BA (Hons) Songwriting and Production

In this module, you’ll observe, reflect on and challenge your writing process, gaining the knowledge and skills you need to be a successful songwriter. Working both alone and collaboratively, you’ll create a portfolio of original songs, as you explore the historical, cultural, political and social aspects of songwriting through a variety of analytical and hands-on practices. By the end of the module, you’ll have a portfolio of work and body of research you can present to industry and use to guide your future music industry career.

• The songwriting process
• How to write to brief
• Stylistic, structural and thematic briefs
• Song collaboration and development

In this module, you’ll build on your comprehension from the previous Creative Songwriting module and develop, edit and complete a portfolio of original songs. You’ll apply foundational songcraft elements to your work, using research from a range of social, cultural, political and historical backgrounds to back it up. You’ll also learn the ability to self-reflect so you can continue to enhance your songwriting skills.

• Create a portfolio of unique songs
• Research cultural and historical contexts in music
• Understand creative intention in songwriting

This module provides a foundation in music theory to help grow your music literacy and confidence. As you progress, you’ll develop your aural recognition to understand new compositions and performance works. You’ll be introduced to a range of core instruments and uncover a variety of ensemble contexts. Each area you study will be viewed theoretically, contextually and technically, so you’ll have a holistic understanding in order to apply these principles to your songwriting in a practical manner.

• Musicianship fundamentals and theory
• Melody, harmony and rhythm
• Explore core instruments and their dynamics
• Improve your aural and analysis skills

Across this module, you’ll gain an in-depth and practical understanding of the music industry. As you develop your portfolio career as a songwriter, musician and producer, it's crucial to understand the wider creative industries and the importance of concepts such as copyright. You’ll explore the three main areas of modern music – recorded music, live music and music publishing – and the methods and practices of each. You’ll also study music’s main revenue streams through real-world case studies and projects, exploring the inter-relationship between the different areas of the music industry.

• Music business practices and processes
• Creative industry business models
• The artist and repertoire (A&R) process
• Artist management
• Music rights and royalties
• Music industry sales and distribution

In this module, you’ll study music programming and production techniques, such as synthesis and sampling, using industry-standard digital audio workstations (DAWs), while developing your critical listening skills. As you explore how computer technology is used to create contemporary music, you’ll investigate the wide range of methodologies and techniques used by different artists and producers. As you begin to produce ‘in the box’, you’ll enhance your creative music production skills by experimenting with the many solutions and choices available to you.

• MIDI programming and sound sources
• Understanding virtual instruments (synths and samplers) 
• Envelopes and modulations
• Subtractive and FM synthesis
• Sample layering
• Frequency and dynamic processing 
• Automation and modulations
• The creative use of audio effects and editing

Building on the skills and knowledge learned in the Digital Music Production module, you’ll return to the studio to investigate digital audio workstation (DAW) in-the-box (ITB) mixing techniques in more detail. By the end of this module, you’ll be adept at using a range of professional music production hardware, and able to take your ideas from their initial demo stage, progressing to a professional sounding, fully presentable mix.

• How to use DAW mixing channel layouts
• How to use EQ and compression
• Gates and other insert effects
• Timed, delay and reverb effects
• Effects and mix busses
• Mix automation
• The relationship between bass and drums

This module will help you to start contextualising your art according to professional songwriting practice norms and standards, as you create new music and develop your technical comprehension of songcraft across different creative environments and projects. You’ll also reflect on your songwriting strengths and learn how to constructively critique your own work and that of your fellow students.

• Technical songwriting and producing
• Expand your portfolio of songs and creative work
• Learn how to critically assess songs and production values
   

In this module, you’ll extend the technical experience and understanding you gained in the previous Applied Songwriting module to create a body of creative work that achieves a set of measured outcomes. As you craft songs tailored to a variety of contexts, you’ll incorporate different practices, methods and approaches into your creative process. Using a mix of reflective practice and peer feedback, you’ll learn how your songwriting choices impact your audience and assess the success of your new songwriting practices.

• Advanced songcraft skills
• How to use research to create authentic songs
• How to blend different songwriting approaches
• Collaborative song analysis and discussion
   

Your ability to promote yourself and your services plays an important role in your success as a freelance songwriter and producer. In this module, you’ll learn essential marketing principles, foundational marketing theories and modern marketing approaches. You’ll explore how the ever-evolving marketing industry has created both opportunities and challenges for creatives, and how marketing is changing to meet the fluctuating demands of musicians. By the time this module ends, you’ll have created a fully assessed marketing plan you can use to promote your services as a writer–producer or artist to the music industry.

