This degree is a perfect combination for students who have a strong interest in music; perhaps more specifically music production. Understanding key computing courses such as programming will offer students the chance to move in to careers like music production and sound engineering, where strong computing skills will be of benefit.
This programme is studied on campus.
This programme offers up a range of computing and music courses whilst still delivering some key core courses. In computing, core courses remain in areas of Computer Programming Principles and Computer Architecture, Data Management and Software Engineering, to name a few. Music related choices come in the form of courses such as; Fundamentals of Music Theory, Fundamentals of Music Harmony and Performance.
Our Music staff are active as musicologists, composers and performers and their work is recognised and valued throughout the world, both in research communities as well as in the concert hall and via broadcast media.
Students will be exposed to the basic principles of computer programming, e.g. fundamental programming concepts, algorithms, and maths (e.g. logic, set theory, graphs). The course consists of lectures where the principles are systematically developed; as the course does not presuppose knowledge of these principles, we start from basic intuitions. In addition to the lectures, there will be weekly practicals to work with the concepts. Understanding the principles behind computer programming gives one the framework to learn new programming concepts, adapt to changing circumstances, and engage in theoretical research in Computing Science.
Beginning with digital logic gates and progressing to the design of combinational and sequential circuits, this course use these fundamental building blocks as the basis for what follows: the design of an actual MIPS microprocessor. In addition, students will get hands on experience on programming Intel 8086 assembly language which is the inner language spoken by the processor. By the end of the course, students will have a top-to-down understanding of how a micropressor works. The course is taught without prerequisites; students are taught with plenty of exercises from lectures, tutorials, practical and tests every week.
This compulsory evaluation is designed to find out if your academic writing is of a sufficient standard to enable you to succeed at university and, if you need it, to provide support to improve. It is completed on-line via MyAberdeen with clear instructions to guide you through it. If you pass the evaluation at the first assessment it will not take much of your time. If you do not, you will be provided with resources to help you improve. This evaluation does not carry credits but if you do not complete it this will be recorded on your degree transcript.
This course, which is prescribed for level 1 students and optional for level 2 students, is studied entirely online and covers topics relating to careers and employability, equality and diversity and health, safety and wellbeing. During the course you will learn about the Aberdeen Graduate Attributes, how they are relevant to you and the opportunities available to develop your skills and attributes alongside your University studies. You will also gain an understanding of equality and diversity and health, safety and wellbeing issues. Successful completion of this course will be recorded on your Enhanced Transcript as ‘Achieved’ (non-completion will be recorded as ‘Not Achieved’). The course takes approximately 3 hours to complete and can be taken in one sitting, or spread across a number of weeks and it will be available to you throughout the academic year.This course, which is prescribed for level 1 students and optional for level 2 students and above, is studied entirely online and covers topics relating to careers and employability, equality and diversity and health, safety and wellbeing. During the course you will learn about the Aberdeen Graduate Attributes, how they are relevant to you and the opportunities available to develop your skills and attributes alongside your University studies. You will also gain an understanding of equality and diversity and health, safety and wellbeing issues. Successful completion of this course will be recorded on your Enhanced Transcript as ‘Achieved’ (non-completion will be recorded as ‘Not Achieved’). The course takes approximately 3 hours to complete and can be taken in one sitting, or spread across a number of weeks and it will be available to you throughout the academic year
Select at least two of the following
Plus, select at least two of the following
Plus, select Introduction to Music Theory and Harmony (MU1037) or Music, Theory and Harmony (MU1038)
Plus, select further credit points from courses of choice to make 120 in total
This course is aimed at people who want to learn the basics about the major problems that need to be solved to enable computers to be more useful companions in our daily lives, e.g. to get them to be able to understand our normal speech when we talk to them, or to be able to see and recognise the important objects in the world, or to be able to act as a helper in the home, like a robotic maid that could cook and clean.
