Music
Tom Russell – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom
BA (Hons) Music Performance UCA Epsom
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Foreword
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Here at UCA we’re passionate about music and its connection to culture. As the number one specialist creative university in The Guardian Good University Guide 2018 and the Complete University Guide 2018, we deliver a unique learning experience. Tuition is carried out through small group work in tutorials, workshops and seminars, so you’ll receive personal, attentive training during your time here. We give you the practical and upto-date skills you will need to work in your chosen area of music.
Many of our teaching staff have industry experience – one of them has, for instance, worked at the centre of the music press for 25 years. Another was artists and repertoire manager for top artists at Sony and Universal, and is now an industry consultant and member of the renowned UK Music Skills Academy. Staff and tutors have worked for major record labels, media titles, such as The Guardian, Billboard and Kerrang! Universal, and music radio, including BBC Radio 1, Absolute, BBC 6 Music and BBC Radio 3. We have an authority on gender and popular music here, and another who toured the world with a punk band and whose specialism is subculture and live music. As a student with us, you’ll be stretched, challenged creatively, and shown how to use imaginative solutions. You’ll learn the theoretical context behind your specialism and be encouraged to put your ideas into practice in an inspirational, artistic environment. We excel at magazine publishing (print and online), and the latest developments in music marketing, creating professional web portfolios for our students to graduate with. You’ll get the chance to make radio and TV packages in collaboration with our media courses, and work on an artist campaign with students from Fashion or Fashion Promotion & Imaging – we encourage cross-course work, as it gives you an edge in creating a strong career portfolio. If you’re doing Music Performance, Composition and Technology or Production, you’ll develop your own sound and style within a lively creative community. Whichever course you pick, your time with us will encourage you to become a versatile and deep, creative thinker. With our adventurous approach to study, UCA is the perfect place to start your journey in music. Sarah Jeans Head of School Film, Media and Performing Arts
Shannon Cotton – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom
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Find the right course for you BA/BSc (Hons) Music Composition & Technology – UCA Farnham On this course you can choose whether to graduate with a BA or a BSc degree depending whether you choose to apply your work to a linear or interactive environment, offering you choice and flexibility. The BA route explores creative approaches to music composition and/or sound design and its relationship and application for film, theatre, animation and advertising, as well as exploring how to enhance physical and digital environments with music and sound. The BSc route explores the more technical or interactive side of music composition, sound and sound design, with students developing their understanding of the underlying principles of audio and applying their knowledge and skills to interactive environments such as theatre and performance, games design, audio installations and VJing .
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This course reflects the growing commercial reality of music and sound as an integrated discipline. In the first year you’ll build a solid skills base before learning how to manage a freelance career, as well as the legal and intellectual copyright issues that are integral to the changing landscape of the music and sound business.
We offer a range of courses in music.
BA (Hons) Music Journalism – UCA Epsom This course is designed to transform music lovers into confident media professionals. With its emphasis on multi-platform content creation, the course encourages students to find innovative ways of sourcing, creating and publishing material across print, online, video and radio. As a budding music journalist, you’ll learn how to write engaging copy – features, news, reviews, blog posts, and investigative pieces – for relevant platforms, as well as disseminating it on social media. This course has strong links with music and media experts, and Epsom’s close proximity to London means that the UK’s largest media companies will be on your doorstep, helping you to develop an invaluable network of industry contacts. With access to dedicated studio space, you’ll be guided through how to use industry-standard software, such as Adobe’s Creative Suite, to build a portfolio and put journalistic theory into practice.
BA (Hons) Music Marketing & Promotion – UCA Epsom
BA (Hons) Music Production – UCA Epsom (deferred to 19/20 entry)
As one of its most significant cultural exports, the UK’s music industry is world-renowned – not only for its quality and diversity, but also for the way it disseminates itself through the media. Behind every chart download, gig or movie theme lies a successful music promoter or marketing manager, working for artists, labels and audiences.
Our Music Production course will strengthen your knowledge of the music industry and give you the confidence to shape live and recorded music outputs. You’ll learn to communicate with bands, artists, and music marketing and management companies whilst developing compositional abilities and sound mixing skills.
With access to dedicated studios and computer labs, and guided by a highly experienced team, you’ll learn the transferable skills needed in music marketing and promotion – exploring the history of promotion and marketing in the context of the music industry, and creating innovative digital campaigns that embrace the latest techniques used in radio, press, television, online and digital distribution.
You’ll learn about the producer as auteur, studying areas such as music and popular culture, festival theory, and culture music and identity, whilst building a portfolio through a variety of live projects, collaborations, work placements, and networking opportunities with industry professionals. You’ll also collaborate with other UCA courses like Music Journalism, Music Marketing & Promotion, and Music Performance.
