BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance
Guitar, Bass, Drums, Vocal

As a musician, it’s essential that you develop practical ensemble performance skills, and gain an awareness of authentic musical perspective, styles and historical context. On this module you’ll undertake live performance workshops, providing you with the opportunity to develop and deepen your performance and stagecraft skills. You’ll also participate in ensemble classes (vocals/backing vocals and percussion) that will further the development of these performance skills, and develop awareness of the appropriate stylistic idioms, essential communication skills and professional industry performance standards.

As a musician, it’s essential that you acquire the practical and theoretical skills required to support your core musical development. This module combines a solid technical foundation with a focus on developing these skills, which will allow you to fully express yourself on your first study instrument. The module covers styles and genres of music; the study of musical notation; aural and transcribing; harmony and theory; plus an introduction to basic keyboard skills.

This module introduces you to the means of recognising and interpreting the development of popular music genres, and enables you to obtain the skills necessary to describe and explain popular music as a cultural phenomenon. Using a structured learning framework, you’ll engage with the investigation, analysis and critique of current debates and theories relating to the context within which popular music is produced, performed and consumed.

Alongside the development of your core musicianship, this module introduces and develops the skills required to create, organise and produce original work – an important skill for any musician. You’ll acquire a thorough introduction to the fundamentals of music technology, which will equip you with the tools necessary to understand and apply the principles of music processing and programming. You’ll also obtain a thorough introduction to the ethics of arrangement and the basic principles of song construction, including form, lyric writing, and rhythmic and harmonic construction.

As a musician, it’s essential that you develop and consolidate your practical ensemble performance skills with a detailed awareness of authentic musical perspective, cultural and historical context, and stylistic specifics. On this module you’ll engage in live performance workshops, providing you with the opportunity to continue to develop your core performance and stagecraft skills, and ensemble classes (vocals/backing vocals and percussion) to further support the development of your performance and essential communication skills, and obtain a comprehensive awareness of industry performance standards.

This module consolidates and enhances the practical and theoretical skills required to support your continuing personal progress and development. On top of techniques classes, which are designed to develop the skills to allow self-expression on your instrument and a secure technical foundation, you’ll also undertake styles classes, which provide a thorough study of the concepts associated with performance in the appropriate idioms. Reading studies will ensure a comprehensive knowledge of musical notation and the development of essential sight reading skills, while you’ll also cover aural and transcribing, harmony and theory relevant to the performance of popular music, and the continued development of your keyboard skills.

On this module, you’ll explore the relationships between popular music genres and will experiment with a range of analytical approaches to justify intellectual positions. You’ll become able to interrogate and deconstruct popular music through a range of critical and political ‘lenses’ and, building on previous study, will further develop your capacity for intellectual engagement with popular music through analysis and critique. You’ll also explore current debates and theories relating to the context within which popular music is produced, performed and consumed.

Essential to the career of every musician is a thorough awareness of the various facets of today’s rapidly evolving music industry. This module will establish the framework of the industry, exploring its three main sectors: recorded music, live music and publishing. It will deliver an overview of the contemporary music business, allowing you to develop an invaluable understanding of current monetisation models; effective marketing and promotion strategies; the role of management; and how to recognise and exploit changes in practice which have been brought about by the impact of the internet and new technologies.

On this module, you’ll consolidate and further develop the skills required to plan, create, organise, process and produce original work to brief, via theoretical, analytical and practical study. The module will expand your music processing and programming skills to aid and enhance composition, outline and contextualise standard music industry practices, protocols, standards and expectations, and provide an introduction to the fundamentals of music arranging and composing concepts in a variety of specific styles within popular music. Importantly, the module focuses on practical ‘real-world’ experience, providing invaluable knowledge and insight into both arranging and composing, and the development of ensemble skills.

Central to the ICMP BMus (Hons) programme is the development of advanced music performance skills. This module provides the opportunity to perform, create, and re-create music at an advanced level in various real and simulated professional scenarios, environments and situations. You’ll practice collectively, as part of an ensemble under direction, and individually, in a specialised field requiring advanced technique. You’ll also develop a highly focused and specialised practical skill set to help you shine in a variety of individual and ensemble musical situations and environments, including live performance, studio performance, clinics and demonstrations. Six hours of 1-2-1 tuition is also available to you, this offers the opportunity to focus on developing and refining specific skills and techniques.

On this module you’re provided with the support necessary for you to identify, plan and complete a project of your own choosing to a professional standard. You’ll have the opportunity to understand the challenges and demands involved in working as a creative artist, and will discuss and analyse project management best practice and methodologies prevalent in artistic project contexts.

A major element of your undergraduate degree, your dissertation requires you to plan, develop and realise an appropriate, independent research project under relevant subject-specialist supervision. This will enable you to: demonstrate how you’ve developed and applied the skills of critical and/or historical analysis acquired in the programme so far, offer a critical analysis of a wide range of source material, demonstrate independent thought and write lucidly. The dissertation is split into two parts – a series of lectures and seminars designed to inform your own work, supported by supervised sessions looking at the development and execution of your dissertation.

On this module you’ll develop the skills necessary to devise, plan, execute and reflect on the development and realisation of a live performance event in a professional setting, drawing upon prior learning to investigate and evaluate event management from a variety of critical perspectives. The module engages you with a broad range of relevant, practical management techniques, including communication, negotiation, organisation, coordination, arbitration and resource management, and enables the development of essential transferable skills, such as venue operations, event culture and tour management, promotion and marketing, and funding. You’ll also acquire a functional understanding of the relevant legal issues, obligations and regulations, such as public and personal liability, health and safety, and insurance.

On this module you’ll use theoretical, analytical, and practical study to further develop the compositional skills required to plan, create, organise, process and produce original work to brief, while acquiring practical music processing and programming skills to aid and enhance composition. You’ll also: develop planning and organisation skills through the preparation of composition for performance and recording; build a portfolio of work; and engage in a range of additional studies and activities that will enhance your employment opportunities as a music professional, enabling you to effectively articulate, express, and realise your musical creativity and imagination. Ultimately, you’ll become able to function with confidence in a number of different musical settings by using complex skills with a high degree of co-ordination and fluidity.

This module enables you to design, deploy and evaluate a variety of teaching, learning and assessment methods, preparing you for progression to postgraduate study, peripatetic teaching, or other music teaching roles. You’ll engage with subjects such as creating lesson plans; the psychology of learning; teaching methodologies; student assessment; the design of learning outcomes and course construction; small business and sole-trader practices; child protection (including safeguarding vulnerable adults); health and safety legislation and practice; and special educational needs.