Popular Music FdA

Course overview

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This course is delivered at Bournemouth & Poole College.

The Foundation Degree in Popular Music aims to produce musicians with the compositional, performance, technological, theoretical and business skills required to compete in the twenty-first century music industry.

The course focuses primarily on Rock and Pop of the past fifty years, though other styles of twentieth and twenty-first century music (especially Jazz) also play a part in the curriculum. All students are expected to be competent instrumentalists and/or singers: live performance is a central part of the course. Composition and songwriting are also essential components, with composing for film, theatre and dance being a particular strength of this course. Students will become familiar with the use of music technology in performance, composition and recording. An understanding of popular music's place in society is developed through contextual studies and music business studies.

The course also develops important transferable skills such as working in teams, research and analysis.

FdA Popular Music is taught in excellent dedicated facilities at the Knighton Heath Music Centre, located on the outskirts of Bournemouth, and is one of the best- equipped music centres in the South. The teaching team has a wealth of professional experience and strong links with the music industry.

Students who have successfully completed this programme will be eligible for entry to the one year BA (Hons) Popular Music Performance top-up course at Southampton Solent University.

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