Practical Musicianship (W1000)

15 credits, Level 4

Autumn teaching

This module introduces and develops fundamental skills needed by musicians, composers, and producers working today. You’ll work on improving your musicianship so you can:

• collaborate with other musicians/producers/engineers effectively
• communicate and execute your creative ideas
• produce work using contemporary music technology
• evaluate, reflect on and improve your practice.

We explore key ideas, tools and techniques through practical workshops, supported by lectures, practical assignments and reading. This includes:

• playing and improvising with others
• understanding musical harmony and rhythm
• listening and ear training
• MIDI programming and DAW arrangement
• audio recording
• beatmaking
• collaborative production techniques
• writing, evaluating and developing a reflective practice.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2023/24. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum. We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.

Courses

This module is offered on the following courses:

• Music BA
• Music Technology BA