This course will introduce you to programming and software development for the Web using the object-oriented scripting language Ruby. It will teach you how to develop software that underpins database-driven interactive Web and cloud applications, and give you a broad knowledge of the basics needed for professional software development such as testing and version control. The course uses examples based on real world applications. You will also learn a limited range of core theoretical concepts such as structured programming, variable declaration, conditional statements, iterative constructs, object-oriented programming and meta-programming.
This course will be of interest to anyone who wishes to develop a Web presence. It will touch on several of the fundamental technologies associated with the Web and will give you the opportunity to build an interactive Website with the knowledge gleaned. In addition to developing a broad knowledge of the principles associated with good Web design and Website management and accessibility, you will enhance your understanding of a limited range of core technologies including XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM and PHP.
MU1051 is structured to develop, in tandem, students' individual instrumental/vocal and ensemble skills.
Entry to the course for non BMus students is by audition.
MU1551 is structured to develop in tandem students individual instrumental/vocal and ensemble skills. Entry to the course by audition for non BMus students.
This course covers five key moments from Western music history, giving students both a clear and broad grasp of the shape of musical, cultural and intellectual history along with much more detailed studies of individual musical works.
The coverage will not be encyclopaedic and will instead seek to help students develop a sense of a musical period through more engaged explorations of a small number of key musical works.
This course covers five key moments from Western music history, giving students both a clear and broad grasp of the shape of musical, cultural and intellectual history along with much more detailed studies of individual musical works.The coverage will not be encyclopaedic and will instead seek to help students develop a sense of a musical period through more engaged explorations of a small number of key musical works.
This course will begin with the fundamentals and quickly move to a higher standard. Early weeks will cover key concepts such as note names, clefs, octaves and note values. This will lead on to governing concepts of Western tonal music - primary triads, cadences, chord progressions and basic voice leading. The course will progress on to the beginnings of more complex harmony, counterpoint and stylistic study. At all times these fundamentals will be accompanied by contextual information - both historical and cultural - aiming to create an initial appraisal of musicology and its place in musical study.
This course will assume a good, base understanding of the fundamentals of music theory and will quickly move to a higher standard. Early weeks will cover key concepts in Classical harmony such as modulation, secondary dominants and good fourpart writing and voice leading. This will lead on to a strong understanding of Classical style with emphasis on piano textures and string quartet writing. The course will progress on to complex Romantic harmony and concepts such as Neapolitan Sixths, Continental Sixths and Diminished Sevenths as well as stylistic awareness of Romantic genres such as lieder.
This course builds on the basic programming knowledge already acquired in the first half-session and gears students up for going on to a career involving programming. It serves as a bridge between the basic introductory programming, and the full fledged software engineering that students will undertake in their level 3 software engineering project.
The emphasis here is on “quality programming in the small”, through various mini projects.
This course will be of interest to anyone who wishes to learn to design and query databases using MSAccess, MySQL and MongoDB. The course aims to teach the material using case studies from real-world applications both in lectures and lab classes. You will develop a broad knowledge about database connectivity using JDBC, PHP and Ruby. You will also learn core theoretical concepts such as relational algebra, file organisation and indexing. At the end of this course you will be able to design and build Web and cloud-based databases and have a broad awareness and understanding of how database-driven applications operate.
Students will explore a range of elementary issues in musicology relating to some of the following: music history, theory and analysis, sociology of music, psychology of music, aesthetics, ethnomusicology, world music, early music, opera, concert music, jazz, popular music, music in film and television, musical performance, composition, music technology and the economics of the music business.
The course will consider a range of music taking into account the kinds of methodologies and discourses in which this music is discussed.
This course looks at why a computer system that interacts with human beings needs to be usable. It covers a set of techniques that allow usability to be taken into account when a system is designed and implemented, and also a set of techniques to assess whether usability has been achieved. Weekly practical sessions allow students to practice these techniques. The assessed coursework (which is normally carried out by groups of students) gives an opportunity to go through the design process for a concrete computer system, with a particular focus on ensuring usability.
