Popular Music BMus(Hons)

This module equips you with the skills needed for success as a contemporary songwriter. You will learn about lyric and melody writing, chord progressions and song structure. Using different arrangements, and a variety of compositional and vocal techniques, you will explore a range of songwriting styles and genres, helping you to develop your own individual creative voice.

This module will introduce you to relevant techniques and technologies for computer-based music production, including sequencing, sampling, arrangement, and a variety of other sound processing techniques. A range of practical work - both technical and creative - will develop your critical listening and production skills, and seminars will support you in applying these techniques to your own creative work.

You will be introduced to the core concepts, theory and practical principles involved in producing, engineering and mixing popular music. You will gain practical experience in an analogue/digital recording studio, developing your ability to record and overdub a variety of sources. For the mix stage of the production process, you will then review the fundamental approaches and techniques involved in effectively processing these signals.

You will learn how to be a successful and confident independent researcher, gaining the skills to investigate music and musicians across a range of styles and genres appropriate to your course. Lectures and seminars will explore the musical links between aesthetics, society, politics, and technology, and you will focus your coursework on repertoire and issues that matter to you.

You will explore the musical building blocks of popular music, developing an understanding of key theoretical principles such as melody, harmony, rhythm, arrangement, and form. This will allow you to investigate a number of key works in detail, giving you an insight into how music works in ways that will also help to develop your creativity as a performer or composer. Coursework will be used to assess your progress.

You will choose two practical options from an array of ensembles, bands, and approaches to performance. Options typically range from conducting, music theatre, and improvisation through to groups like orchestra, big band, brass band, classical and pop choirs, and a huge variety of pop, rock, soul, funk, and folk bands. Specialist performance tutors will coach you towards assessed performances that are open to the public.

This module explores a range of topics in popular music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. You will gain in-depth knowledge of pop from a variety of musical, cultural, and technological perspectives, with case studies ranging from rock ‘n’ roll and Philly soul through to hip-hop, chart pop, and electronica.

This module will provide further study of the techniques of computer-based music production. Techniques examined in-depth will include synthesis, sequencing, sampling, editing, processing and mixing, as well as their creative application. You will also explore pre/post production and arrangement, covering these topics through practical technical and creative work that will improve your techno-fluency as well as your ability to listen critically. Seminars support you in applying different production techniques to your creative ideas, leading towards a coursework portfolio for assessment.

You will learn how to be a live sound engineer, mixing music and sound for gigs and events. You will set up and work with industry-standard equipment and systems from manufacturers including Digico, Yamaha, and Meyer, looking at routing, mixing (both front-of-house and monitors), and mic techniques. Lectures will be mixed with regular practical workshops and assessments, making sure you have hands-on experience of all aspects of the production of full-band events, including lighting.

Vietnamese pop, Baltic folk music, the British Bhangra scene, Aboriginal country music - popular music varies hugely across the globe. Drawing on techniques from ethnomusicology, anthropology, and post-colonial studies, you will gain the analytical tools to understand diverse musical styles and place them within their social and political contexts. You will also investigate the wide-ranging, multicultural musical life of Huddersfield itself, working with a group from the local area as a musical collaborator, ethnographer, or producer.

Supported by regular individual lessons with one of our professional visiting instrumental and vocal teachers, you will develop your technical skills and musical insight as a solo performer. An in-lesson technical test and end of year recital will be used to assess your progress, and you will participate in a range of masterclasses and workshops.

This module explores the role of the musician in a range of informal and formal music education contexts. You will develop the knowledge and skills to plan and evaluate music education activities, and enhance your understanding by undertaking a work placement during the module.

You will choose two practical options from an array of ensembles, bands, and approaches to performance. Options typically range from conducting, music theatre, and improvisation through to groups like orchestra, big band, brass band, classical and pop choirs, and a huge variety of pop, rock, soul, funk, and folk bands. Specialist performance tutors will coach you towards assessed performances that are open to the public.

This module will develop your knowledge and understanding of methodologies for musical research, including empirical and ethnographic approaches. Seminars will provide you with opportunities to debate and apply these methods to a range of contemporary issues in music and musical culture, providing the basis for investigating your own topic of study in an extended research project. You will be encouraged to explore new areas of study, additional methodologies and approaches to 'real world' research, and to question the ways in which music functions as a social, cultural, and aesthetic text.

Music and musicianship are important ways in which we understand both our own sense of self and the identities of others. Examining issues from musical composition and scholarship to performance itself, this module investigates identity in diverse contexts ranging from masculinities in rock and pop and gendered stereotypes in film music, through to the 'hidden' history of female composers, music and disability, and identity on and off the musical stage. A coursework portfolio will assess your progress, culminating in a research project on a topic of your choice.

You will build on the experience you have gained previously in composition, production, and/or songwriting modules to produce a sophisticated piece (or small set of pieces) of music based on a set of staff-led options relevant to your compositional practice (examples include multichannel audio composition, instrumental composition, songwriting, music production and audiovisual composition). Tutorial support for this creative work will be provided. You will be introduced to relevant techniques such as spatialisation, the use of complex orchestration/arrangements, advanced studio production, video, interactive or mixed media work. You will develop your ability to work with such techniques creatively.

This composition module equips you with the skills needed to write original scores for film, television, and videogames. Working towards portfolios of original compositions, you'll receive tuition in the technical practices of soundtrack composition: spotting cues, creating live soundtracks for film, arranging and orchestrating pre-existing music, and working with technology to create realistic instrumental sounds and effects.

Experimental Music will introduce you to new ideas and works from a range of radical and exciting musicians. No performing experience is required – just an open mind and willingness to experiment! Classes will include a variety of hands-on opportunities to make music, and you will be assessed through coursework tasks that include options for written work, presentations, compositions, and performances.