MMus Songwriting (Distance Learning)

4.0
3 reviews
  • It was so challenging yet so much fun
    |
  • Awesome place, friendly people and everything about this place is so positive and I would like to thank all. Lectures were good and they have everything that you need.
    |
  • Good, but library could have been improved.
    |

Master

Distance

£ 13,860 VAT inc.

Description

  • Type

    Master

  • Methodology

    Distance Learning

  • Duration

    1 Year

  • Start date

    Different dates available

Our distance learning Songwriting Master's Degree is a world leader in the innovation of teaching and learning songwriting online. Now recruiting for its fifth year, students have attended the course from Australia, the USA, Malaysia, Turkey, Ireland, Germany, Greece, Puerto Rico and the UK.
Combining regular personal tutorials with a range of online teaching and learning tools, the course combines personal and social contact with asynchronous videos, lectures, masterclasses and technique exercises.
Group webinars see songwriters from around the world meeting live to share songs and critiques, whilst our low-residency weeks in historic Corsham Court provide lectures and events around which our social connections are formed.
You are encouraged to come along to visit us in Corsham Court, although this is not compulsory, as our lectures and classes are filmed for streaming any time, anywhere.
The course maintains strong links with industry through publishers, guest artists and guest lecturers, and offers the chance to consolidate and focus your creative output whilst developing a perspective on your work informed by research. We are an Academic Supporter of the British Academy of Composers and Songwriters.
You’ll study with us on MMus Songwriting so that you can:

Comment critically upon your own and others’ material
Contextualise your work
Examine the musicological roots of your craft
Consider the commercial value of your songs in the marketplace
Rewrite and collaborate
Conduct academic research
Develop technical, musical and scholarly skills
Create a professional-standard portfolio of your work
Establish networks, collaborators and contacts

Facilities

Location

Start date

Distance Learning

Start date

Different dates availableEnrolment now open

About this course

This course is aimed at unpublished songwriters wishing to develop their art and craft to a professional level, or published songwriters wishing to achieve academic accreditation whilst continuing their creative development.

Our Distance Learning course is available on either a Full-Time study (one year) or Part-Time study (two year) basis, and course fees are identical. Similarly, the course aims:

To enable you to write and record songs to a professional level
To develop critical awareness relating to your own songs and others'
To develop your ability to perform/present your songs
To inform you of historical and musicological developments in songwriting
To enhance your understanding of the market value (and artistic value) of your own work
To provide opportunities for you to discuss current developments in songwriting with songwriters, producers and publishers
To encourage you to develop re-writing and collaborative songwriting skills
To help you develop technical skills relevant to songwriting practice
To develop your academic writing and research skills at Level 7
To guide you in planning and recording a portfolio of high-quality songs

Distance Learning MMus Songwriting is designed to enable students to develop a broad range of intellectual, practical and transferable skills. Previous students have gone on to become professional signed songwriters, lecturers, teachers, publishers, composers and therapists.

Upon graduation from the programme, it is the aim of course tutors that students will have acquired the core problem-solving, analytical and critical skills needed to adapt to the changeable and unpredictable work environment of the 21st century.

We offer places on the basis of the student's experience, potential and commitment as a songwriter. Normally, but not invariably, applicants have a first degree (or equivalent music industry experience) plus a substantial body of recorded work, equal to that which would be obtained as part of a related undergraduate course. Applicants should submit their application together with 3 songs on a web-link accompanied with lyrics. Applications are invited from candidates with a range of academic disciplines and from a variety of national backgrounds. Where an applicant does not have a degree, he or

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Reviews

4.0
fantastic
  • It was so challenging yet so much fun
    |
  • Awesome place, friendly people and everything about this place is so positive and I would like to thank all. Lectures were good and they have everything that you need.
    |
  • Good, but library could have been improved.
    |
100%
4.5
fantastic

Course rating

Recommended

Centre rating

Alex

3.5
12/05/2019
About the course: It was so challenging yet so much fun
Would you recommend this course?: Yes

Student's Review

4.0
11/05/2019
About the course: Awesome place, friendly people and everything about this place is so positive and I would like to thank all. Lectures were good and they have everything that you need.
Would you recommend this course?: Yes

Student's Review

4.5
09/05/2019
About the course: Good, but library could have been improved.
Would you recommend this course?: Yes
*All reviews collected by Emagister & iAgora have been verified

This centre's achievements

2019

All courses are up to date

The average rating is higher than 3.7

More than 50 reviews in the last 12 months

This centre has featured on Emagister for 14 years

Subjects

  • Teaching
  • Musical
  • Methodology
  • Songwriting
  • Song
  • History Of Song
  • Harmonic
  • Rhyme
  • Lyrical
  • Collaborative Songwriting
  • Musicological

Course programme

Songwriting Skills

As an essential component of this module you will engage weekly with a series of preparatory creative writing and compositional exercises designed to supply you with the raw creative material from which to increase your lyrical, harmonic and melodic range. These exercises are technique-based and serve to extend your creative palette and songwriting choices. Tutorial and group-playback support engages real-time with critical feedback and professional advice. Online virtual classroom exercises are supported by instruction videos and examine imagery, metaphor, narrative, rhyme, meter, melody, harmonic construction, narrative perspectives, intertextuality and rhetorical principles.

History of Song

Through this module you will gain a systematic and comprehensive knowledge of strategies and form used in popular songwriting. You will also develop an advanced ability to contextualize your own songs. With reference to popular songs written between 1920 and the present day, a series of lectures examines key developments in the musical, lyrical and structural development of song. The teaching approach is analytical and particular attention is paid to strategies used by songwriters to convey ideas.

Context and Methodology

This module is intended to fulfil the requirements of a research methodology module. However, since a large part of the programme is practice-based, and the methodology for this aspect of students' work is covered by other modules in the programme, it is intended to combine a study of research methodology with a study of context in terms of the student's own practice – specifically of a set of paradigms that characterise the field's current, creative and industrial boundaries. The primary teaching method for this module is a weekly lecture/seminar, with some tutorial sessions that focus on pathway specialism. The assessment item is a topic review, demonstrating an understanding of the methodologies covered by the module and an awareness of the context of the student's own practice.

Collaborative Songwriting

This module aims to develop skills in collaborative songwriting, enabling you to experience a variety of collaborative methods, and to explore the relationship between collaborative process and final song product. Although primarily based around a systematic understanding of the creative process of collaboration, the module also helps students to explore collaborative works in their cultural and economic context, including royalty splits, publishing implications, and issues of shared Intellectual Property between joint creators.

Major Project

This double module represents the culmination of the MMus, and a chance for students to work in a research-oriented environment dependent largely on personal direction and working methods. Students use the skills acquired in their undergraduate work and the first two trimesters to produce a substantial portfolio of practical creative work. The exact nature of this work is to be negotiated with the module leader, but it must represent the quantity of work required by a double module. Seeking to establish interdependence of enquiry, the module is largely student-led, with most of the work centred upon individual practice.

Course assessment

Assessment takes the form of individual assignments for each module. Typical assessments include audio uploads, CDs, online presentations, live presentations, essays, and research outputs. Assessment is continuous and there are no written exams

Additional information

Course length: MMus full-time: three trimesters (one calendar year); MMus part-time: six trimesters (two calendar years); Also available as a distance learning route. Campus: At home, although you are encouraged to come along to visit us in Corsham Court.

MMus Songwriting (Distance Learning)

£ 13,860 VAT inc.