Mark Thursby

Mark is the Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) in Music Production. He is also a panel member of the C@N-DO team, monitoring applications for Advance HE membership. Mark also manages the HE Partnerships for the Faculty of Arts, Science and Technology. 

Mark has 20+ years experience teaching in Higher Education and has extensive knowledge of curriculum design and external verification. 

Outside of his teaching and research commitments, Mark composes electronic music and is a sound designer for theatre and other art-based projects. Mark also plays Guitar and drums. 

Mark Thursby's research interests lie across the following areas:

1) analytic philosophy and philosophy of mind: consciousness and naturalistic approaches to the exploration of self and qualia. Heterophenomenology and third-person analysis of first-person ontology. 

2) psychology and evolutionary psychology: cognitive bias, evolutionary approaches to learning, learning theory, intuition and reason, group behaviour, biological analysis of politics and gender. 

3) Critical theory in music: postmodernism, psychoanalysis, poststructuralism, marxism, social constructionism vs epistemology. 

4) Composition: acousmatic, drum and bass, electonic, synthesis, sampling, harmonic series and just intonation, digital audio and glitch

5) Music theory and improvisation: student understanding of music theory in the digital age. 

Mark Thursby is the Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Music Production at the University of Northampton. His teaching interests are:

* Music Production - synthesis, sound design, exploration of audio in the digital domain.

* Composition - acoustimatic, electronic and drum and bass.

* Music theory: harmony, jazz, fusion, improvisation

* Acoustics and psychoacoustics: harmony, pitch, just intonation, equally tempered scales, perception of sound 

He teaches the following modules: 

MUS1141 - Music Production Analysis

MUS1142 - Creative Music Production Techniques

MUS2140 - How Music Works

MUS2148 - Critical Listening & Mastering

MUS2150 - DAW2 Synthesis

MUS2151 - DAW2 Sampling

MUS3130 - Music Education