Welcome to Your Virtual Tour

This module will introduce you to the framework and functions of the modern music industry, exploring its three main sectors: recorded music, live music, and publishing. You’ll examine current industry models, processes, and practices, and see how creatives and businesses interact, exploring the interrelationships between the three key industry sectors in depth. You’ll learn about music copyright and the roles played by collection societies, professional membership organisations, and trade bodies. You’ll also cover the function of artist management, the A&R process, music marketing and promotion, sales and distribution, music rights and royalties, and a brief introduction to various revenue streams.

This module introduces you to the principles of entrepreneurship and marketing, and how these can be effectively implemented, specifically in a music industry context. You’ll learn about the characteristics of successful entrepreneurship and barriers to enterprise, as well as techniques for recognising new business opportunities and how they could be translated into successful ventures through feasibility analysis and customer-driven marketing strategies. You’ll develop a basic business plan and marketing strategy for a music business project, and explore the concept of the artist as a brand, considering key areas such as brand partnerships, and commerce versus credibility in music.

During this module, you’ll learn how strategic management helps create and sustain organisational effectiveness. You’ll explore theoretical perspectives on strategy development and methods of achieving competitive advantage in business, both nationally and globally. You’ll develop a range of techniques for evaluating the strategic capabilities of organisations and their operating environments, and will be able to devise recommendations to strategic problems faced by organisations, with a specific focus on the creative sector. Your comprehensive examination of strategic capabilities and the environmental context of organisations will help you make sound strategic decisions about real-life management challenges.

Using case studies and reviews of current working practices, this module aims to analyse the impact of digital technologies on consumers, creators, distributors and publishers. You’ll examine the impact of technology and digital media as drivers of innovation and business growth in the creative industries, and gain a detailed knowledge of digital concepts such as disruption, innovation, consumer behaviour, digital business models, social networking, big data, analytics and blockchain technology, and operating in the digital domain. You’ll also develop a host of practical ICT skills, such as image and video editing skills, to help communicate your business ideas.

Expanding on your live event knowledge from Year 1, this module offers the opportunity to work in teams to plan, develop, and deliver your own live music event. You’ll be encouraged to approach your events creatively, while developing an awareness of the importance of branding and sponsorship, the emergence of new income streams, and changing patterns of live music consumption. Methods of communication and convergence will be examined, including the importance of employing social media and online strategies to promote your event. You’ll also gain a solid understanding of live music industry issues including health and safety, legislation, and regulations.

As part of this truly unique module, you’ll build on your business and entrepreneurship experience from previous years. By developing critical thinking skills, you’ll be able to identify, research, plan, develop, brand, market, launch and manage an authentic music business initiative or a charitable, publicly funded, or social enterprise business project. You’ll work independently or as part of a small multidisciplinary team to simulate a real-world initiative, and execute a substantial project within both time and budgetary constraints. With the help of a supervisor, you’ll have the opportunity to pitch your ideas to NatWest as part of their Entrepreneur Accelerator programme.

For full details of this programme please head our BA (Hons) Music Business and Entrepreneurship course page. 

There’s only one way to become fluent in the language of live production and that’s to embed yourself in the industry and gain real-world experience. In this exciting and highly practical module, you’ll learn the fundamentals of live production first-hand – by being onsite in a live performance space and interacting with industry professionals. Shadowing both behind-the-scenes and front-of-house tech crew, you’ll become competent at operating basic sound and lighting equipment, as you display the same professionalism and high production values you’ll take into your future career. You’ll also understand the functions of the interdependent roles involved in delivering a live show, and the live production terminology and subtle nuances required to make it happen.

The live music ecosystem has changed considerably in recent times, and you’ll explore the fundamentals of the new frontier in this pioneering and highly relevant module. During your studies, you’ll map the full spectrum of the live environment, acknowledging how interrelated roles depend on each other and connect with the recorded music sector – syncing with artists’ calendars, label release campaigns and other promotional activities. You’ll explore revenue generation and flow within the ecosystem, including the evolving non-profit sector and its dependence on subsidies. You’ll gain a global perspective as you explore non-Western approaches while keeping up-to-date with traditional and up-and-coming market leaders.