BA (Hons) Music Performance – UCA Epsom (deferred to 19/20 entry)
When you graduate, a wide variety of career paths within the music industry will be available to you, such as composer, arranger, producer, DJ, sound engineer or mixer.
Our Music Performance course is taught by an experienced team of professionals who will give you a global understanding of music and the music industry, teach you to question musical forms and help you to understand your own development as a performer. You’ll learn through live projects and work experience placements, have the opportunity to collaborate with other UCA courses, from Music Journalism to Fashion and Graphic Design, and network and engage with industry experts. You’ll be able to experiment creatively with music, image and performance, and by the end of the course, you’ll have developed a distinctive portfolio of work. Strong links to the music industry will help you learn a host of performance skills, work creatively with others, and make important connections that will prepare you for a career, not just in music, but in the wider creative industries too.
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Graduate Profile
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Bill Baker – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom, 2017
I chose UCA Epsom purely as I knew how necessary it would be to be near London for the course I was studying and the work experience benefits of being so close to the city. My experience of applying for UCA was incredibly easy and not nerve-wracking at all, mainly down to the inviting atmosphere of the university and my interview being a casual and friendly chat. I chose to study the subject as I love music and that I got a good grade in English at A-Levels – so it felt only natural to combine the two. Music had, by far, been the most important aspect of my teen years. During my time at UCA, I co-launched online and print publication called HISKIND across the UK and various cities in Europe, Australia and the US which has been an ongoing project over my three years. HISKIND is a lifestyle platform for gay men, the LGBT+ community and our allies that empowers and engages readers which I’ve been able to apply my three years of studying music journalism to and which has really benefited by entire experience of the project. My favourite aspect of studying Music Journalism at UCA has definitely been the small-scale class. For me, this means the student and tutor interaction and help offered has been the best it can be.
Bill Baker – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom
The experience and contacts the tutors have been able to offer to help has been incredible and I certainly wouldn’t have half the experience and knowledge I have of the music industry and the print media industry without the tutors. Equipment hire has been a true blessing for someone like me who couldn’t afford to fork out on cameras and dictaphones during my time at university. I did a short placement for BBC World Service in my second year which was pretty intense but really worthwhile. I secured the placement myself, mainly working within the live news rooms to produce news stories for the News Hour programme. My increased confidence has been the most notable change in the last three years. Pre-UCA, I was an all-round ball of nerves 90% of the time. University has definitely changed that and allowed me to go on and create a project that requires selfconfidence at all times – HISKIND has a readership of 140,000-plus views per month online and is printed across 300 venues in the UK and abroad. I plan to continue with HISKIND after I graduate whilst remaining in London, alongside completing a Masters’ degree in journalism.
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We create careers
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The music industry contributes £4.1billion to the economy and employs 117,000 people in the UK. It is the world’s fourth largest music market and attracts over 9 million people a year to live performances and festivals. With growing demand for talent, graduates can access a diverse range of careers in publishing, advertising, marketing, music production, performance, broadcasting, artist development and in concert promotion.
You can also get involved in technical professions within the industry that support the launch of major artists and live performances such as soundtrack production and audio mixing, through to planning radio tours, developing branding and preparing the logistics for music events. You’ll be able to work behind-the-scenes in teams as part of major live events where you’ll build spectacular musical experiences for public gatherings and business receptions. Whether you want to work with musicians, write breaking news, promote bands on their world tours or compose soundtracks and make your own music, you’ll learn the skills with our degree courses to prepare you for a range of careers. You could become an artist manager, a publicist, a music journalist, a production manager as well as a composer, a record producer, a sound engineer or one of many other creative professional roles in the music sector. With our close industry connections, you’ll be able to access competitive work placements and make music business contacts that will support your progression in the industry and help you get your foot in the door. Our previous students have been invited to work on projects for wellknown music brands including Kerrang!, XL Recordings, MOJO and Q. UCA graduates have also been offered roles at recognised media organisations including the BBC, London Live, Vice and Absolute Radio.
Shannon Cotton – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom
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Lauren McDermott – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom
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Portfolio advice
Think of your portfolio as a statement about your work – it should exhibit your creative journey, thought processes and influences. Don’t be afraid to be bold and appeal to the viewer, keeping their attention and leaving them feeling excited about your creative potential.
Make sure your portfolio is well presented. Remember, our tutors will only have a short amount of time to look through each portfolio, so you need to organise your work intelligently. Generally, we would recommend that you include between 10 and 25 pieces of work in your portfolio, neatly mounted on white or off-white paper in either landscape or portrait format (not a mixture of both). Put some of your most attention-grabbing and interesting work at the front and lead the viewer through your journey by exhibiting pieces of work that showcase a variety of skills, materials, techniques and influences – this might include paintings, drawings, photography, digital pieces, storyboards, animation images or written work. If you include moving image work, we would recommend a maximum of two minutes’ running time. Highlight your favourite pieces too, and indicate what or who inspires you.