This course will introduce the fundamental features of modern programming languages and to equip students with necessary skills for the critical evaluation of existing and future programming languages. Additionally, students study the formal representation of syntax and semantics of programming languages, as well as mechanisms for the lexical and syntactic analysis of programs. Students will be exposed to programming languages from three specific paradigms, namely, object-oriented, functional and logic programming.
This course provides the knowledge needed to understand, design and compare algorithms. By the end of the course, a student should be able to create or adapt algorithms to solve problems, determine an algorithm's efficiency, and be able to implement it. The course also introduces the student to a variety of widely used algorithms and algorithm creation techniques, applicable to a range of domains. The course will introduce students to concepts such as pseudo-code and computational complexity, and make use of proof techniques as well as the student’s programming skills.
Students will develop a critical awareness of form and structure in music both aurally and by means of studying various approaches to musical analysis which will draw on a range of analytical methods and musical genres. The analysis of musical scores will be related to music as experienced aurally in performance.
This course provides a basic-level introduction to some areas of Discrete Mathematics that are of particular relevance to Computing. The course starts with a simple introduction to formal languages (starting from Regular Expressions and Finite-State Automata); it continues with an introduction to Predicate Logic (assuming basic familiarity with Propositional Logic); it concludes with an introduction to probability, focussing on Bayesian reasoning.
Students will develop large commercial and industrial software systems as a team-based effort that puts technical quality at centre stage. The module will focus on the early stage of software development, encompassing team building, requirements specification, architectural and detailed design, and software construction. Groupwork (where each team of students will develop a system selected using a business planning exercise) will guide the software engineering learning process. Teams will be encouraged to have an active, agile approach to problem solving through the guided study, evaluation and integration of practically relevant software engineering concepts, methods, and tools.
In this module, which is the follow-up of CS3028, student will focus on the team-based development of a previously specified, designed, and concept-proofed software system. Each team will build their product to industrial-strength quality standards following an agile process and applying the software engineering concepts, methods, and tools introduced in CS3028. The individual learning and practical experience acquisition process will be integrated by talks and seminars given by industrial stakeholders on topics of software engineering relevance, by guided student focus on professional issues, and by student presentations on selected technical topics.
Select one of the following:
Plus, select one of the following:
Plus, select a further 45 credit points from level 3 courses in Music
Knowledge Representation (KR) is concerned with how knowledge can be represented symbolically and manipulated in an automated way by reasoning programs. In fact, KR has long been considered central to AI because it is a significant factor in determining the success of knowledge-based systems.
This course describes the formalisation of knowledge and its use in knowledge-based systems. It follows the whole "life-cycle" of knowledge, from the initial identification of relevant expertise, through its capture, representation (in ontology and /or rule languages), use (based on reasoning), evaluation, and reuse.
This course discusses core concepts and architectures of operating systems, in particular the management of processes, memory and storage structures. Students will learn about the scheduling and operation of processes and threads, problems of concurrency and means to avoid race conditions and deadlock situations. The course will discuss virtual memory management, file systems and issues of security and recovery. In weekly practical session, students will gain a deeper understanding of operating system concepts with verious programming exercises.
This course provides a basic-level introduction to computability via the notion of a Turing Machine. Some familiarity with imperative programming (e.g., in JAVA) and with the basics of set theory (e.g., the notion of a bijection) is assumed. The Functional language Haskell (familiar from earlier courses, including CS2013) is used to explore the concepts of infinity, recognisability and decidability, which are crucial to computability.
This course discusses core concepts of distributed systems, such as programming with distributed objects, multiple threads of control, multi-tire client-server systems, transactions and concurrency control, distributed transactions and commit protocols, and fault-tolerant systems. The course also discusses aspects of security, such as cryptography, authentication, digital signatures and certificates, SSL etc. Weekly practical sessions cover a set of techniques for the implementation of distributed system concepts such as programming with remote object invocation, thread management and socket communication.