In our continually evolving digital age, creativity has never been more vital. In this module, you’ll cover the principles of content creation and content marketing, as you learn practical and artistic techniques to help you stand out online across a range of digital media. You’ll discover why it’s essential for all music industry businesses to create a successful online presence to thrive, as you explore creative ways to get noticed digitally.  Using core content creation platforms and software, for image and video editing programmes, you’ll develop creative assets for real-world content and marketing strategies in a variety of formats.

In this module, you’ll gain a strong logistical understanding of the processes and functions involved in hosting a performing arts event. You’ll explore every facet of the touring and festival environment – from creating touring Itineraries, organising visas, contributing to safety advisory groups (SAG), and following health and safety requirements, to managing sites and stages, understanding how contracting works, and being on top of entertainment licensing. The module offers many opportunities to gain hands-on experience with ICMP’s UK-based festival partners, shadowing industry professionals and collaborating with teams to plan or run a range of events. You’ll also explore festival sustainability, working on both carbon-neutral and leave-no-trace approaches.

This module will evolve with the ever-changing environment of live streaming and entertainment event technologies. As you investigate the tools available to deliver immersive events, such as virtual reality and interactive technologies, you’ll gain insights from a host of industry specialists – including those working for both major broadcast platforms and grassroot music venues. You’ll cover the different components, technologies and platforms available, plus paywalls and the financial implications of your chosen methods. Armed with a greater understanding of the infinite potential of these technologies, you’ll also map out the future of the sector.

In this module, you’ll explore the steps involved in launching your own professional brand. You’ll discover what it means to be an entrepreneur in the live sector as you learn how to set up and run your own business or non-profit organisation. Across your studies, you’ll become proficient at identifying opportunities, managing projects, building teams and being an effective leader – all vital skills for your final-year Live Project. You’ll examine a range of project management frameworks as you determine ways you could use them effectively across your career. You’ll also put an assortment of transferable soft skills, such as problem solving and lateral thinking, into practice within a real-world working environment.

For full details of this programme please head our BA (Hons) Live Event Management course page. 

A brand is much, much more than a logo. It’s the public manifestation of an organisation, product, service, or individual, and comprises everything from name, language, and visual identity to behaviour and values. And however a brand looks and whatever it represents, it must work within industry regulations and stay true to the company’s strategy.

In this module, we’ll show you what’s involved in building and managing a brand in the creative industry. You’ll learn about the different models of brand building and what makes up a brand’s architecture, including the name, visual identity, messaging, positioning, values, and more. We’ll also examine celebrity brands; look at how brands are launched and change over time; learn how to create native ads and content for a closed network; consider the role and impact of regulatory bodies; and explore international brand strategies. 

Your online presence, and the content you create, are intertwined; in the digital world, making and posting content shows you’re active and helps you to connect with your audience.

In ‘Content Creation & Social Media’, we’ll teach you how to create assets and content that fit your goals and suit your audiences. You’ll consider why a compelling online presence is now such an important part of any business’s marketing plan and explore the various social and digital platforms, considering how content should be tailored to fit. You’ll also learn about the technical side of social — management tools, analytics, social listening, outreach, and more — and learn how SEO (search engine optimisation) and digital and social advertising can help your content to reach a bigger, and more specific, audience.

Social media, blockchain, 3D printing: behind every brilliant invention and unique idea, there’s an entrepreneur — someone who stepped off the beaten path and created something of their own. It’s not just technology billionaires or maverick inventors; every self-employed person is an entrepreneur, too.

Here, we’ll explore what it means to be an entrepreneur, considering how new ideas are formed; the process of turning those ideas into reality; and what makes some people better entrepreneurs than others. We’ll look at where entrepreneurs fit into commercial, non-commercial, start-up and established organisations, and teach you about the challenges of entrepreneurship at individual, organisational, and societal levels.

With good data, you’ll make better marketing decisions. Building on your introduction to market research and data analysis techniques in your first year, this module looks at how to collect, process, and analyse consumer and market data, and explores how that data can then drive your strategy.

