Music at University of Oxford

Use the Oxford Faculty of Music site for department context, events and access information.

Use it actively: take one concept, find it in a score, and explain what it changes in the music.

For critical reading, Music: A Very Short Introduction by Nicholas Cook gives a compact route into the study of music across culture, performance and history. The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Ross is essential reading for any applicant interested in twentieth-century music — its combination of historical context and musical analysis directly models what Oxford music essays expect.

For video and audio, Adam Neely explains harmony, theory, jazz and notation with intellectual rigour. Early Music Sources connects historical performance practice to manuscript sources. For listening and argument-building,The Listening Servicefrom BBC Radio 3 and Sticky Notes: The Classical Music Podcast each model how to turn listening into spoken analysis.

For structured theory study, Fundamentals of Music Theory from the University of Edinburgh covers notation, intervals, chords and voice-leading. Listening to Music from Yale Open Courses develops the ability to describe and analyse musical structure in writing — a central skill in Oxford Music interviews.

23 colleges offer this subject. <20% of applicants submit an open application. ~33% of places come through the pool.

Oxford Music is collegiate, and the Faculty-stated course figure is 23 colleges offering undergraduate Music, not the total number of Oxford colleges. Applicants can name a college or submit an open application, and Oxford may reallocate applicants to balance interview loads.

College choice affects living and pastoral context, not a tactical admissions shortcut. For Music, check that the college offers the course, then choose for fit.