Popular Music Performance, BMus (Hons)

Program Overview

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The BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance degree at London College of Music (LCM) prepares aspiring musicians for the industry. Through individualized tuition with renowned professionals, students develop their musicianship, performance skills, and entrepreneurial abilities. The program emphasizes understanding popular music's historical and social contexts, fostering students' creative drive and equipping them for success in diverse music careers.

Program Outline

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Degree Overview:

Our BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance degree provides future popular music professionals with a thorough, industry-facing educational experience. During the course, you will:

• develop your musicianship and interpretation skills
• engage with current theories in historical and social popular musicology and performance practice
• deepen your understanding of today’s popular music industry
• nurture the entrepreneurial skills required for the contemporary musician.
Throughout the course, there are opportunities to collaborate and work with students from across LCM’s vast creative community, enhancing your learning experience and developing your network of like-minded industry professionals. Level-6 Top Up Option If you already have a relevant Level 5 qualification then you can top this up to a full honours degree with our Level 6 top up course. This course consists of a full year of studies covering the same modules as Year 3 of the regular degree.

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Outline:

This exciting Popular Music Performance degree offers you the opportunity to cultivate performance-focused skills which are vital to you as a contemporary musician. As well as exploring the placement of popular music as a broader sociological construct you will develop:

• a secure technical foundation
• a high level of performing ability
• a strong creative drive
• advanced knowledge of musical concepts including secure music literacy and critical listening skills

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Year 1

• Compulsory modules
• Musicianship for Popular Performers
• Develop an understanding of key theoretical elements relevant to the area of popular music performance.
• Develop a structured approach to group and independent learning.
• Understand the importance of understanding theoretical skills and how they can be applied to practical skills.
• Performance for Recording
• Develop the required skills needed to perform in a studio recording environment to a high standard.
• Develop the playing skills specific to the studio environment and increase student’s understanding to different recording and musical approaches.
• Extend listening, playing, and organisational techniques required to operate as an effective session musician.
• Introduction to the recording studio facilities at UWL.
• Understanding Creative Industries
• Appreciation and knowledge of the development of the fundamental structures of the global creative industry structures.
• Comprehensive grounding in the key skills and knowledge appropriate to building, developing and maintaining a career in your chosen area of the industry.
• Grounding in key figures within the industry and support organisations available to help in developing your professional careers.
• Popular Music Scenes and Subcultures
• Engage with popular music and its place in the world.
• Develop scholarly approaches to both non-Western and Western popular music.
• Apply your own diverse musical backgrounds and creative interests in to learning and assessment activities.
• Situated Performance
• Enhance student’s interaction with different performance environments as well as different types of audience.
• Extend listening, playing, and organisational techniques required to operate as an effective performer while considering the limitations of different performance situations.
• Develop the required skills needed to perform as an ensemble no matter where they are.
• Songwriting and Arranging
• Advanced knowledge of music writing principles.
• Covers three main areas relating to songwriting and arranging: lyric construction and form, arrangement fundamentals, and essential orchestration skills.
• Assess both the construction of songs, as well as the digital tools that can be incorporated to enhance arrangements.
• Learn the skills required to understand great lyric writing and song structure, narrative themes and writer perspectives.
• Understand fundamental instrumental arrangement.
• Introduced to skills and digital tools that can enhance the musical and textural content of their songs.

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Year 2

• Compulsory modules
• Advanced Musicianship for Popular Performers
• Develop an advanced understanding of key theoretical elements relevant to the area of popular music performance.
• Develop a robust approach to group and independent learning.
• Understand the importance of understanding advanced theoretical skills and how they can be applied to practical skills.
• Business Skills for the Music Industry
• Key skills and abilities required for entrepreneurs to develop new business ideas in the creative industries.
• Understanding how new concepts are generated is one of the key tools for contemporary and future creative industry practitioners.
• Focus on both the theoretical and practical aspects of initiating and developing a creative enterprise in the modern marketplace.
• Study of entrepreneurial traits provides the framework for the module, which includes the development of a credible business idea and the presentation of a formulated and considered business plan.
• Performance Artistry
• Develop students' understanding of their role as a content creator and a performer.
• Functions in a similar manner to a record label artist development (A&R) department.
• Gives performance students a deeper understanding of their relationship to the music industry.
• Research Methods for Performance
• Engage with applied research methods using ethnographic, autoethnographic and theoretical approaches.
• Critically reflect on your own creative practice through a process of data collection and stimulated recall.
• Assimilate and reflect upon the creative practice and research activity of staff and postgraduate research students.
• Develop a research question that will form the basis for your level 6 major project module.
• Effectively communicate ideas through a combination of verbal and multimedia presentation formats.
• Popular Music Teaching and Pedagogy
• Underpinned by an understanding of generic and music-specific pedagogic principles.
• Focus on a particular topic or issue relevant to building a career as an instrumental or vocal tutor, including: constructing lesson and study plans; understanding and executing appropriate teaching methods to foster technical, creative and expressive skills in your pupils; developing effective communication skills; as well as acquiring an insight into establishing and running a successful teaching practice.
• Leading in Performance
• Assist students in achieving their musical leadership goals using a combination of group management and musical literacy skills.
• Culminate in a scenario where students will lead a performance of two songs with only one rehearsal to prepare for the concert.
• Assume leadership roles and drive a small team of musicians in an experience similar to that of a late-night TV show house band.

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Year 3

• Compulsory modules
• Performance for Audience
• Collaborative module that encourages students to stretch their musical boundaries and develop longer thematically connected musical performances.
• Generate 25-minute performances that both sustain performance energy and deliver a well curated musical experience for audiences.
• Demonstrate a mastery of performance logistics, musical organisation, and audience engagement.
• Creative Performance Practice
• Develop an advanced understanding of key theoretical elements relevant to the area of popular music performance.
• Develop a robust approach to group and independent learning.
• Understand the importance of understanding advanced theoretical skills and how they can be applied to practical skills.
• Performance for Industry
• Culminating performance experience where level 6 students have the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of performance to a panel of industry experts.
• Propose and design a performance event in consultation with the module tutor that represents their aesthetic journey as an artist and performer.
• Promoting Your Career
• Develop the level of personal entrepreneurial skills needed by a current day portfolio career musician.
• Examine and investigate current social and consumer trends of the creative industries and learn how to interact with and reflect this in your commercial and entrepreneurial skills.
• Popular Music Performance Project
• Explore and critically discuss a variety of aspects of rehearsal and live performance processes.
• Evaluate your musical direction skills, focusing on the areas of interaction and expressivity, and form an understanding of the technical and communicative skills required in live, popular music performance which should be fully representative of this level of study.
• Plan and deliver a live musical performance, in which you are expected not only to perform to an advanced standard, showcasing your technical and communicative ability but also to lead in the delivery of an accomplished performance which is fully representative of professional level performance.

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Teaching:

• Bespoke 1:1 tuition with internationally acclaimed professional performers.
• Opportunities to collaborate and work with students from across LCM's creative community.
• Faculty members: Jez Wiles, Ben Bushell, Dr Tim Hughes, Christina Malley, Dr Remy Martin.

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Careers:

• Arts administrator
• Composer
• Community music leader
• Creative entrepreneur
• Musical arranger
• Musical theatre pit band musician
• Session musician
• Solo musician
• Songwriter
• Teacher

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UK: £9,250 per year

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International: £16,250 per year