Regulations for the Degree of Bachelor of Music

§1. Qualifications of Candidates for the Degree of Bachelor of Music

Any persons who have been admitted to the Degree of Bachelor of Arts and have been placed in the First or Second Class (Division 1) in the Final Honour School of Music may apply to the Board of the Faculty of Music for the appointment of examiners and for leave to supplicate for the Degree of Bachelor of Music.

§2. Musical Exercise for the Degree of Bachelor of Music

• 1. Candidates shall submit to the Board of the Faculty of Music through the Registrar a Musical Exercise of their own unaided composition. The board shall make and publish regulations concerning the type and content of the Exercise.

• 2. The Exercise shall be accompanied by:

  • (1) a statement signed by the candidate that the whole of the Exercise is his or her own unaided work and has not been submitted to any other person for advice, assistance, or revision or presented for examination in whole or in part in the Final Honour School of Music;

  • (2) a certificate signed by an officer of, or person deputed by, the society to which the candidate belongs, showing that the entry is made with the approval of such society and that he or she has paid the fee prescribed in the appropriate regulation (see Appendix I).

• 3. The Musical Exercise shall be examined by at least two examiners appointed by the Board of the Faculty of Music. The examiners shall report to the board, and it shall be the duty of the board to decide whether leave to supplicate for the degree should be granted to the candidate, provided that such leave shall in no case be granted unless the examiners have reported that the Exercise submitted by the candidate is of a high standard of merit such as to entitle him or her to supplicate for the Degree of Bachelor of Music.

• 4. Candidates shall not be permitted to submit their Exercise for approval earlier than the third term after that in which they have passed the examination in the Final Honour School of Music.

• 5. No candidate shall be permitted to supplicate for the Degree of Bachelor of Music who has not delivered his or her Exercise in a form approved by the examiners to the Registrar, who shall deposit it in the Bodleian Library.

• 1. The Exercise for the Degree of Bachelor of Music

• (a) The Exercise shall consist of a portfolio of three or more original musical compositions of varied character, lasting in total at least thirty minutes. Music for any combination of three or more of the categories specified below will be acceptable, provided that the portfolio includes some purely instrumental music and some vocal music with words. Candidates may also submit recordings of any of their works, and shall submit recordings of electro-acoustic compositions and of any pieces whose ordering or content is not fixed by the notation. The categories are (i) music for one or two instruments, or instrument and voice; (ii) music for choral or solo vocal ensemble, accompanied or unaccompanied; (iii) music for chamber ensemble, with or without voice or voices; (iv) music for larger forces than the above; (v) music involving electro-acoustic composition, accompanied by a commentary describing the technical procedures.

• (b) A viva-voce examination may be held unless candidates are individually dispensed by the examiners.

• 2. General Regulations about the Exercise

• (a) The score of each work must be written out so as to accord with the standards and methods that a professional performer, copyist, or publisher would expect, with rehearsal letters and/or regular bar-numbering. The pages should be numbered consecutively throughout the portfolio.

• (b) The Exercise must be accompanied by a declaration on a prescribed form, which must be obtained beforehand by application to the Examination Schools, High Street, Oxford. It must be sent in by the Friday in Trinity Term in the fifth week.

Form of Declaration