Key Information
Duration
- Full-time: 36 months
- Part-time: 60 months
Start Dates & Application Deadlines
- Starting September 2026 — Application deadline not specified.
- Starting January 2027 — Apply before Oct 2026.
- Starting May 2027 — Application deadline not specified.
Language
English
Delivered
On Campus
Campus Location
Dundee, United Kingdom
Disciplines
Music, Musicology, Music Composition
Overview
The Language of Visual Music programme is offered by the University of Dundee.
Objectives
- What can we learn by an exhaustive investigation into the history and evolution of visual music in terms of grounding our understanding within the historical animated films, experiments and examples of the pioneers that made them?
- How exhaustive can we be in our investigation given the difficulty of accessing film archives, alongside the positive advent of streaming media such as YouTube?
- What challenges did the pioneers face?
- How did they overcome them?
- What relationships between sound and vision did they establish?
- Are these correlations robust or merely arbitrary?
- Do they occur across the work of different creators, are there commonalities?
- If there are commonalities, can we identify and categorize them in relation to examples?
- Is such thing as a semiotics of visual music a helpful way to think about this?
- What is the legacy of this canon of work?
- How has it informed the work of those currently working in this field?
- Has it moved on considerably or are there still significant issues that are unresolved. E.g. the relationship between colour and pitch, the arbitrary nature visualisation aesthetics, the changing nature of music reference tuning?
- Where do the communities of practice exist around the concept of sound visualisation and who are the current drivers within this field?
Visit the programme website for more information
Programme Structure
This PhD project aims to conduct an exhaustive survey of the visual music canon to address some of these questions. Some of them have been addressed multiple times already resulting in contention and disagreement within the field, the reasons for which need to be explored.
Admission Requirements
Academic Requirements
We are not aware of any specific GRE, GMAT or GPA grading score requirements for this programme.
English Requirements
We are not aware of any English requirements for this programme.
Other Requirements
General Requirements
- Although applicants can apply for a research degree immediately after undergraduate study, applicants are normally expected to have a Masters degree. In addition a period of work experience is not necessary but considered valuable.
- IELTS 6.5
Fees and Funding
Tuition Fees
Tuition fees are shown in AUD. International: 41,145 AUD/year (≈ 21,940 GBP/year). Domestic: 8,975 AUD/year (≈ 4,786 GBP/year).
Living Costs
Dundee, United Kingdom: 1,476 - 2,802 AUD/month
Scholarships are available. See the programme website for scholarship opportunities.
