Popular Music Performance and Songwriting

The first step to becoming a popular musician is to think of yourself as one. This course is a practice-based, ‘outward-facing’ course that seeks to prepare you to be a versatile, flexible, and adaptable operator within the twenty-first-century music industry.

We are looking to produce critically astute musicians who are confident performers and songwriters, working with today’s technologies to make, reproduce, and disseminate music, and who understand the potential income streams available to them in the profession. Unleash your skills, build your practical talents and emerge industry-ready.

Key Course Benefits:

We offer you a focus on creative-based music skills in performance and songwriting which is underpinned by popular music theory and the chance to experience this in a vibrant and creative environment which gives you access to professional practices, new research and outstanding graduate support.

You get to engage effectively with a range of technology in the creation, performance and recording of music, including recording studios and live performance. And you can develop your own personal website which by the later stages of the course, is intended to be a professional-looking, outward-facing website that demonstrates the breadth of your learning and professional experience.

Visiting master classes are embedded within the course and have in the past included: Black Sabbath founder Tony Iommi, singer/songwriter Gwyneth Herbert; composers: Nick Ryan, Derek Nesbitt, Kit Turnbull and Juwon Ogungbe; sonic artist Trevor Wishart; guitarist Sam Cave; avant-garde bass clarinettist, Sarah Watts; composer and multi-instrumentalist Frank Moon; jazz keyboardist and music production composer, Andy Quinn. Masterclass visitors are subject to availability and may change each year.

There are regular opportunities to showcase your performing and songwriting talent in a public context throughout your studies. Performance spaces on-site include a large room with two grand pianos, suitable for small recitals, and The Hub’s Square One, a large performance space kitted out with PA, amps, drums and a grand piano. You will have the opportunity to perform in at least one of the city's live music venues. Past examples include: Studio 54, The Herbert Art Gallery, Kasbah, The Phoenix, The Cross, Drapers, The Cottage, The Tin, The Litten Tree, Ego Arts and Nexus.

You will have access to our extensive specialist facilities: a music seminar room with grand piano, PA, amps, drum kit, 5.1 surround sound and directly linked to a control room for recording; music practice rooms with pianos, drums and PA; three band rooms; a 5.1 studio and live room; instrument storage; an iMac music tech suite plus further state-of-the-art recording studios running Pro Tools, Logic, Live, Max and Sibelius on Apple macs*.

*For further information please check the course page on the Coventry University website