What should my portfolio include? –
Find out more –
Your portfolio should feature examples of your research and show the development of your ideas and projects – this should be highly presentable and well organised. It may be useful to arrange your work into themes, styles or chronological order. This will demonstrate good organisational skills and your own artistic awareness.
The course pages at uca.ac.uk provide clear guidance on what we’d like to see in your portfolio for each of our courses. We’ve also put together a set of videos talking you through the process:
What is a portfolio? – A portfolio is a collection of your work that demonstrates a range of skills and creative talent. It’s your opportunity to showcase your individuality, creativity, inspirations and artistic abilities, and is a useful way for us to evaluate your suitability for the course you’ve applied to. It might contain design work, drawings/art projects, photographs, films, sound work, music composition, or examples of creative writing or essays.
uca.ac.uk/study/portfolio-advice
It should exhibit your creative journey, thinking processes and individual personality, so we can assess your potential. It’s also important to show both your inspirations and aspirations, as your portfolio should say a lot about you and your creative identity, as well as the course you’re applying to. Documenting the development of your ideas in a sketchbook is a great way to show us how you approached the task of creating your work, allowing us to gain insight into your creative thought processes and approach to your subject, and demonstrating a clear rationale. 11
Student Profile
What drew me to UCA was the proximity to London and the Open Day convinced me. I found the course staff extremely helpful and thought it would be the best place to springboard a career. My advice for anyone thinking about taking this course is to start writing as much as possible, as often as possible. The more you write, the better your writing will become. Music has been my main passion from a young age, and I’ve always wanted to follow in the footsteps of my heroes, Lester Bangs and Julian Cope, who write about music with such an intensely infectious passion that it’s hard not to get excited. I currently run a blog called Vapour Trail, and I’m working with some of my favourite illustrators to make a magazine that’s completely illustrated and full of passionate writing.
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Some of the aspects of the course that I really enjoy are making radio and video, as well as anything that allows me to write about things for which I’m passionate about. I think being on a course with likeminded people has allowed me to be more confident, and I think that it’s helped my writing to develop a lot more.
Cal Cashin – Music Journalism UCA Epsom, Year 3
I put on a gig in February this year at the university with three young, talented noise/ psychedelic bands. Loads of people came and everyone had a great time, and all bands involved are already getting bigger. I spent a week at MOJO magazine with help from Lucy O’Brien [Course Leader for Music Journalism], and I found it really helpful. I did writing as well as the usual work experience admin, and the experience was incredibly enriching for me as a writer. I’ve also written a lot for So Young magazine, which was my favourite publication before university, and I have an interview with DICE.fm next week, too. I have put on events and done a lot of writing I’m proud of – and there’s still more to come.
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Phoebe Fox – BA (Hons) Music Marketing & Promotion UCA Epsom
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Course leaders
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Dr J Harry Whalley – BA/BSc (Hons) Music Composition & Technology UCA Farnham As a composer, Harry’s music has been performed nationally and internationally, including performance on BBC Radio 3. In addition, he has composed the scores for film and computer games that have been featured at film festivals around the world, including at Palm Springs, LA, Berlin and London. Harry received an Arts and Humanities Research Council funded PhD in Composition from the University of Edinburgh in 2014, previously receiving an MMus (distinction) from the same institution, and a BA (Hons) in Music (Jazz) from Middlesex University. Harry has taught at the University of Edinburgh and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, and lectured and presented at conferences around the country. In 2016, Harry was the recipient of a Banff Fellowship.
Lucy O’Brien – BA (Hons) Music Journalism and BA (Hons) Music Marketing & Promotion UCA Epsom
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Lucy O’Brien leads our BA (Hons) Music Journalism and BA (Hons) Music Marketing & Promotion courses, and is the author of ‘She Bop: The Definitive History of Women in Popular Music’. Lucy has also written ‘Madonna: Like an Icon’, plus in-depth biographies of Dusty Springfield and Annie Lennox.
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Lucy has worked for the music press since the 1980s, starting on NME and contributing to a range of titles including Q, MOJO, The Sunday Times and The Guardian. Lucy has acted as a consultant and guest contributor in television and radio with Channel 4 News, BBC Radio 4 – Woman’s Hour, Radio London, and the 2002 BBC Radio 2 documentary, She Bop (based on her book). She’s also co-produced ‘Righteous Babes’, the Channel 4 film about rock and new feminism.
