BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance & Music Business

The first Creative Industries & You module sets you on the right path towards pursuing your dream career in the creative industries. Whether you are focused on a particular career goal or considering multiple career options, you will broaden your knowledge of the opportunities available to you as a creative professional in your specific field.

In course groups, you will research career routes and examine the career journeys of inspirational creative professionals to determine key skills for success. In mixed classes, you’ll participate in activities to help you navigate life in higher education and the creative community, expanding your social networks. You will reflect on your progress, explore what motivates you, identify personal strengths and potential roadblocks, and support each other to develop realistic action plans to help you along your chosen path.

Supported by your Personal Adviser, you will create a Personal and Professional Development Portfolio, which you will adapt and develop throughout your studies at BIMM. This first iteration has been designed in bitesize chunks to help you develop independent learning skills, receive ongoing feedback and experience a range of different assessment methods.

This module also gives you the freedom to extend your learning by providing access to the Industry Skills Booster online courses, developed exclusively with industry employers, which you can select in accordance with career goals and identified areas for development.

The Performance Skills module will take you through the process of effective live performance through individual preparation, live ensemble performance and reflective practice. Weekly instrument-specific prep classes will equip you with techniques for effective part-preparation, memorisation and rehearsal strategies.

The Live Performance Workshop component will provide you with the opportunity to further your skillset through full-band live performance. Here you will receive guided feedback and feedforward from lecturers and peers to help further your own reflective practice. This will be recorded in a weekly Reflective Journal. You will be encouraged to develop confidence on stage, and the necessary arrangement and communication skills for professional live performance.

Good instrumental/vocal technique is reliant on efficiency – this module will enable you to develop the core techniques to be able to express yourself in the way you want to. Looking at various styles and theory, along with the physics and physiology of playing, you’ll be taken through the fundamentals in a step-by-step manner in a progressive way, leading you to develop your creative vocabulary, so you can say what you want to say, musically.

The rapidly evolving music business is a multi-faceted, technologically driven industry. Effective music industry practitioners must understand how the numerous businesses, organisations and professionals operate, how they work alongside each other and interconnect. Furthermore, due to the rate of change, it is essential to make informed predictions about the future of the industry and evolve operations accordingly. This module is designed to offer you a holistic perspective of the industry, from where you can clearly identify conventions, standard working practices and growth areas.

Following on from your exploration of the creative community and career opportunities available to you in Creative Industries & You 1, this module will help you to develop a deeper intellectual understanding of the creative arts and industry structures. You will be challenged to investigate some key contemporary cultural issues relating to your professional field, developing a contextual understanding through research, questioning and debate.

This awareness will help you to make informed creative and business decisions in the future and articulate them sensitively, acknowledging the different perspectives and experiences of others. You will explore pivotal cultural moments that have shaped the creative industries, exploring the factors that make something ‘popular’, and how key cultural issues affect both art and business.

Reading, research and critical thinking skills will be developed to help you examine developments in the industry and the creative arts, communicating your arguments in a variety of formats. You will have an opportunity to meet with your Personal Adviser in a 1:1 tutorial to help you identify your strengths and areas for development, updating your PPDP and selecting relevant online Academic Skills Booster courses to support on your path to academic success.

Applying the core techniques to develop your own voice on the instrument is a fundamental step to becoming a unique musician – the more diverse the influences, the more unique the musician. You will focus on exploring and analysing methods to expand vocabulary and develop open-ended creative methods.

You will create a short video demonstrating the creative application of techniques and theoretical concepts to a musical style of your choice. This will allow you to select the best attempts of each exercise for the final video, allowing you to add your own creative touches to the presentation. Compositions and recording techniques developed in Creative Technology can be used to support your video creation.

Building on the knowledge and skills developed in Artist Management & Music Business modules and utilising the skills gained in Marketing & PR, this module will develop your understanding of the processes involved in self-releasing music to a specific market. By examining and carrying out the procedures involved in the delivery and marketing of a release, students will prepare for engagement with the professional music industry.

The module will look at critical aspects of the industry including project management, income and royalties, legal, contractual and accounting elements, music formats, label management, software and hardware, music aggregation and streaming.

