BA (Hons) Music Performance and Production

We believe we've designed the ideal course for any performer, songwriter or composer who wants to work in music. There's room for everyone with creative ideas on our course, even if you haven't gained a formal music qualification. We're interested in anyone who feels compelled to make music in some way.

We don't want to dictate your musical path. You'll tell us where you want your music to take you. Then our teachers - all producers, composers, theorists and performers themselves - will help you find your way there.

We'll develop your specialist skills in music production, songwriting, performance and sound design. We'll give you the facilities and equipment to create with and the stages to perform on, and we'll underpin all this with a thorough examination of the history, culture and business of music.

Not only will we equip you to land a music industry job, we think you may just end up being the job!

Foundation year

If you don't meet the entry requirements for a BA, you can study this course as an extended, four-year programme. You'll begin by taking a foundation year which prepares you for a successful transition to the BA degree. This means it will take you four years to complete the course full-time, and eight years to complete the course part-time.

To us, music is a broad church. It could mean the creation of a top-40 pop song, an experimental sound installation at Tate Modern or a viral track online. So we'll offer you a broad spectrum of studies, too.

In your first year, you'll learn basic skills in areas such as musical arrangements and solo and group performance. You'll become more professional about your music.                                                                           

In your second year, you'll pursue your own identity as a songwriter or performer. You'll also think more about how you're going to produce your music.

Over the three years, your theoretical studies will include music history, investigations into how technology affects the composition and consumption of music and explorations into how sound connects with the body.

By the third year, you'll bring all your knowledge together to fashion a professional portfolio in your chosen field ready to present to the music world.

• Tawjihi: 60% for Foundation
• 3 x AS Levels: Foundation
• US High School Diploma: GPA 2.0 for Foundation
• US High School Diploma: GPA 3.0 + SAT1 1070 for Direct Entry to Bachelor's
• International Baccalaureate (IB): 25 points with minimum 15 at Higher Level for Direct Entry to Bachelor's
• 3 x A Levels: Direct Entry to Bachelor's

Our course is designed to turn our students into highly employable modern music professionals. The pathways that lead from our course into the industry are varied and stimulating.

You could forge a career in contemporary or experimental music. Or you could choose to stay in the pop world. Or write film soundtracks. You could end up composing music for computer games.

Anything would appear possible when you consider the range of careers that just a small cross-section of our students gone into since leaving us.

Some go into the recording business, like Joe Power and Stephen Peeling, who are signed up to an independent record label with the post-rock band, Codes in the Clouds.

While some graduates go on to work as music producers, sound designers and DJs, others opt for the business side of the industry in areas such as music journalism and music teaching.

Others choose to continue their studies, like Tomas Peckys, who's doing a PhD in Lithuanian dance culture.

One of our alumni now even boasts a double musical life. By day, Phoebe Osborne is a music teacher but she moonlights as a singer-songwriter for the alternative folk band, Penniless Cove.

You see, we can help give you the best of both worlds.

Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.