Doctor of Music in Composition - Dissertation
General information
Doctoral degrees require a final project or dissertation after qualifying examinations.
DM students in Composition write
an original composition as a dissertation. The topic proposal must be approved before
the oral examination.
Students should submit an Application for Graduation no later than the beginning of the
semester in which they plan to graduate. Click here for dates and information.
The process in outline:
- Establish your Research Committee and submit your
Topic Proposal to the Music Graduate Office for approval
- Complete your dissertation and write program notes in
coordination with the Chair of your Research Committee and in accordance
with the departmental format guidelines
- Chair of Research Committee approves dissertation for
circulation to the rest of your Research Committee
- Submit 4 copies of your dissertation to the Music
Graduate Office
- Once your entire committee reviews the dissertation,
the Music Graduate Office will email you to say that you can now incorporate
any suggested corrections from your committee. Work with your Research
Committee Chairperson to incorporate the changes.
- Submit two hard bound copies to the Music Graduate
Office by the last day of the semester in which you plan to graduate (the
last day of finals week). Both copies need to be on archival quality
paper. Please refer to the format
requirements.
A. Establish your Research Committee and submit your
Topic Proposal to the Music Graduate Office for approval.
Submit
4 copies of your brief topic proposal (using this form) to
the Music Graduate Office. This will be given to the members of your Research
Committee for their approval. Once the entire committee approves your proposal,
you will receive an email notifying you that your proposal has been formally
approved. This step needs to be completed before you can schedule your oral
qualifying examination.
B. Complete your dissertation and write program notes in
coordination with the Chair of your Research Committee and in accordance
with the departmental format guidelines.
C. Chair of Research Committee approves dissertation for circulation to the rest of your Research Committee
You will work with the Chair of your committee on the dissertation and program
notes. Once the Chair of your committee feels that the dissertation and program
notes are ready to go to the rest of the committee, he or she should contact the
Music Graduate Office with that information.
D. Submit 4 copies of your dissertation to the Music
Graduate Office
At that point, you will submit 4 copies of the dissertation to the Music
Graduate Office. These reading copies should conform to all the format
requirements of the final copies (see here for format requirements), but they may be reproduced on paper of
any reasonable quality, with spiral or comb binding.
The Music Graduate Office will give copies of the dissertation to your Research
Committee for their approval. The Research Committee has up to 8 weeks to read
the dissertation, suggest corrections or changes in the score and program notes,
and return the annotated dissertation along with an approval form to the Music
Graduate Office.
Circulating copies of the dissertation (already
approved by your Research Committee Chairperson) should be submitted to the Music Graduate Office
during the first three weeks of the semester in which you plan to graduate.
Please note that it is not possible to have your dissertation approved during
the summer. This process can only be completed during the fall and spring
semesters.
E. Once your entire committee reviews the dissertation,
the Music Graduate Office will email you to say that you can now incorporate
any suggested corrections from your committee. Work with your Research
Committee Chairperson to incorporate the changes.
Once all 3 committee members have returned the dissertation, the Music Graduate
Office will inform you (via email) that you can now pick up the reading copies
of your dissertation. If you are living outside of Bloomington, please inform
us of your mailing address and we will mail you the annotated copies.
After you incorporate any changes or corrections into the dissertation and
program notes (in consultation with the Chair of your Research Committee), show
the corrected version to your Research Committee Chair for final approval. The
Research Committee Chair should sign the final copies you will bind and submit
to the Music Graduate Office.
Dissertations (or portions thereof) with a duration of 15 minutes or less will be considered for performance with an IU orchestra. To remain in the queue for performance consideration, composers MUST:
- turn in sample parts (one wind, one percussion, one string) to their Committee Chair for approval BEFORE the dissertation is submitted for binding.
- format their dissertation so that it is usable (readable) by a conductor. It will not be acceptable for performance if the music is sized extremely small to avoid having to make page by page vertical adjustments in staves.
- turn in a performance-ready full set of parts BEFORE July 1 ahead of the academic year the work is scheduled for.
Works involving chorus, concerto soloist or with durations exeeding 15 minutes will NOT be programmed.
F. Submit two hard bound copies to the Music Graduate Office by the last
day of the semester in which you plan to graduate (the last day of finals week).
Both copies need to be on archival quality paper. Please refer to the format requirements for information on binding, notation, signature pages, program notes, paper requirements, and more.
Once your Research Committee Chair has signed the final copies of the
dissertation, you will need to submit two hard bound copies by the last day
of the semester in which you want to graduate (the last day of finals week).
Both copies must be hard bound on archival quality paper. Please refer
to the format requirements.
The signature pages of the final copies may be signed by the remainder of your
committee (everyone other than the Chair) before or after you submit your final
copies.
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