and short sounds across all of it). The Grosse Fuge does something extraordinary with all four.

If you want a framework for what you're hearing, the Open University has a free course called Discovering Music Through Listening, and week one is all about musical time: pulse, tempo, metre, rhythm.

No notation, no prior knowledge needed.

21/05/2026

Meet Dr Sean Williams, one of our Music faculty, who joined students and the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group for a study day earlier this semester.

Open to learners at every level of study, these events are about more than content: they're a space to explore ideas, attend rehearsals and concerts, and connect with fellow students in person.

Flexible, distance learning doesn't mean learning alone.

19/05/2026

This week's listen: It's Only a Paper Moon, as performed by Nat King Cole. Although you might be more familiar with Ella Fitz Gerald’s rendition because it was used in the 1990s for a Galaxy chocolate advert!

This song had been kicking around for over a decade before it became famous. Written for a flop Broadway play in 1932, it only found its lasting audience during the final years of World War II.

Whichever is your favourite there's an ease to this song that disguises how carefully constructed the whole thing is. While you’re listening with us, notice where the sections repeat, where something shifts, where the music and the lyric are doing the same thing.

If you want to go deeper, the Open University has a free course called ‘Listening for Form in Popular Music’, and Nat King Cole’s recording is one of the songs we use as a case study. No musical knowledge needed. Just ears and curiosity.

Link in the comments 🔗

What should we listen to next?

08/05/2026

OU Music, University Music Bournemouth and The Thomas Hardy Society are holding a study day on Words, Music & Place on 26 June at Bournemouth University. Full details are at https://university.open.ac.uk/arts/research/literature-and-music/events/study-day-words-music-and-place and a link for registration is in the comments.

28/04/2026

The new CD from Canterbury-based improvising group the Free Range Orchestra was released on 27th of February, produced by OU lecturer in Music, Sean Williams and featuring a new commission from composer Stevie Wishart funded by an Arts Council grant. Read more via the link.

New CD release by the Free Range Orchestra featuring a new commission from Stevie Wishart and other improvisations.

20/03/2026

REMINDER: PhD studentship in Music at the Open University

A reminder that the closing date for the Music Department Fees-only Studentship at the Open University is 31 March 2026, 12:00.

The studentship is available to students paying UK fees and intending to start their studies on 1 October 2026.

For more information, see https://university.open.ac.uk/employment/phd-studentship-music-department

If you have any questions, please contact Dr Helen Barlow at [email protected]

Royal Musical Association British Forum for Ethnomusicology

PhD Studentships in Music Department at The Open University The Open University Music Department is offering a fees-only studentship to applicants intending to start their doctoral studies on 1 October 2026.This fees-only award will cover Open University fees for a UK student. It can be for either f...

17/12/2025

We offer undergraduate and postgraduate qualifications in Music. See links in the comments below.

11/12/2025

OU Music's Dr Maiko Kawabata was recently interviewed on Swiss radio about her research into the experiences of East Asian musicians in European orchestras.

In the programme, interviews with East Asian instrumentalists performing with Swiss orchestras highlighted overlaps with Dr Kawabata's research, including the harmful stereotype of East Asian players as technically perfect but expressionless (‘technisch perfekt aber Ausdruckslos’). In the course of Dr Kawabata's own interview, she spoke about the need to transform orchestral culture, including orchestral repertoire, with particular reference to her current research on Japanese composer Kikuko Kanai.

In der europäischen Klassikszene gibt es viele asiatische Musikerinnen und Musiker. Willkommen sind sie nicht immer: Sie haben mit rassistischen Klischees zu kämpfen, werden ausgegrenzt und diskriminiert. Wenn es um Jobs geht, haben sie Nachteile. Ein Tabuthema, über das viele Betroffene schweige...

20/11/2025

PhD studentship in Music at The Open University

The Open University Music Department is offering a fees-only studentship to self-funded applicants intending to start their doctoral studies on 1 October 2026.

This fees-only award will cover Open University fees for a UK student. It can be for either full-time or part-time study and may be via the Open University’s distance learning PhD programme.
This is an open project call – that is, the subject of the PhD project is to be defined by the applicant, with the stipulation that it should be in an area that falls within the research interests of the Music Department.

We have a wide range of expertise, from music of the medieval period to the present day, including ethnomusicology, film music, historical musicology, music and gender, music computing, music education, music and technology, popular music and sound studies. For more information on research areas and staff interests, see our Research Prospectus.

The Department will consider all shortlisted applicants to its self-funded PhD programme for this award.

Applicants should have a first degree and an MA in a relevant discipline. Applicants will need to submit an application form and any accompanying documentation specified on the application form, including a research proposal of around 1,000 words, to [email protected]

The deadline for applications is noon on 31 March 2026.

Interviews of shortlisted candidates will be conducted online in April 2026.

For more information on the application process, including a link to the application form and guidance on how to structure the research proposal, please see https://www.open.ac.uk/postgraduate/research-degrees/how-to-apply/mphil-and-phd-application-process

We encourage applicants to discuss their application with the Department before applying. In the first instance, please contact the Department’s Postgraduate Convenor, Dr Helen Barlow, at [email protected]

We welcome applicants from all backgrounds, regardless of race, s*x, gender, s*xual orientation, religion, or ability, and we particularly encourage applicants from global majority backgrounds. We have a strong record of supporting students with a range of disabilities to successful completion of PhDs. If you have any questions at all about how we can accommodate your study, please get in touch with us.

MPhil and PhD Application at The Open University. Apply November to March to Start in October. Become an Open Unviersity Research Student.