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‘I’m With The Band’, in Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music: Performance, Authority, Authenticity, ed. A. Adrian & J. Warwick (2016) ‘PJ Harvey records a new album in public’, Frieze (2015) ‘Not A Piece of Meat: Lady Gaga and that dress’, in The Gaga Collection, ed. M. Iddon and M. Marshall (2014) ‘The Enemy Within: Women and Protest Pop’, in Let’s Start A Pussy Riot, eds Flecknell, French, Neubert and Siveyer (2013) ‘Let Me Have a Taste of Your Ice Cream: Leeds post punk, feminism and the Yorkshire Ripper’, in Punk & Post Punk, Intellect Journals Vol 1 (2011)
Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lucy played and sang in the all-girl punk band, The Catholic Girls.
Her specialist research areas are music subcultures and scenes, feminism and popular culture, writing and publishing biography. Academic publications include:
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We create Sound Editing Suite UCA Farnham
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Epsom –
Farnham –
UCA Epsom is renowned as a major centre for fashion, music journalism and graphic design. Our resources provide students with the right ingredients for successful study including modern IT facilities, a media store, inspiring teaching areas, gallery space, a library, supportive teaching staff and a programme of guest speakers.
UCA Farnham has extensive purpose-built facilities for over 2,000 students studying a wide range of creative arts subject areas including film, performing arts, journalism, graphic design, animation and many other courses.
Other facilities on campus include: – Access to video cameras, stills cameras and digital recorders from the media store – Photographic studios and darkrooms – Two dedicated large teaching rooms/ studios furnished with computers and printers – Dedicated studio space equipped with both Macs and PCs, programmed with the latest industry-standard, specialist software – Fully-equipped photographic studios with darkrooms, digital processing and finishing facilities and full industrystandard lighting rigs – Laser cutter and desktop 3D printer.
Resources are available to all students, regardless of their course. Resources for music composition and technology students include: – Dedicated IT suite with industrystandard software – Foley studio – Protools facilities – Extensive equipment store for hiring cameras, microphones and video equipment, as well as laptops and projectors – Scanning and printing facilities – Access to industry design software – Access to the Media Resource Centre for printing and publishing. UCA Farnham has a long-term plan for a dedicated Film and Media Centre on campus containing industry-standard spaces and equipment. The building will include a recording studio, live room, dubbing theatre, film studio and performance spaces, to be completed by 2018. Please note, access to each campus and its resources can sometimes depend on the campus you choose to study at (for example, if you study at one campus, you may be using the facilities at that campus but not always at others – this depends on your course).
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Student profile I chose to come to UCA because of its close proximity to London; I knew from researching the field that the city is where a lot of the job opportunities are and Epsom was closest to that. I visited the campus twice and both visits confirmed that this was the right place for me to study. Each time, the campus was full of so much creativity that I instantly felt welcome. The best thing about UCA is that because creativity breeds more creativity – you always feel motivated and inspired to create things by the people around you. With the range of subjects, there’s a hugely diverse skillset at the university which lends itself to lots of student collaborations. Music has always dominated my life and been at the forefront of everything I do since the age of 12, when I went to my first festival. English and Media were always my favourites at school, so to combine my love of music and writing seemed the perfect combination.
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I went to Clash Magazine for two weeks for work experience. It was a placement I got completely independently and has led to me contributing to the magazine both in print and online for over a year now. The highlights included being sent to interview musicians on my third day, and being offered cups of coffee instead of being asked to make them! I really enjoyed it because it threw me in at the deep end and provided me with such invaluable experience.
Shannon Cotton – BA (Hons) Music Journalism UCA Epsom, 2017
The staff on the course are amazing because they have so much experience in the industry. You can go to them with any questions or queries and they do their utmost to help you as much as they can, their office door is always open, even if you just want to pop in for a chat. I have been the leader of the Epsom Does Music society for the last year, it’s the society responsible for bringing live music to the campus and this past year I have overseen students curating their own nights to add a variety of genres to the line ups. I have undoubtedly grown in confidence since I joined UCA both in social situations and in how I view my own work. I have been looking at postgraduate study options, however I think I’ll take a year out of study first to get some more experience with internships and then decide if a masters in something like digital or broadcast journalism would be next to broaden my skill set. My time at UCA has been the best three years of my life, I have learnt so much and had so much fun whilst doing so.
Next steps
Contact us – If you’ve got any queries regarding the admissions process or your application, please contact the relevant admissions team: UK/EU admissions: T: +44 (0)1252 892 960 E: admissions@uca.ac.uk International admissions: T: +44 (0)1252 892 785 E: internationaladmissions@uca.ac.uk
How to apply – The course you choose determines how you apply – this could be through UCAS (the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) or directly to UCA. uca.ac.uk/study/how-to-apply ucas.com/apply
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