Popular Music BA(Hons)

Why study BA(Hons) Popular Music at University College Falmouth?

Performance courses - additional information (994.71 KB)

Today's economic and technological climates are pushing the music industry in fascinating new directions. Falmouth's BA(Hons) Popular Music degree takes a creative vocational approach - combining musical practice, academic study and enterprise experience - to provide you with the cultural insight, creativity and technical skills to gain a stronger foothold as you make your transition into the professional world.

As well as honing your performance, composition and musicianship skills, you'll gain a vital understanding of how the music business works and is changing - from publishing deals to marketing, distribution to web publishing, music law to production and sound engineering. At the same time, you'll underpin your practical skills with a solid grasp of the critical and theoretical debates within popular music, and develop the time, project management, communication and interpersonal skills essential to succeed in this exciting industry.

Furthermore, studying at Falmouth will place you at the heart of a thriving, innovative and creative hub, where you'll have the chance to collaborate with a host of relevant disciplines including choreography, theatre, film, digital media, design, photography and fashion.

Tell me more about the BA(Hons) Popular Music course

Our aim is to help you become a confident, independent and self-motivated practitioner and thinker. Learning through both theory and practice, you'll specialise in developing your individual instrumental and/or vocal skills and building a repertoire, as well as delving into the live contexts of performance with an emphasis on the commercial aspects of music making.

Exploring your own areas of interest, you'll perform in bands or as a soloist, investigate the use of live electronics and develop composition and song-writing skills. Collaboration is key to Falmouth's approach, so you'll also work on projects and showcases - ranging from conventional gigs to a radio pieces or site-specific work - with students from our BA(Hons) Creative Music Technology and BA(Hons) Music courses. We want you to extend your work beyond the university environment, so encourage you to create new work that reaches out to the public in a variety of ways - from performances in regional venues to distributing new music via internet radio stations, web-based promotion sites, on record labels or through sound installations

This course will introduce you to the theoretical concepts surrounding music in our contemporary society from a variety of cultural perspectives. You'll engage in current debates and investigate the effects of cultural practices, specific historical movements, technologies and enterprise that have influenced popular music in the last century - developing analytical techniques and problem-solving skills that can be applied in many areas of employment within today's music industry.

It's also essential that you acquire the practical skills necessary to earn a living through music, so we'll teach you all about marketing and branding, the practicalities of producing promotional material, how to make good quality demos, sound technology and the latest production tools, how to use PA equipment, using graphics for posters and web publishing, producing press packs, using amplification and lighting, working with a sound crew and preparing ‘tech specs'. You'll also learn the basics of music law, negotiating deals and preparing contracts for professional work, registering new works, music publishing and how royalty collection agencies work, as well as examining the roles of the Musicians' Union, press and booking agents, managers and promoters.

From the outset, you'll engage with professional practice at a fundamental level, benefitting from Falmouth's excellent links with the music industry. You'll have opportunities to meet professionals from studios, record labels, promotion companies and venues, who'll be key to opening up possibilities for work placements both during and after the course. Evaluating your future career opportunities is also an important element of your final year, when you'll develop a detailed career strategy, set out a timeline of objectives and receive a valuable business consultancy session. You'll also work alongside a team of managers and promoters to perform at an event at the end of the year - or, if you'd like to focus on the entrepreneurial side, promote and manage the event, working closely with the performers.

"With the music industry evolving fast and new initiatives and opportunities constantly presenting themselves, it has never been a more exciting time to get involved. Falmouth's BA(Hons) Popular Music degree has a challenging outlook at its heart that will best prepare the musician to enter the industry with both their musical abilities and their entrepreneurial spirit fully ready to engage with the artistic and commercial worlds they'll face." Rick Rogers, Creative Enterprise Fellow (Music), whose career has included managing The Damned and The Specials, masterminding the campaign for De La Soul's platinum selling 3 Feet High and Rising, launching the theatrical career of Lily Savage, and running the South West Recordings label.

Facilities

From 2010, all performance courses will be based at our new £15 million Performance Centre at our Tremough campus, Penryn. This high-specification facility is purpose-built for students' specific needs with the very latest equipment and will encourage collaborations between the three Schools to create exciting new performance, installation and exhibition projects.

Specific facilities for music students include a high-specification performance studio designed for acoustic music and another for amplified music, a recording studio complex, music practice rooms for bands and solo occupancy and some of the best studio hardware, industry-standard software applications and collection of microphones to be found in a UK higher education institution.

Answers and advice about the course

If you have any queries about the course please visit our HelpMe Forum

HelpMe Forum

Career opportunities

• Solo or band performer
• Session musician
• Sound engineer
• Producer
• Promoter
• Running or working at a record label
• Press and promotion
• Manager
• Marketing
• Composer and/or song-writer
• Music publishing
• Music journalist
• Teaching
• Postgraduate study

Course entry requirements

A minimum of 220 UCAS points, mainly from the A2 level (including at least Grade C in Music/Music Technology) or equivalent Level 3 qualifications.  

For entry, you'll be asked to send a CD demo and/or scores of your best work to date before being invited for interview. Candidates without standard qualifications but with music industry experience are strongly encouraged to apply. Please see our How to Apply page for more information.

For further information about BA(Hons) Popular Music at University College Falmouth, please email admissions@dartington.ac.uk or telephone Admissions on 01803 861620.

Interview dates and selection process

Selection days will commence in December.

Selection days will involve improvisation and working in small groups.

Applicants will be expected to bring:

• PERFORMANCE: A recording of 5-10 minutes (CD/movie file/URL) of you performing, preferably on your main/first instrument that you intend having lessons on while at college. Please identify who the work is by (if not you) and, if you are part of a band, tell us how to identify your contribution.
• COMPOSITION: A recording (audio CD) of at least one piece that you have composed (it can be on the same CD as your ‘performance'). Tell us why you wrote this composition and how it has been performed in the recording.
• NOTATION: To support your composition work, provide notation of the pieces you have provided. It can be written in western staff notation, TAB, chord charts or notational methods.
• WRITING: A copy of an essay about music in which you have used language to discuss specific popular musical concepts.

Location: Dartington Campus and London, Bristol and Birmingham

Related courses

• Music BA(Hons)
• Music: Composition BA(Hons)
• Music: Performance BA(Hons)
• Music Theatre BA(Hons)
• Creative Music Technology BA(Hons)