“People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.” Seth Godin

What do you think creates that magic that propels you to buy a product? The reason you even know about a brand and have become entwined in its story? It’s a tool behind every business and every brand and without it, they wouldn’t exist. It’s the wonder that is Marketing.

Whether discussing a brand, musician, product or event, it is without a doubt that marketing and PR will have been involved in their journey. Whether you have seen an advert on Instagram, streamed a song on Spotify, bought a product online or attended an event, it is because it has been marketed to you. Marketing is a sales tool, but it is also something that needs to be creative, unique, exciting and visible. Everything and everyone is marketable, it’s just understanding how and ultimately, how to do this well.

In this module, you will look into brand identity, messaging and communication, study marketing theory and PR practice and develop concepts, strategies and pitches. You will examine brand case studies, looking at examples of marketing campaigns with a focus on the positives and negatives.

The module will allow you to manage the marketing for your own music/event brand, looking into how marketing and PR are used in the contemporary music and events industry, and create ‘a big idea’ and marketing plan around this. The invaluable tools you will learn will be adaptable to whichever path you take for your chosen future career.

The creative arts have the power to bring people together, unite communities, support mental wellbeing, raise awareness of social issues and above all, bring joy to many people around the world. In Creative Industries & You 2, you will discover how you can turn your passion and talent into a collaborative project with a positive impact on society. Employing research and networking skills, you will develop a greater understanding of a charity, cause or campaign. In teams of students from all courses, you‘ll select a cause and identify a way to support its key objectives, either by raising awareness, raising funds or contributing as volunteers. You will be introduced to your college's partner charities but you are also able to find your own, or work independently of an existing organisation.

Through this collaborative project, you’ll develop essential interpersonal and communication skills, experimenting with various digital tools for enterprise. You’ll reflect on your own values, applying theories of human psychology to explore how to get the best out of yourself and each other. Building on your industry research skills, you will assess your target audience and define clear SMART targets for your project that will enable you to execute an element of the strategy and evaluate its success. In teams, you will spend time working on your project both in class and in your own time, developing effective collaborative working methods.

You’ll record your project activity in your Personal and Professional Development Plan, reflecting on how you have developed and changed over the course of your first year and a half at BIMM. Working with your Personal Adviser you will identify objectives, opportunities and actions that will help you stay on the path to success for the second half of your journey towards becoming a Creative Industries Professional.

In this module, you will focus on developing your unique voice on your instrument. You will study technical development in the context of creative applications – advancing your capabilities, and further refining your individual voice.

A broad range of stylistic contexts will be investigated with a focus on developing appropriate technique and vocabulary and how to apply it creatively.

You will be looking at technical studies that will increase the range, capacity and versatility of your instrument skills. Over the course of the module, you will select tasks and studies that work towards your personal and creative goals as a musician, pushing yourself to perform material that expands your musical capacity. You will also be autonomous in selecting the style and context for your performances, enabling you to further define and create your individual and unique sound.

The UK music industry has seen growth and expansion in recorded music, publishing and live events, highlighting an industry ripe for entrepreneurial development. Recent enterprising examples have seen entrepreneurs collect waste left at festivals and transform it into usable products sold for charitable organisations benefitting society and the environment and creating an economy where there wasn’t one previously. This module is designed to get you thinking about the music industry as a whole, both nationally and globally, to consider what gaps might exist for new business or what services could be created for new customer bases.

Throughout the module, you will consider what tools you need to create the next industry product or service, as well as how to relate this to self-employment and wider creative industries.

This module continues the exploratory work you began in Context & Culture of the Creative Industries. You will directly apply ideas to your own discipline and development, selecting an area of investigation relevant to your own practice, and communicating your argument via your medium of choice.

The concepts you encounter will actively critique claims to authenticity and originality; themes you will encounter frequently throughout your career as a Creative Professional. You will debate artistic production, the motivations for it, and the problems of creative autonomy.

You will investigate relevant contemporary cultural issues and theories relating to society, race, gender, technology, and the environment to develop your contextual understanding of how these relate to your own creative practice, professional values, and sense of personal agency.