Overall, it’s a much more detailed look at the world of data analytics, particularly focusing on social media analytics. You’ll learn about the technical language, concepts, and models, and explore how industry standard analytics tools can help you measure the success of your digital marketing. You’ll examine real-life scenarios and problem-based case studies, looking at how data could be used to find a solution. In the end, you’ll have a thorough understanding of how to turn data into meaningful insights, and turn those insights into actions.

In this project-based module, you’ll get hands-on experience of creating your own content, learning both the theoretical and practical sides of digital storytelling. Beginning with an introduction to the effect of various digital media and technologies, we’ll look at how they impact consumers, creators, distributors, publishers, brands, and platforms.

You’ll explore how people communicate and engage with storytelling in the digital domain, and learn about digital strategies and social networking. Then, on the practical side, we’ll teach you about video editing and how to construct a compelling narrative, giving you the opportunity to experiment with digital content.

Please head to our BA (Hons) Digital Marketing course page for full details.

Music is creative; it’s a sector of performance, talent, and entertainment. But it’s also a multi-billion pound industry, powered by everyone from huge international companies to up-and-coming entrepreneurs. So, to truly thrive as a musician, producer, or in any other career in music, you need to learn how it operates.

In this module, we’ll introduce you to the core structures and functions of the modern music industry, and explain how the main industry sectors — recorded music, live music, and publishing — work. You’ll learn about the different kinds of music business organisations; study music copyrights; and explore the roles of collection societies, professionals and other organisations, as well as examining how they all work together. Ultimately, with a better understanding of the music business, you’ll more easily be able to find, and follow, your path.

Making music is one thing, but successfully releasing and marketing that music is another altogether — and there’s more than one way to do it. This module is designed to help you get releases right, providing practical knowledge of music marketing, release strategies, and digital distribution.

We’ll look at the different ways to promote a release online, comparing DIY campaigns to the professional, big-budget approaches of big record labels and established artists. We’ll teach you how to use the direct to fan model to build up to a commercial DIY release; how to grow a fan base online; and how to attract the attention of industry gatekeepers. Once you’ve completed the module you’ll have a really thorough understanding of different promotion strategies, giving you an excellent starting point for your next release.  

This module is a culmination of all the tools and principles you’ve learnt from our other modules and allows you to see the bigger picture - your digital marketing strategy. Within this, we’ll show how to bring together every single communication, message and piece of content to achieve your objectives.

We’ll first teach you about how to build a successful strategy, touching on value proposition development, customer acquisition and conversion. We’ll then share how to engage your audience, looking at segmentation, targeting and brand positioning, and how to use this information to plan an effective campaign. Finally, we’ll explore converting your audience, and how to build a competitive advantage. For more on the strategic side of digital marketing, you will study ‘Brand Development and Management’ in your final year. 

How can you find, and nurture, the very best talent? And if you’re thinking about setting up a talent management business of your own, where should you begin? In this module, you’ll start by exploring the legal, commercial, and practical sides of talent management, gaining a foundational understanding of how it all works. Then, we’ll explain the process of discovery, assessment, and development, focusing particularly on the diverse range of management roles and the skills you’ll need to succeed.

We’ll challenge you to develop proposals and plans for talent development across different creative disciplines, and teach you about the practicalities of setting up a talent management business — including how to protect the interests of both talent and manager. And last, but not least, we’ll focus on modern artist development across different creative and performance disciplines.

Advertising is a fast-moving, creative, and multi-faceted discipline — and with the wealth of formats and platforms online, it’s even more so in the world of digital marketing. Here, we’ll look at both the academic and practical sides of advertising, from understanding regulatory bodies to putting together a creative pitch.

Focusing specifically on online advertising, you’ll study theoretical topics like social and ethical issues; advertising around the world; and how advertising is regulated. And on the practical side, we’ll show you how to conceptualise, implement, and manage integrated advertising projects from a client perspective. That includes pitching ideas and strategies, following briefs, the importance of brand guidelines, and how to plan advertising campaigns.

Head to our course page for full details about the BA (Hons) Digital Marketing & Music Management course.