Course Catalogue

Music Curation & Analytics INFOST5051

  • Academic Session: 2026-27
  • School: School of Humanities
  • Credits: 20
  • Level: Level 5 (SCQF level 11)
  • Typically Offered: Either Semester 1 or Semester 2
  • Available to Visiting Students: No
  • Collaborative Online International Learning: No
  • Curriculum For Life: No

Short Description

This course explores how digital tools and methods are transforming the study and understanding of music within the humanities. Focusing on both audio and notated formats, students will develop skills in encoding, analysing, categorising, and curating musical data. Through practical work and critical reflection, the course encourages an understanding of how different musical representations shape interpretation, accessibility, and preservation. Students will engage with computational approaches to musical analysis and consider how these techniques can support research questions and creative practices across the digital humanities.

Timetable

1x1hr lecture and 1x1hr seminar or lab session per week as scheduled in MyCampus

Requirements of Entry

None

Excluded Courses

INFOST4013 Music Curation and Analytics 

Assessment

Dataset/lab portfolio 60%

Essay, 3000 words, 40%

Course Aims

This course aims to:

■ Deliver a critical introduction to digital methodologies in music analysis and curation, examining how music data is manifested, visualised and theorised

■ Critically explain and apply advanced methods for analysing digital audio data, with awareness of current developments and debates

■ Explore and critically evaluate the principles and best practice of notated music encoding, with engagement with standards development and theoretical implications

■ Provide training in sophisticated methods of encoded notated music analysis, demonstrating originality in approach

■ Critically apply and theoretically justify relevant and appropriate encoding and analytics to music data

Intended Learning Outcomes of Course

By the end of this course students will be able to:

1. Formulate and theoretically justify original and significant research questions for music data that demonstrate critical awareness of current issues and debates in music scholarship and digital musicology

2. Critically evaluate how encoding and computational analyses can rigorously address research questions about music data, with critical understanding of methodological affordances, limitations and epistemological implications

3. Critically analyse how digital manifestations are transforming the ways in which music is used, analysed and theorised in scholarship, demonstrating engagement with forefront developments in digital musicology

4. Critically judge and theoretically evaluate the effectiveness of computational methodologies in music research, making informed judgements about appropriate methods and demonstrating awareness of debates in the field

5. Design, implement and critically justify sophisticated encodings of musical scores using appropriate standards, demonstrating originality in approach and critical understanding of encoding decisions and their analytical implications

6. Critically evaluate and apply standards and best practices accepted by the music research community, with awareness of their theoretical foundations, limitations, and emerging developments

Minimum Requirement for Award of Credits

No exceptions