Undergraduate BA(hons) or BSc (Hons) Creative Industries Futures (Music) Vocals

Modules 

MIF – 401 Music Industry Futures 

This module gives students an overview of the music industry, past, present, and future. Students learn about the mechanisms, structures, and practices that drive the music industry and where their specialism sits within it, whilst gaining an understanding of key fundamentals of music business, structure, market, and areas of specialism. 

MIF – 402 Music Media and Technology 

This module enables students to examine the role of music across a range of media, exploring the way that music, media and technology intersect. It prepares students to understand how their specialist skills will be used in the industries of today and tomorrow. 

MIF – 403 Impact and influence of Music

This module enables students to explore the varied impact of music, focusing on its ability to influence audiences, create community connections, and support creative practitioners, as well as the physical and mental impact music may have on individuals and wellbeing.

MIF – 404 Music, Culture and Society

This module enables students to understand the cultural and social aspects of music and to connect the theory with the practice, helping students to learn how to navigate the industry whilst being aware of important sociocultural histories, trends, and issues that affect the music industry.  This module encourages you to explore these ideas through discussion and debate, developing your ability to critically explain and justify your work. These skills are essential for defining your identity as a creative practitioner and communicating your values within the industry.

CIF – 405 Preparing for Collaborative Projects

This module enables students to prepare and organise themselves and their work to engage in an interdisciplinary collaborative creative project. Students will work on their discipline-specific skills through a suite of skills units and labs, bringing them to the collaborative project to begin working in communities of practice. 

CIF – 406 – Engaging in Collaborative Projects

This module enables students to work collaboratively on a shared project brief. Building on 405, it prompts the students to further develop their skills and begin realising larger cross-disciplinary projects with creatives across music and/or digital arts pathways.

Skills Units

SKU-MUS-01 Technical Development (Vocals)

This unit allows you to develop your skills on your instrument/voice, looking at a range of techniques, styles, and approaches across a range of specialist areas.

SKU-COM-02 Theory, Aural Skills & Critical Listening 

This unit teaches you the fundamentals of contemporary popular music theory, ear training and critical listening, enabling you to analyse, understand, and reapply concepts across a spectrum of contemporary popular music examples.

SKU-PRO-01 DAW Composition & Arrangement 

This Skills Unit reinforces the underlying skills required to produce music within a Digital Audio Workstation. Introducing students to other DAWs and focusing on how arrangement skills can assist the role of the producer.

SKU-MUS-03 Ensemble Skills

Students will develop as successful ensemble musicians in a wide variety of genres with progressively more difficult repertoire. Chart-reading will be an area of focus and will include performance and arranging skills as part of the ensemble work. 

Modules 

CIF – 501 – Specialist Collaborative Work

This module enables students to contribute through their chosen specialism to an interdisciplinary collaborative creative industries project, and gives them the opportunity to develop more advanced skills through the realisation of highly specialised projects, driven by industry briefs. 

CIF – 502 – Professional Collaborative Work

This module aims to enable students to explore, examine, and review the function of a professional project. Students will work in a professional context to deliver a project in their specialism. 

CIF – 503 – Specialist Route Skills 

This module enables students to use tools, techniques, and procedures to work toward producing work of a professional standard in their chosen specialism. Students will be able to use relevant academic research and sources to critically review and place their practice in a humanities, phenomenology or cultural framework. Crucially, this module provides students with additional advanced technical skills development, through which they are assessed. 

CIF – 504 – Professional Route Skills 

This module enables students to create a portfolio of professional, specialist work demonstrating transferable skills to meet sector expectations. Students will be able to use relevant academic research and sources to critically review and place their practice in a humanities, phenomenology or cultural framework. Here, the emphasis on specific skills remains; however is realised in a broader context. 

Skills Units

SKU-MUS-04 Technical Development 2

This unit follows on from technical development 1, providing a greater depth of development into high-level techniques needed in the development of instrumental/vocal expertise.

SKU-MUS-05 Second Instrument (Keys, Guitar, Drums, Bass, Songwriting)

This unit allows students to study an instrument different to their first study, including keyboards, vocals, and guitar.

