| MU4563 | Alexander Technique Level 5 This module is offered in conjunction with the RCM international placement. It introduces the historical context of the Technique and the development of F. M. Alexander’s Principles. Students develop an awareness of the personal habits that impede the coordination of their mind and body and learn how to apply the Alexander Technique to personal practice and performance.
| 10 |
| MU4565 | Evaluating Performance Level 5 Offered in conjunction with the RCM international placement, this module examines the procedures, tools, and skills that underpin performance assessment to provide student with insight into their audiences, their judges, and their own performances. Through interactive sessions featuring experienced practitioners, this module considers topics ranging from how to collaborate on a jury panel to how to critique, design, and implement an assessment rubric, informed by research and practice in education, psychology, and performance science.
| 10 |
| MU4567 | Performance Science and Psychology Level 5 This module is offered in conjunction with the RCM international placement. The lecture series will introduce students to recent advances in the science and psychology of music performance. The module will examine research on the physical and mental processes that underpin effective learning and performing, including a wide range of individual, social and cultural factors that interact with these processes.
| 10 |
| MU4532 | Composition Level 5 This module covers effective scoring techniques, practical considerations of performance arrangements, preparation of parts, and supervision of/participation in the performance of students’ own works. Students learn to write practically for instruments and for voices, and idiomatically for those with which they are most familiar. Students will be guided to work towards a coherent harmonic language and a critical attitude to rhythmic use, and to pace a short composition effectively.
| 20 |
| MU4534 | Orchestration & Transcription Level 5 This module introduces students to the basics of transcription. In addition to the working and practical knowledge of the main orchestral and other instruments, the weekly workshops will cover different methods of scoring, including strings, winds, mixed ensemble, and period orchestra style.
| 20 |
| MU4535 | Orchestration & Transcription (Chinese Orchestra) This module covers the understanding of ranges, transpositions, capabilities, and characteristics of Chinese orchestral instruments with examples drawn from standard Chinese orchestra repertoires and contemporary works.
| 20 |
| MU4543 | Conducting Level 5 This module introduces students to the art of conducting and aims to provide them with a basic technique and the ability to read and prepare scores from a conductor’s viewpoint. The module begins with a mixture of specific technique-based sessions and continues with a rolling programme of practical classes where student will study a range of repertoire, learn to adapt and extend their technical and intellectual facilities throughout.
| 20 |
| MU4564 | Creative Enterprise Level 5 This module aims to promote strong entrepreneurial skills including setting up and running one’s own teaching studio, networking, marketing, and financial management skills. Additionally, students develop collaborative, communication, and interpersonal skills through group projects.
| 10 |
| MU4566 | Musician in the Digital Age Level 5 This module encourages students to consider the role that technology plays in their practice as musicians. The module explores its creative potential and how it can be harnessed to provide new opportunities for expression, employment and differentiation in a rapidly evolving industry. Through a series of seminars and hands-on practical workshops, students will explore a range of technologies and how they influence musicians in creating, marketing and presenting their work. Students will develop practical digital skills in devising their own technology-based performance project.
| 10 |
| MU4568 | Artist Development: Digital Skills for Musicians Level 5 This module focuses on the development of students’ digital skills for communication and self-promotion. It seeks to foster digital fluency for performing and career development, as well as for students to be versed with wider trends to connect better with the community.
| 20 |
| MU4569 | Improvisation Level 5 This module introduces a range of techniques for creative improvisation. Through playing and music making workshops, students will acquire listening, interacting, reflecting, anticipating, describing and creating skills. These skills will in turn deepen their understanding of the music they are performing, as well as develop their critical ability to listen to the sound that they are producing, thus raising their overall musicianship and proficiency.
| 20 |
| MU4630 | Schenkerian Analysis This programme develops a critical awareness of musical structure in the light of the analytical method developed by Heinrich Schenker. It trains students to think contrapuntally rather than exclusively harmonically and enhances an understanding of individual compositions in a way which can be reflected in performance.
| 20 |
| MU4631 | Creating Music & Sound Design for Theatre This module aims to provide students with the tools required for working as a composer/musical director/musician in theatre. It also aims to establish cooperative understanding and flexibility in the provision of sound material for theatrical purposes. Various compositional strategies will be explored along with the use of typesetting and music production software for composition and recording. Appropriateness of writing within the context of period, style and geography will form part of the studies.
| 20 |
| MU4634 | Orchestration & Arrangement This module introduces students to the working and practical knowledge of the main orchestral and other instruments, in terms of their ranges, technical strengths and limitations, and their individual qualities. Students will apply a fuller range of resources in terms of arranging and instrumental technique to enable the effective and idiomatic transfer of musical material between instrumental media.
| 20 |
| MU4653 | Workshop Leadership Level 6 This module aims to develop a range of practical activities that enable musical development in a holistic way within a workshop context. Students participate in a series of workshops covering topics and skills required of a workshop facilitator, including how to generate material, lead a workshop and collaborate with teammates. In addition to workshop observations, students will present a collaborative composition with peers, and facilitate a community music project with external participants.
| 20 |
| MU4655 | Aesthetics and Criticism Level 6 The programme provides an overview of the way the nature and role of the arts, especially music, has been thought and argued about in the Western world, across two millennia. The aesthetics of music is discussed within the context of aesthetics in general. This allows us to see in what respects music is like the other arts, and in what respects it is different.
| 20 |
| MU4663 | Open Project Level 6 (Graduation) This module enables students to explore an area of interest to them with the aim of deepening their understanding of the specialism and critically engaging with perspectives in their chosen field.The Open Project presents an opportunity for students to develop expertise in area that they would have already explored and excelled in during their study at NAFA, with the view of enabling them to articulate original findings, persuasively challenge or engage with a field and demonstrate a level of expertise with their subject area.
| 30 |