| Qualifications |
Duration |
Start dates |
Application period |
| PhD (MPhil or virtual MPhil also available) |
Full-time: 3–4 years
Part-time: 6–8 years |
October |
January |
Qualifications
PhD (MPhil or virtual MPhil also available) |
Duration
Full-time: 3–4 years
Part-time: 6–8 years |
Start dates
October |
Application period
January |
Music computing research at the OU is focused on empowering musicians, illuminating musical activities, and modelling music perception and cognition. Our work is informed by musicology, psychology, ethnography, embodied cognition, pervasive interaction, mathematics and advanced computing techniques. We devise and investigate new ways to:
- empower beginners to engage deeply with musical activities
- provide new tools and capabilities for expert musicians and theorists
- cast new light on how music works.
Entry requirements
Music Computing PhDs can be very varied. A strong interest in music is essential. Formal musical training is not essential, but applicants should at minimum have good musical skills. Generally, we expect applicants to be capable programmers, but we are also interested in candidates who may instead or in addition have other skills, such as HCI evaluation, educational evaluation, or ethnography. Applicants often have, or expect to gain, a Masters degree in a relevant discipline. Students with a bachelors degree (normally 1st or 2.1 class) or with strongly relevant experience will also be considered. If you are not a UK citizen, you may need to prove your . If you are not a UK citizen, you may need to prove your .
Potential research projects
Our interests are eclectic and we are keen to hear from motivated students interested in any aspect of music computing research.
We look for detailed and well-thought-out proposals, which set out specific research questions and outline the originality of your topic or approach. If you would like to discuss your ideas informally before submitting an application, please contact us.
Current/recent research projects
- Using whole body movement to understand and control musical harmony
- Design and evaluation of tangible and multi-touch interfaces for collaborative music making
- Using sensors and touch feedback to help musicians improve their posture
- Understanding how people hear harmony
- Exploring computational models of rhythm perception
- Using haptic feedback to help people learn multi-limb rhythms
- Algorithms to discover musical patterns
- Tools for understanding and controlling harmony visually
- Use of multi-touch surfaces for microtonal tunings
- Using embodied cognition to improve music interaction design
- Designing and testing musical instruments controlled directly by the brain.
- Adaptive Music for Computer Games
See also:
Potential supervisors
Computing:
Music:
Fees and funding
| UK fee |
International fee |
| Full-time: £4,786 per year |
Full-time: £15,698 per year |
| Part-time: £2,393 per year |
Part-time: £7,849 per year |
Some of our research students are funded via the Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership;  some via the ; others are self-funded.
For detailed information about fees and funding, visit Fees and studentships.
To see current funded studentship vacancies across all research areas, see .
Links