This course provides insight into the business reasons for large software systems such as loyalty card systems, backend systems integrating firms and their suppliers and larges systems that integrate payroll, finance and operational parts of a business. You also learn the entrepreneurial aspects of business during the practical sessions where you explore and develop your own business application idea using service design and lean startup approaches centred around customer development, which you will find useful in any future work. This course is open to anyone across the university and requires no programming experience.
Consists of a supervised project which provides experience of investigating a real problem in computing science, or a computing application/technology. Presenting the results obtained is an integral part of the investigation.
We will endeavour to make all course options available; however, these may be subject to timetabling and other constraints. Please see our InfoHub pages for further information.
A degree in Computing and Music is taught via a selection of compulsory and optional courses to enhance your learning and prepare you for a future career or further study. In each year you will take courses adding up to 120 credits. Depending on the number of compulsory and optional courses offered by your degree, you can also choose other eligible courses which fit your timetable.
Students are assessed by any combination of three assessment methods:
The exact mix of these methods differs between subject areas, year of study and individual courses.
Honours projects are typically assessed on the basis of a written dissertation.
SQA Highers - AABB*
A Levels - BBB*
IB - 32 points, including 5,5,5 at HL*
ILC - 5H with 3 at H2 AND 2 at H3 OR AAABB, obtained in a single sitting. (B must be at B2 or above)*
*SQA Higher or GCE A Level or equivalent at grade B or better in Mathematics is required.
Advanced Entry - Advanced entry is considered on an individual basis depending on prior qualifications and experience. Applicants wishing to be considered for advanced entry should contact directly the Director of Studies (Admissions) at our Student Recruitment and Admissions Service office.
Further detailed entry requirements for Arts and Social Sciences degrees.
To study for a degree at the University of Aberdeen it is essential that you can speak, understand, read, and write English fluently. Read more about specific English Language requirements here.
You will be classified as one of the fee categories below.
For international students (all non-EU students) entering in 2017/18, the 2017/18 tuition fee rate will apply to all years of study; however, most international students will be eligible for a fee waiver in their final year via the International Undergraduate Scholarship.
Most RUK students (England, Wales and Northern Ireland) on a four year honours degree will be eligible for a full-fees waiver in their final year. Scholarships and other sources of funding are also available.
| Fee category | Cost |
|---|---|
| Home / EU | £1,820 |
| All Students | |
| RUK | £9,250 |
| Students Admitted in 2018/19 Academic Year | |
| International Students | £14,600 |
| Students Admitted in 2018/19 Academic Year |
Further Information about tuition fees and the cost of living in Aberdeen
View all funding options in our Funding Database.
Computing graduates develop an ability to understand new and complex computer systems. Our graduates can choose from a variety of employment opportunities and mainly find employment as programmers, web developers, systems analysts, and in jobs involving user support.
At the University of Aberdeen, we give you every opportunity to broaden your horizons and develop the professional and personal skills and attributes you will need to build a successful career. The high quality of our degrees combined with our strong focus on employability opens up a wide range of career options
You will be taught by a range of experts including professors, lecturers, teaching fellows and postgraduate tutors. Staff changes will occur from time to time; please see our InfoHub pages for further information.
The Aberdeen Software Factory is a student-run software house. Students can gain experience working on larger software projects and benefit from work experience, while clients will benefit from a flexible, cost effective solution to suit their needs.
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The University’s award winning Sir Duncan Rice Library is listed in the “Top 20 spellbinding University libraries in the World”. It contains over a million volumes, more than 300,000 e-books and 21,000 journals.
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Placements are encouraged and available within a range of computing firms - summer months, between second and third year, or between third and fourth year.
Unistats draws together comparable information in areas students have identified as important in making decisions about what and where to study. The core information it contains is called the Key Information Set.
You can compare these and other data for different degree programmes in which you are interested.
