Program Overview

BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting)

The BA (Hons) Music (Songwriting) is a variant of the BA Music programme, focusing on songwriting. Students will study a range of technical skills to enable them to realise their best work, including project management, music theory, and lyric analysis. They will also receive robust training in the critical and contextual dimensions of the study of music.

About the Course

• The course is a three-year full-time programme.
• The typical offer is 112 UCAS points, with at least 80 points coming from A levels, BTEC, or other equivalent qualifications.
• Students will learn how to communicate confidently, both through their craft and face-to-face.
• They will have access to the university's network of professional partners, providing opportunities for live projects, work experience, masterclasses, and more.

Modules

• Creating Recorded Music: Students will work with fellow musicians to fully realise a musical recording.
• Creating Live Music: Students will collaborate with music and music production students to create a unique and original live music event.
• Core Music Techniques: Students will develop an essential proficiency in music theory and realise their creative projects.
• Applied Music Skills: Students will gain an in-depth understanding of how music is put together and develop crucial listening skills for practical musicianship.
• Music, Criticism and Culture: Students will learn different ways to ask questions of music and apply ideas derived from core literature to contemporary case studies.
• Music and its Histories: Students will explore narratives that characterise histories of music across different historical periods, technologies, and styles.
• Individual Creative Project: Students will bring their individual project to life, which may be a performance, composition, recording, songwriting EP, educational practical project, or piece of sound design.
• Collaborative Creative Project: Students will explore key methods used in a broad range of creative industries to organise and manage complex projects.
• Music and Its Objects: Students will develop a critical approach to thinking about the objects associated with music, such as instruments, technologies, sound recordings, and notations.

Facilities

• Middleton Hall: A world-class cultural venue with a 400-seater concert hall, rehearsal rooms, performance spaces, and professional recording studios.
• Duality Recording Studio: A state-of-the-art recording studio.
• Ambisonic Studio: A studio equipped with ambisonic technology.
• Rehearsal, composition and performance spaces: Students will have access to a range of spaces to rehearse, compose, and perform music.

Featured Academics

• Dr Mark Slater: A composer, producer, and musicologist with an interest in the processes of how music is made.
• Dr Rowan Oliver: A senior lecturer who spent several years touring the world as the drummer in Goldfrapp and continues to record and perform internationally as a session musician.

Entry Requirements

• UK students: 112 UCAS points, with at least 80 points coming from A levels, BTEC, or other equivalent qualifications.
• International students: The university considers experience and qualifications from worldwide, which may not exactly match the combinations above.

Fees and Funding

• The standard course fee for UK students is ｣9,790 per year.
• Students can take out a tuition fee loan to cover the full cost of the course.
• Maintenance loans are also available to cover living costs.

Future Prospects

• Graduates will have essential skills for the music industry and a professional portfolio of material for their CV.
• They will be able to communicate confidently, both through their craft and face-to-face.
• The university's network of professional partners provides opportunities for live projects, work experience, masterclasses, and more.
• Graduates can pursue careers as musicians, composers, singer-songwriters, recording artists, radio producers, music promoters, events managers, music therapists, teachers, and journalists.