Music with Foundation Year (Integrated Degree)

This is a four-year degree including a one-year foundation programme. The foundation year allows you to develop key musical skills and experience to equip you for university life and to continue with our BMus Music which reflects the diversity and excitement of music in the 21st century and gives you the opportunity to mix many kinds of performance, composition, research and professional studies. It is ideal for students with experience and/or interest in one or more of these areas: classical music, jazz, sound art, experimental music, traditional music or musical theatre.

Why choose the BMus Music with Foundation Year

• This programme gives you the chance to gain key practical and theoretical skills and experience across music theory, performance, technology, composition and musico-cultural theory.

• You'll receive guidance in study skills topics such as critical thinking, researching and writing and inducts you into various musical and institutional facilities and services, from music studios to Wellbeing and Careers teams.

• The foundation year (Year 0) programme gives you an opportunity to make music with students from across different degree programmes in a lively and vibrant departmental community. This community features everything from orchestral, jazz and pop ensembles to gamelan, mbira and improvising groups.

• Upon successful completion of the Foundation year, you gain automatic entry into our BMus Music degree and/or an internal audition for our BMus Popular Music programme.

• In Year 1 you’ll explore different musical styles and approaches to study - through a range of compulsory practical and critical modules

• Later, you'll be able to choose from our wide range of more specialised modules in performance, production, composition, songwriting, sonic art, music industries, global musics, popular music, music in film and media.

• You’ll have lots of opportunities to perform, including in professional and student-led ensembles and groups such as Vocal Ensemble, Jazz Workshop, Contemporary Music Ensemble, Laptop Ensemble, Chamber Choir and Steel Pan Group. PureGold, our annual music festival, celebrates the music created and performed at Goldsmiths.

• We're within easy reach of central London’s many venues, concert halls, opera houses and research libraries, providing a great international focus.

• You’ll be set up for the world of work. Employers look for initiative-driven graduates who can work well with others, lead their own projects, think creatively and adapt quickly to new ideas. This degree will help you develop these skills.

• We attract instrumental and vocal teachers of the highest quality, with many of our staff also performing internationally and teaching at the major music conservatoires.

• Performance modules include one-to-one tuition on your main instrument/voice, as well as ensemble coaching, performance lectures and masterclasses from top musicians and other industry professionals.

Year 0 (Foundation Year)
You'll study four core music modules going across music performance, music theory, composition (including music technology) and basic musicology. You'll also study two broad-based modules embedded in our music studios, the library and London cultural life in general.

You will study the following compulsory modules:
Introduction to Musicology
Foundation for Composition
Foundation for Performance
Foundation for Music Studies
Building Your Research World
Reading and Writing Your World

Practical and subject-related skills are developed through class-based tasks, either individually or in groups, (including analytic, listening-based, or discursive exercises), or by setting up and reviewing follow-up tasks undertaken outside of class through workshops where you are given the opportunity to offer peer feedback.

Teaching style
The programme is delivered through small-group lectures, seminars, group and individual tutorials, workshops, and individual lessons.

You will also have an assigned one-to-one instrumental or vocal tutor, and a personal tutor who will guide your study. This mix of practical and academic support is designed to help you make the leap into higher education with confidence.

Year 1 (credit level 4)
All BMus Music students take the following modules:
Discovering Music
Performance
Composition for Ensembles and Media
Contemporary Music Industries
Identity, Agency & Environment 1

Year 2 (credit level 5)
In your second year, you'll take the following compulsory modules:
Collaborative Performance
Contemporary Composition
The Goldsmiths Elective
The Goldsmiths Project

The Goldsmiths Elective and Goldsmiths Project are cross-departmental modules which aim to provide you with a broad academic context.

Optional modules
You will then take 2-4 (60 credits) optional modules, chosen from the following list:
Developing Performance
Electronic Music Studio Skills
Pitching Creative Businesses
Music Production 1
Music and the Moving Image
Global Musics
Sonic Art: Contexts and Practices

Year 3 (credit level 6)
In your final year, you'll undertake the following compulsory modules:
Major Project
Writing to Brief

Optional modules
You will also take 3-5 (75 credits) optional modules, chosen from the list below:
Live Performance
Work placement
You as Your Future: Developing Creative Careers
Psychological Approaches to Music
Music Production 2
Music and the Moving Image
Global Musics
Music Education, Outreach and Inclusion
Sonic Art: Contexts and Practices
Music in Focus

Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.