BMus (Hons) Songwriting

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.

In this module, you will be taken through the process of arranging and rehearsing your compositions to a standard suitable for public performance. After initial composition workshops where you’ll receive feedback and guidance on writing, there’ll be further activities in live arrangement skills whether that be for a duo, trio or multiple musician line-ups. Much of what you study in the Songwriting Techniques module will help inform what you do in this module, such as dynamics, harmony, rhythm/groove, structure and the use of backing tracks. You will also engage in co-writing, co-arranging and creative collaboration as part of your ongoing development.

Regarding live performance skills, you will work towards achieving and maintaining appropriate rehearsal methods and instrumental and vocal performance skills. Additionally, the development of musical director skills will promote listening and performing simultaneously, as well as communicating effectively with other musicians and leading an ensemble in rehearsal.

The techniques module enables you to explore songwriting through a carefully constructed programme of practical creative tasks. The course is delivered by a teaching team of established, published contemporary songwriters. Career planning, research and freelance skills are embedded in the curriculum, and you will also benefit from opportunities to collaborate with production and performance students.

Further study will be the building blocks of songwriting: chord theory, melody, harmony, lyrics and rhythm. The module involves aural perception, giving you the opportunity to develop your musical ear and recognise intervals and chord sequences by listening.

The module will take a traditional view of songwriting as well as contemporary, by exploring how approaches have changed over time. There will be writing partnerships, giving you the ability to collaborate effectively. Chord theory, structure and writing intuitively will be the focus of the module, as well as an introduction to lyrical and poetic devices.

You will study music theory, arrangement and computer recording techniques used in popular music. Many important aspects of the way music works will be studied, with a firm emphasis on making the content practical and appropriate in today’s creative environment for the composing, recording and performing musician. The module will cover important music theory concepts in a way that helps you to use fundamental theory and arrangement ideas in modern compositions and recordings. The module will also include an introduction to identifying key features of using a DAW.

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.

In this module, you will explore performance in its many forms, drawing not only on classic and contemporary musical performances but also taking inspiration from the broader arts such as theatre and contemporary art to create your own artistic vision. You’ll go from simply playing your songs, to researching ideas for inspiration, to collaborating through improvisation and planning a unique ensemble performance either as a songwriter/performer or as a songwriter/ musical director. In either instance, it is necessary for you to contribute to the songwriting aspect of the composition performed for your assessment.

Throughout, you’ll be supported by a team of experienced lecturers in experimenting with fresh arrangements, stagecraft, and sound and visuals; all helping to bring your ideas to life while building your confidence and independence as a songwriter and/or artist.

Styles and Genres is concerned with the deconstruction of musical and non-musical elements that create successful popular songs. This module will analyse the historical, social and biographical contexts that may have had a bearing on specific musical genres and notable songwriters, as well as examining external influences on these styles.

The module will require you to employ critical listening and aural perception to analyse music and lyrics objectively in order to understand how songs may work on us subjectively. This module will also look to broaden your songwriting vocabulary via the creation of an original work/song, in addition to providing a platform for self-reflection on the skills and aptitudes necessary for lifelong learning in this field.

This module will provide you with the support required to continue your study of music theory, arrangement, aural perception skills and mixing techniques used in popular music.

Further to the concepts studied in Digital Music in semester one, theory concepts studied will include the melodic minor scale, the harmonic minor scale and modes. You will also study extended chords, and how to mix music using a DAW and its processing to a high standard. The module will also include a study of acoustic theories.

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.

This module will familiarise you with the fundamental issues in music publishing, including key concepts of music copyright, collection societies, music publishing companies, and the royalty streams that they administer.

By placing publishing within the context of releasing music you will gain insights into the industry. Playing live to support a release will raise your development in a real-world context, and success on the module will allow you to interpret key terms used in management, recording and publishing contracts.

Musicians will be shown the impact that the various agreements can have on their careers, and you will develop an understanding that will enable you to make decisions and to communicate with professional advisors in an effective and informed manner.

This module will allow you to further develop the tools required to put creative energy into practice, inspiring you to engage in compositional techniques and technological processes to improve your skills as a songwriter and enhance your creative and professional practice.

You will utilise Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) for writing purposes, including the recording, editing, mixing and production of new material using industry-standard software and equipment.

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.

In Songwriting & Arrangement, you will study established musical arrangement aesthetics, approaches and techniques in order to inform and inspire your own artistic exploration in the creation of original musical arrangements. Classes will be a combination of the stylistic and technical analysis of existing artistic and aesthetic approaches, and a process of experimentation through creative arrangement workshopping.

You will reflect on your artistic exploration of arrangement approaches, culminating in an overarching reflection on your writing and composition throughout your BMus study at the college, as well as practical work undertaken during your Songwriting & Arrangement module learning journey.

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 requires you to present a final body of practical work in an appropriate ‘industry-ready’ format.

You will provide elements appropriate to the needs of current and future industry expectations for up and coming songwriters, composers and artists. You will reflect on your current work rigorously measuring it against industry examples. The work presented should evidence equal weight to aesthetics, original music and appropriate material for furtherment in your chosen career path.

Success on the module will enable you to tailor your branding to address the type of songwriter, composer and/or artist career path to which you aspire.

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.