Creative Music Technology BA(Hons)

With technical and artistic guidance from staff and specialists, you will become equipped with foundational knowledge, skills and experience in music and sound theory, music production, sound design and electronic music.  

You will receive small-group tuition to help you identify and work on your specialist creative practice, while gaining practical experience using industry-standard software and hardware tools and techniques. You will also develop your essay writing abilities through studying music and sound contexts and cultures. 

Modules

Designing Sound

You’ll be immersed in the creative possibilities of sound design for different visual media, including film, TV, animation and games. Over the course of the module, you will be introduced to new concepts, techniques and workflows and encouraged to explore the ways in which audio can be sculpted to create new sonic forms. 

Electronic Music 

In this module you will develop a theoretical and practical understanding of contemporary electronic music tools, techniques and creative practices. 

Expanding Musical Vocabularies 

This module will introduce you to a range of musical terms, theories, techniques and notations before helping you to apply them in creative and practical scenarios. 

Specialist Music Practice 1 

In this module, you will increase your knowledge and skills in your area of specialist practice and develop co-creation, collaborative and communication skills through collective music making and studio practice sessions. 

Music and Sound: Context and Cultures 

You’ll examine key concepts and debates in music and sounds studies whilst thinking critically about the relationship between music, sound, and culture. 

Studiocraft 

You'll learn to record, edit, mix and master audio in a recording studio environment using microphones, audio interfaces, mixing desks and digital audio workstations (DAWs). 

In your second year, you will expand your subject knowledge, focusing on both practical and academic areas including music business, multimodal creation, composition, immersive technologies and experimental performance.  

You will continue to experiment in cutting-edge areas, push your creative potential and create a wider variety of work through collaboration and open assessment briefs.

Modules

The Art of Production

This module explores the role of the contemporary music producer. This involves collaborative and interdisciplinary working as well as technical and artistic knowledge and skills development. You will work creatively, acting as both composer and engineer.   

The Business of Music & Sound 

You’ll be introduced to intellectual property regulations and the subsequent risks of exploitation across multiple areas of the creative industries. You’ll learn the necessary business skills to work sustainably within the music and sound sectors with confidence. 

Specialist Music Practice 2 

Building upon the work undertaken in the Specialist Practice 1 module in your first year, you will continue to increase your knowledge and skills to further develop co-creation, collaborative and communication skills through collective music making and studio practice. 

Music & Sound: Resonant Futures 

In this module you will question and explore the relationship between music, sound, technology, context and culture in ways that seek to imagine and speculate on the future of music and sound. 

Optional modules - Block 1

Immersive & Interactive Audio 

You’ll be introduced to a range of technologies, techniques and applications of immersive and interactive audio. The module is highly interdisciplinary and relevant to film sound, game audio, digital arts and experience design. 

Resounding: Situated Songwriting & Composition  

This module encourages you to think about how your practice is entangled with various places—geographic, imaginary, speculative, utopian, abstract and psychological. It introduces you to new critical frameworks and artists who process complex issues like the Anthropocene, the internet, dark ecology and the climate crisis through their music. 

Advanced & Experimental Performance

This module aims to develop your abilities in the art of musical communication, flow, interpretation, expressivity, experimentation and versatility in performance. You’ll be introduced to improvisational and creative techniques to advance your practical skills and ideas.   

Voice and Listening: Life, People and Planet 

The module will develop your vocal and listening skills alongside your creativity and in relation to an increased awareness of concepts in voice studies and relevant contemporary social, political and environmental themes. 

Optional modules - Block 2

Composing Music for Media 

You’ll develop a critical understanding of music-image relationships and conduct practical work across a range of media. You’ll also enhance your composition and production skills through being shown industry-standard workflows and techniques. 

Session Musicianship 

In this module you will develop an understanding of the skills, techniques, communication methods and working practices of session musicians in a variety of genres and contexts. 

A/V Radical Artistry & New Media Aesthetics 

This module unleashes the potential of multimodal creation, encouraging you to re-imagine your artistic identity by exploring the rapid acceleration and monumental shifts of the contemporary media landscape. You will explore the dynamic creativity of social media, vlogging, AI, TV, music videos, advertising, and graphic design. 