• The differences between branding, advertising, marketing and PR
• The product development life cycle
• Positioning, promotion and pricing
• The importance of market research and analysing consumer behaviour
• How to build an audience using social media and viral marketing
• Brand partnerships
• Commerce versus credibility

In this module, you’ll further develop the skills required to work with industry-standard DAWs such as Ableton Live, expanding your knowledge from the first-year Digital Music Production module. You’ll learn how to use software as an instrument, as you explore a range of advanced methodologies and techniques used by established producers. You’ll finish the module equipped with the skills to mix and deliver original, digitally produced tracks using contemporary digital music production techniques and showstopping effects.

• Advanced sampling and synthesis techniques
• Rewire systems
• MIDI and audio connection with external gear
• Advanced audio editing and pitch correction
• Bus processing
• Aggregate devices
   

Prepare to further develop your mixing and studio skills across this highly technical module. You’ll take a deep dive into the mixing process from an artistic and creative context. Comparing commercial mixes will be a huge focus of this module, as you explore practical methods to help you realise your own unique final creative product.

• The mixing environment
• How to mix arrangements
• Multi-track recording sessions
• How to improve your listening skills
• Reverb and delay techniques
• Subgroup and mix bus processing 
• Serial and parallel compression
• EQ techniques,
• Space, depth and width in mixing
• The importance of objectivity in mixing

This module will mostly take place in ICMP’s high-tech recording studios, where you’ll further build your production and recording abilities while discovering the fundamentals of audio recording theory. In the studio, you’ll explore advanced music production techniques for mixing and recording music, such as the audio mastering chain, file delivery, the recording of core instruments like drums, keyboards and vocals, and advanced mic techniques. You’ll also investigate the producer’s role in musical decision making, including the efforts they need to take to form a certain desired sound. Once you complete this module, you’ll have experience across a range of engineering and recording processes, such as sound production and editing, and confidence using industry-standard studio recording equipment.

• Stereo, multi-microphone and drum recording
• Alternative recording techniques
• Signal-to-noise ratio in recording 
• Recording techniques throughout history
• Preamps
• Microphone polar patterns and boundary microphones
• Gain structure 
• Critical listening and how to analyse recordings

Using your excellent ability to create songs, you’ll conceive, plan, develop and manage an impressive songwriting portfolio across this highly creative module. Undertaking detailed research, you’ll design and create a unified repertoire of original music, taking creative ownership of your project to critically reflect and communicate a clear understanding of your songcraft. You’ll also contextualise your knowledge from other ICMP modules and apply it to your creative work, enabling you to successfully forge your path as an up-and-coming music industry writer–producer.

• How to build your creative identity
• How to run a practical songwriting project
• Artist and repertoire (A&R) practice
• Reflections on your journey as an emerging writer–producer

This double module will help you build your professional and academic skills, predominantly for the preparation, implementation and evaluation of a major musical project. Across your lessons, you’ll develop practical and conceptual knowledge of the issues, codes and conventions used when creating musical projects. In conceiving your project, you’ll learn transferable skills in negotiation, communication, analysis, and project management and planning. To ensure you’re on the right path with your project, you’ll initially pitch a proposal as a working document, and then evaluate and revise it across the year. There will be plenty of opportunities to display your autonomy and self-leadership skills in determining the features and scope of your work.

• How to develop a project proposal
• Presentation and communication skills
• Risk assessments
• How to pitch effectively
• Project management best practice and methodologies
• Opportunities to connect your work with other Level 6 module projects

In this module, you’ll pitch a business proposal in a real-life setting to a potential investor, gaining a solid working knowledge of entrepreneurial thinking and business strategies. You’ll discover what it means to be ‘enterprising’ across the modern creative industries, from idea creation and modelling, to fundraising and business venture set-up. The business proposal you develop in this module will be built upon in the subsequent Enterprising Writer–Producer II module.

• Songwriting presentation techniques and marketing strategies
• How to develop a unique selling proposition (USP) and value proposition (VP)
• The importance of market research
• Profit vs not-for-profit pursuits
• Entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship principles
• The promotional mix in music

Progressing your learnings in entrepreneurship and business from the previous module, this module further sets you up for a successful career as a self-employed writer–producer. With guidance from ICMP’s esteemed tutors, this self-directed module will see you build a range of enterprising skills and behaviours, allowing you to tackle real-life challenges and take on opportunities as soon as they appear. Using your talents in creative thinking, project management, marketing and problem solving, you’ll launch a new music industry business venture.

• How to write a business plan
• Project management methodologies
• Financial planning and budgeting
• Crowdfunding vs venture capital
• Tax and accounting
• Sole trader, partnership, not-for-profit and limited company business structures
• Legal considerations, such as licences, patents, copyright and trademarks