MA Popular Music (Full Time)

Level

MA Popular Music (Full Time)

Southampton Solent University
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Description

A combination of specialist and shared units allows you to follow either a Popular Music Production or Popular Music Studies route. The course is therefore suitable both for students whose first degree is academic and theoretical and those with a mainly production-focused degree. A key feature of both routes is the ability to focus on your specific interests.

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The Popular Music Production route is flexible and allows for a choice of focus on live, studio or electronic music production. You will receive advanced technological instruction in our industry-standard digital and analogue multi-track recording facilities and audio production suites.The Popular Music Studies units cover histor…

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Didn't find what you were looking for? See also: Popular Music, Electronic Music, Music Production, Music, and BMus.

A combination of specialist and shared units allows you to follow either a Popular Music Production or Popular Music Studies route. The course is therefore suitable both for students whose first degree is academic and theoretical and those with a mainly production-focused degree. A key feature of both routes is the ability to focus on your specific interests.

&nbsp

The Popular Music Production route is flexible and allows for a choice of focus on live, studio or electronic music production. You will receive advanced technological instruction in our industry-standard digital and analogue multi-track recording facilities and audio production suites.The Popular Music Studies units cover historical, cultural, technological, contextual and critical perspectives on popular music, as well as music production analysis.

During the third semester, you will work on a major individual project, providing the opportunity to develop extensive research in an area of personal interest. You will be allocated a supportive supervisor whose expertise closely matches your interests.

This MA will help you to hit the ground running in the job market. Our national and local music and festival links, high-profile guest speakers and experienced course tutors will ensure that you graduate with the knowledge, skills and contacts to excel in a wide range of popular music-related careers.

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Industrial focus

Our tutors endeavour to maintain their industry links and will support you to undertake work experience. Undergraduate students have recently completed placements in live sound, theatre sound and recording studios. We have also recently welcomed high-profile guest speakers including: Rob da Bank (Radio 1, Bestival); Feargal Sharkey (UK Music); Nick Halkes (Incentive Records and Management) and Maria Forte (Digital Rights Management).

Course content

Core units

Professional Development and Research Skills: This unit will equip you with the research skills required for the successful completion of your major project. Emphasis is placed on research methods and techniques that can be used in employment in the media industries.

Master’s Project: You will design, execute and present an individually demanding piece of work that deploys a systematic and in-depth understanding of the skills and debates relevant to your particular discipline of study. You will be expected to present a project that critically synthesises approaches and methodologies, and demonstrates initiative and independent study.

Making Music: This unit examines popular music-making with a particular emphasis on technological perspectives, providing insights into past developments and emerging trends. You will also consider broaderdebates relevant to the cultural study of music technology.

Popular Music Production route: Producing Music: This unit involves an in-depth exploration of a specific field of contemporary professional production practice. You will develop and create a popular music production project to a professional level. The project can be an original musical artefact, a synchronised production project or be based onlive music production. The unit will enable the contextualisation of production practices relevant to popular music-making, creating music for audio-visual media or popular music in live performance.

Popular Music Studies route

Critical Issues in Popular Music: The interdisciplinary field of popular music studies requires knowledge and understanding of a range of theoretical approaches. This unit will examine theories in media and cultural studies, and critical musicology. In addition to exploring social and cultural issues of representation, genre formation, authenticity, scenes, consumption and identity, you will consider current and emerging approaches to music and production analysis. The focus will be twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular music in the UK and US.

Option units

Whichever route you study, you will be able to choose one of the following options from across our MA Media courses:

  • Contemporary British Film and Television
  • Contemporary Film and Culture
  • Critical Issues in Popular Music
  • Digital and Multi-Platform Storytelling
  • Digital Studio
  • Documentary History, Form and Practice
  • Experimental Film History, Form and Practice
  • Global Popular Music
  • Popular Music and Performance
  • Producing Television
  • Script to Screen.

Assessment

Assessment is through coursework including essays, practical production projects, group and individual projects, learning journals and seminar presentations, portfolios and reflective writing projects.

Key career skills

Problem solving, research and analysis techniques, teamwork, written and oral communication, and managing projects from initial conception through to final presentation.

Projects/work experience

Wherever possible, you will be assessed in practical real-world situations, gain experience of completing live projects set by industry professionals and undertake projects in the wider music production industry.

Why Solent is special

  • Industry links: The course has links with prestigious national and local live music venues and some of the UK’s biggest festivals, offering a range of work experience roles at: • Association of Independent Festivals
    • Bestival/Camp Bestival
    • LarMac Live
    • Blissfields
    • Wilderness.
  • Guest lecturers: High-profile music industry practitioners and professionals regularly visit to lecture, conduct workshops and offer industry-informed feedback on your work and opportunities for employment.. Our high-profile visiting fellows include producer Trevor Horn CBE, Colin Lester, CEO of Twenty First Artists (Universal Music Group), electronic music pioneer John Foxx, Carl Palmer of ELP, Mike Smith, CEO of Columbia Records, and Feargal Sharkey, UK Music.
  • Staff expertise: You will work closely with specialist tutors who match your research interests. Tutors have high profiles in the academic study of popular music and the music and media industries, and you will benefit from both their academic expertise and practical experience. The team uses its professional networks to attract other eminent practitioners, commissioners, agents and academics to support the course.
  • Special facilities: You will experience working at a professional level in our multi-million-pound studios and suites, opened by Trevor Horn in 2008. The state-of-the-art digital and analogue multi-track recording facilities and audio production suites are equipped with: • Pro Tools HD and Logic
    • Three D-Command control surfaces
    • Audient ASP8024 and TLA valve consoles
    • Neve, Universal Audio and Lexicon outboard
    • Neumann, AKG and Coles microphones
    • Waves and Sonnox plug-ins.
  • Pro Tools: The University is an Avid Pro Tools certified training location, offering the following international certifications: 101, 110, 201 and 210M.
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