Enterprise: Innovative Music Business Practice 

Within the context of the ever-changing and shifting music business, this module enables you to approach your practice with agile, innovative, sustainable and ethical business skills and knowledge; from legal to financial, marketing to planning. 

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on this three-year programme. Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying.   

How you’ll study during your professional placement

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation.   

Over the course of this year, you will complete one module whilst undertaking your placement and compile a reflective portfolio of your experiences. During this year you’ll be supported by the University employability team, with continued access to student support and wellbeing services and academic supervision from a named module leader.  

The University will support students to find and apply for opportunities, but we cannot guarantee every student will be successful in securing a placement.  

Your final year is geared towards solidifying your artistic and professional identity, knowledge, skills and networks in line with your chosen area of creative music technology specialism. You’ll develop your showcase portfolio, enhance your entrepreneurial practice skills and explore career options as you prepare to take your first steps into industry. 

Modules

Music & Sound: Dissertation 

In this module you will expand on your music and sound subject-based intellectual skills developed in your first and second years through an independently-driven written research project. 

Professional Development 

This module enables you to continue developing your specialist skills, contextual knowledge, experience and entrepreneurial mindset in preparation for the Showcase Portfolio module, careers and/or artistic practice beyond your degree. 

Your Future 

This module enables you to understand, develop, practice and analyse skills pertinent to your chosen career path in sustainable ways; both now and in the future. You will further develop legal, financial, marketing and digital skills that relate to specialist areas of the music sector and be able to critically analyse trends and future opportunities that relate to your career. 

Showcase Portfolio 

You’ll produce a professional portfolio of creative work that showcases your specialist skills and artistic practice developed over the last three years, ready to take to industry. 

Alongside lectures and practical workshops, you'll receive academic, technical and artistic guidance from staff and specialists. Lectures will introduce you to key information, concepts and examples. Workshops enable you to apply the ideas to your own practice and develop your skills through practical exercises. Seminars and tutorials facilitate deeper discussion and questions around lectures, workshops and assessment briefs. These also involve giving feedback on your work towards module assessments. 

As you progress through the course, you will have more flexibility in terms of what you choose to study, who you collaborate with and how you respond to the assessment briefs.  

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning and teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person. Video materials and online meetings are used where there is a clear advantage to do so, for example short one-one meetings or instructions on using the recording studios. You can read more here.

There is a variety of assessment methods used on this course. These all have relevance to professional practice and include: 

• Portfolios of practical work. 
• Learning journals documenting your work using text, video, photos and audio recordings. 
• Written assignments such as project reports, essays and, in the final year, a dissertation. 
• Presentations 
• Studio-based assessment of practical work. 

Course equipment and costs 

• Computers & DAWs

A computer running a suitable Digital Audio Workstation such as Ableton Live, Logic, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Reaper or Bitwig will be essential. A laptop rather than a desktop is highly recommended. If you need further guidance on computers and software then please speak to the course team during induction week.

• Instruments

All of our practice studios are equipped with a piano or keyboard, amplifiers, PA and a drum kit. Drummers should bring their own sticks, cymbals, and snare. Other instrumentalists must bring their own instrument with them, and budget for any expendables relating to your specific instrument such as strings, plectrums and leads.

• Headphones

You can book headphones from AMATA’s Technical Resource Stores, however a pair of good quality, open-back headphones are recommended for regular studio and production work. Prices vary but expect to pay upwards of £80-£100. If you are not sure what you need, search the Internet for ‘studio monitor headphone review’.

• Ear protection

Your ears are the most important pieces of audio kit you will ever own! Looking after them is therefore top priority. Dispensers with free disposable foam earplugs are situated outside the practice and performance studios throughout the AMATA building, but it is also recommended that you purchase high quality earplugs - especially if you play in a loud group or attend gigs and/or clubs.

• Backups

Backing up your work is essential. You will have access to online storage via Microsoft OneDrive but a physical drive may also be useful for additional security or when Internet upload speeds are slower than they are on campus.

• Software

You will have free access to Microsoft Office software throughout your time at Falmouth.

• Notetaking

You may wish to use your laptop for notetaking. However, if you prefer pen and paper, then we would suggest spending around £10 on pens and notepads / journals.