You will be encouraged to meet with your Personal Adviser in a 1:1 tutorial to help you reflect on the strengths and areas for development identified in your PPDP in the first year, tracking your academic progress and setting new actions that will support you to achieve your best work. The research methods and study habits you develop throughout this module will prepare you for next year’s Final Project, in which you will self-direct a significant piece of academic, creative and/or professional practice.

“To master a new technology, you have to play with it.”

Technology has become ubiquitous with today's modern performer through the use of live looping, triggering, manipulation of effects, and remixing providing new forms of musical expression. The tools are now available to enable you to produce experimental layers of sound and textures to create and perform within the live domain. In this module, you will examine the various aspects of using music technology to plan, collaborate, and deliver a live performance from the studio to stage.

This module introduces the key concepts for financing creative projects and outlines the fundraising process. The module will cover a range of approaches that include grant funding, crowdsourcing, sponsorship, start-up loans, private income and support in-kind. You will develop practical planning and delivery skills including writing a fundraising strategy, pitching for money, filling out a grant application form, creating a sponsorship pack, managing budgets and risk, and evaluating impact.

In this module, you will undertake a significant project of your own choosing. It’s your chance to explore your passion within the industry and creative arts: experiment, take risks, strengthen your skills and create a product/cohesive portfolio of work that you are proud to showcase at the end of your degree.

This module will support you in consolidating the broad learning and development from the course so far, building a bridge into the industry, the workplace and future opportunities. You will be supported to self-direct your own learning through a series of lectures, seminars and 1:1 tutorials with expert supervisors.

This module will develop your ability to construct and implement a live ensemble performance to a professional standard, with consideration for your target audience. Additionally, you will critically evaluate the processes by which this is achieved.

By analysing high-level performances (e.g. Super Bowl shows/ festival headliners etc) as reference points, you will take into account all aspects of stagecraft and musicality to create your own showcase performance. The showcase will need to include; technical proficiency, creative musicianship and arrangement, and visual performance.

Throughout the course, you will also be required to engage in reflective practice by creating a digital portfolio (via Mahara). This will document your practice, progress, insights, strengths and challenges; both as an individual and as part of the ensemble. The portfolio may include written notes, images, audio examples, video recordings of the rehearsal process or vlog entries.

Acknowledging audience needs and expectations are central to considering what motivates consumers to engage with a product or service. The Service Industry is no longer enough, people now want an ‘experience’, something to remember. The Experience Economy focuses on audience experience, on creating bespoke events, greater innovation in business and always ensures that value is created for an audience.

This module will deconstruct audience experience through the analysis of consumer trends, audience psychology, economic impacts and industry developments. You will explore how to create exciting and innovative businesses to understand how entrepreneurs engage with specific audiences to fulfil experiential requirements.

In this module, you will undertake a significant project of your own choosing. It’s your chance to explore your passion within the industry and creative arts: experiment, take risks, strengthen your skills and create a product/cohesive portfolio of work that you are proud to showcase at the end of your degree.

This module will support you in consolidating the broad learning and development from the course so far, building a bridge into the industry, the workplace and future opportunities. You will be supported to self-direct your own learning through a series of lectures, seminars and 1:1 tutorials with expert supervisors.

This module is the final step in your journey and will support you as you look to enter your chosen field as a creative professional. Drawing on evidence from throughout your time here. you will critically self-evaluate your personal learning journey and industry engagements to date. You will explore concepts and theories of personal and professional development to support, challenge and test your assumptions, to determine your readiness for work in the creative industries. You will have the opportunity to discuss this with your peers and learn from your collective experiences in both small degree path groups and large mixed discipline sessions.

With this position in mind, you will then be challenged to create and consolidate creative assets to give you the edge over the competition in your chosen field. Specialist workshops will be offered throughout the module, informed and delivered by our wide-reaching connections and specialist lecturers in the creative industries. This culminates in the creation of a portfolio which tells the story of your personal and professional journey so far, communicating your unique professional identity and future career plans in the creative industries.