SKU-MUS-06 Session Styles 

This Skills Unit explores ten contrasting musical styles that are essential for the session musician and ensemble player, arranger, composer and songwriter to know. Each topic will contain an overview of the historical, cultural and musical development of the style. This will provide a more in-depth understanding, appreciation and acknowledgement of the cultural and societal environment in which these developed as “…music is a cultural practice whose production and reception processes are inextricably rooted in the cultural environment within which it evolves (Bennett and Waksman, 2015). This will open the door to and encourage a more sensitive and authentic approach to playing these styles. Though these styles are contrasting, you will soon begin to discover the various threads that weave their way through and into the various styles which help create the diverse tapestry that is the contemporary music industry. 

SKU-MUS-07 Improvisation

This unit aims to develop and consolidate students’ existing improvisational technique as well as melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic vocabulary, and its applications in the practical context as a lead performer and as an accompanist. Students will be required to understand and apply improvisatory techniques in a variety of contemporary styles in simulated musical session environments.

SKU-MUS-10 Advanced Music Arrangement

This unit prepares students for a variety of professional reading settings, and provides skill development in reading, writing, and arrangement of music. 

Modules

CIF – 601 – Critical Review 

This module includes a research or practical project that critically reviews one or more current issues, constraints or practices that impact your specialism and wider creative industries, the application of your specialism to other industry sectors or broader cultural

or workforce issues relating to your specialism and the creative cultural industries. Students will be able to use relevant academic research and sources to critically review and place their practice in a humanities, phenomenology or cultural framework.

CIF – 603 – Leadership and CPD

This module enables students to engage with continuing professional development and to review and develop their leadership skills in different contexts, whilst also building and maintaining a specialist skills development plan for their chosen specialism. 

CIF – 602 – Leading a Professional Collaborative Project

This module aims to enable students to build their leadership and professional skills through an interdisciplinary collaborative professional project. It acts as the student’s final capstone project, and is driven by the student, culminating in a final performance, showcase, professional body of work, or a combination thereof, to a high professional standard. 

CIF – 604 – Professional Portfolio 

This module enables students to create a portfolio and digital presence that includes course output, work experience, freelance work or volunteering targeted to professional opportunities or further study. Through the delivery of their assessment, students are invited to position their work through the lens of industry, creating a portfolio of work and an accompanying plan for professional development and progression in their chosen field.

Skills Units

SKU-MUS-11 Technical Development 3

The further study of technical development within each instrumental and vocal discipline, which deals with developing greater technical facility and control with a view towards performing more demanding performances and recording repertoire. Different genres will be used as examples for technical development, and the requisite conceptual and theoretical issues that go along with these will be investigated from a technical development perspective with exercises and analysis of industry-relevant material.

SKU-MUS-12 Advanced Ensemble and Musical Direction Skills

This unit aims to examine the concepts and principles associated with the highest levels of performance and reflect on the techniques and methods used by top-level professional musicians to create effective and convincing live performances.

SKU-MUS-17 The Freelance Musician

This unit serves as the preparatory unit for the critical review project in level 6.  Students will explore a range of topics and guided research, critically evaluating the academic work of others.

SKU-MUS-15 Studio Musician Practices

This is focused on recording technologies; it is strongly advised that you work with your recording equipment to apply as many of the tasks and concepts as you can.  A basic recording can be put together with the following:

• Computer 
• Recording software (Logic, ProTools, Ableton, etc.)
• Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) 
• Microphone and lead 

You may also choose to use ACM studio facilities to assist you with your tasks.

CIF – 701 – Professional Practice Frameworks

This module enables students to demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the professional sector-specific expertise required for a creative industries profession. Students here reflect on their own specialist and professional experiences and map to professional standard frameworks. There is the opportunity to engage with additional external qualifications through this module. 

CIF – 702 – Applied research 

This module enables students to evidence academic expertise in an applied research

context. Students will be able to use relevant academic research to drive their project, over two terms, where they will submit a final portfolio of work. Some examples include: professional portfolios, thesis, creative portfolios, live performances, creative artefacts and products. 

CIF – 703 – Ideas into action 

Within this module, students will investigate the project management processes needed to develop a project from concept to release, developing their own craft into project(s) which align with their chosen area of study. 

CIF – 704 – Making connections 

This module enables students to identify, inform, and establish a network of peers and relevant industry and community contacts to develop opportunities and advocacy in key organisations in the local community, research organisations, charities and the creative industries, as well as connect with communities of investors.