Music BA(Hons)

The first year of the Music degree is all about upskilling and getting immersed in AMATA (Academy of Music & Theatre Arts) and Falmouth. You’ll develop your core music making practice, learn key studio and audio skills, as well as begin to develop fundamental theoretical and contextual knowledge of contemporary music and sound practices.

Modules

Musicianship & Performance

This module aims to develop your skills in performance practices and musicianship. You will explore the biomechanical, physiological and psychological demands of musical performance while developing your listening skills, aural skills, creative interpretation and stylistic understanding of music.

Composition & Creativity

This module offers you a chance to try your hand at three contrasting creative scenarios, each supported by analysis of current and past examples. In doing so, you will develop your analytical, compositional and creative skills.

Expanding Musical Vocabularies

This module will introduce you to a range of musical terms, theories, techniques and notations before helping you to apply them in creative and practical scenarios.

Specialist Music Practice 1

In this module, you will increase your knowledge and skills in your area of specialist practice and develop co-creation, collaborative and communication skills through collective music making and studio practice sessions.

Music and Sound: Context and Cultures

You’ll examine key concepts and debates in music and sounds studies whilst thinking critically about the relationship between music, sound, and culture.

Studiocraft

You'll learn to record, edit, mix and master audio in a recording studio environment using microphones, audio interfaces, mixing desks and digital audio workstations (DAWs).

Your second year is focused on specialising: gaining a range of music-making experiences and starting the development of your entrepreneurial and brand thinking as you explore the world of professional music making. You’ll identify, acquire and apply new skills as part of the optional modules, and you will have the opportunity to work with students from across the University on interdisciplinary projects.

Modules

The Creative Professional

In this module you will develop and expand on your skills and knowledge to become a creative professional musician. You will interrogate your musical skills, aligning these with specialist practices and their professional contexts.

The Business of Music & Sound

You’ll be introduced to intellectual property regulations and the subsequent risks of exploitation across the creative industries. You’ll learn the necessary business skills to work sustainably within the music and sound sectors with confidence.

Specialist Music Practice 2

Building upon the work undertaken in the Specialist Practice 1 module in your first year, you will continue to increase your knowledge and skills to further develop co-creation, collaborative and communication skills through collective music making and studio practice.

Music & Sound: Resonant Futures

In this module you will question and explore the relationship between music, sound, technology, context and culture in ways that seek to imagine and speculate on the future of music and sound.

Optional modules

Enterprise: Innovative Music Business Practice

Within the context of the ever-changing and shifting music business, this module enables you to approach your practice with agile, innovative, sustainable and ethical business skills and knowledge; from legal to financial, marketing to planning.

A/V Radical Artistry & New Media Aesthetics

This module unleashes the potential of multimodal creation, encouraging you to re-imagine your artistic identity by exploring the rapid acceleration and monumental shifts of the contemporary media landscape. You will explore the dynamic creativity of social media, vlogging, AI, TV, music videos, advertising, and graphic design.

Composing Music for Media

You’ll develop a critical understanding of music-image relationships and conduct practical work across a range of media. You’ll also enhance your composition and production skills through being shown industry-standard workflows and techniques.

Session Musicianship

In this module you will develop an understanding of the skills, techniques, communication methods and working practices of session musicians in a variety of genres and contexts.

Immersive & Interactive Audio

You’ll be introduced to a range of technologies, techniques and applications of immersive and interactive audio. The module is highly interdisciplinary and relevant to film sound, game audio, digital arts and experience design.

Advanced & Experimental Performance

This module aims to develop your abilities in the art of musical communication, flow, interpretation, expressivity, experimentation and versatility in performance. You’ll be introduced to improvisational and creative techniques to advance your practical skills and ideas.

Resounding: Situated Songwriting & Composition

This module encourages you to think about how your practice is entangled with various places—geographic, imaginary, speculative, utopian, abstract and psychological. It introduces you to new critical frameworks and artists who process complex issues like the Anthropocene, the internet, dark ecology and the climate crisis through their music. 

Voice and Listening: Life, People and Planet

The module will develop your vocal and listening skills alongside your creativity and in relation to an increased awareness of concepts in voice studies and relevant contemporary social, political and environmental themes.

You can choose to take an optional professional placement after your second year on a three-year programme. 

You’ll be responsible for finding your own placement, with support from the Employability team. 

Choosing this option will enhance your industry experience and skills while studying. 

How you’ll study during your professional placement 

You’ll spend time working in a professional context, as part of a business or organisation. This can be in one role, or up to three, and must be for a minimum of 24 weeks. 

You’ll develop in-demand workplace skills, deepen your insight into industry and grow your network of contacts, all of which could help you get ahead in your career after graduation. 

Throughout this year, you’ll develop a portfolio of work that includes critical self-reflection on what has been learned from the experience. You’ll be required to evidence your experiences, the skills you’ve learned and your professional growth. 

Your final year is geared towards solidifying your artistic and professional identity, knowledge, skills and networks in line with your chosen area of music specialism. You’ll develop your showcase portfolio, enhance your entrepreneurial practice skills and carry out career design work as you prepare to take your first steps into industry.

Modules

Music & Sound: Dissertation

In this module you will expand on your music and sound subject-based intellectual skills developed in your first and second years through an independently-driven written research project.

Professional Development

This module enables you to continue developing your specialist skills, contextual knowledge, experience and entrepreneurial mindset in preparation for the Showcase Portfolio module, careers and/or artistic practice beyond your degree.

Your Future

An inspiring combination of lectures, seminars and tutorials mix creative practice with critical thinking to help you to develop your sound, skills and artistic identity. 

Industry insights and expertise will come from our regular guest speakers and artists, like composer Graham Fitkin, Portishead’s Adrian Utley, conductor Marta Gardolińska, producer and guitarist Dan Weller (SikTh), and record label executive Darcus Beese.  

At Falmouth, we use a 'digitally enhanced learning & teaching' approach. Your experience will always be predominantly in-person, including seminars, tutorials and studio teaching, with some, more targeted elements, being online either live (synchronous) or pre-recorded (asynchronous). You can read more here.

Assessment is a combination of practical exams and coursework.

Modules vary in their assessment requirements, but all involve varying degrees of student choice, allowing you to design projects and tailor assessment tasks to benefit your development, and relate to your own aims and objectives. 

The course assessments are a combination of coursework and practical assessments tasks, including: 

• Portfolios  
• Studio Practice sessions 
• Performances 
• Journals 
• Essays 
• Dissertations 
• Presentations 
• Case Studies 
• Reports 
• Viva (oral examinations)  

You will receive feedback in a range of formats (e.g. written feedback sheets, feedback tutorials, feedback in live sessions) during each module.