Foundation Year in Music Production

Foundation Year in Music Production

The Foundation Degree in Music Production gives you the vital, practical training you need to become a sophisticated music producer.

While no less rigorous than the BA (Hons) Music Production pathway, the Foundation Degree is more vocational, with most assignments written to either reflect industry practice or enable you to build a professional portfolio of work. A work placement gives you hands-on experience, while a year-long independent project sees you devise and create a fully marketable product.

You can choose to complete the course over two years (full-time) or four years (part-time). The Foundation Degree stands alone as a respected qualification, or you can top it up to a full BA with one further year of full-time study, or two years' part-time study.

The Foundation Degree is ideal if you:

• Prefer to study in a highly interactive, 'learning by doing' way
• Want to obtain a respected qualification and get real work experience quickly
• Aren't sure about committing to the three-year BA, but want to give yourself the option of topping up
• Did not achieve the 240 UCAS points generally needed to enrol on a BA course (the normal entry requirement for the Foundation Degree is 160 UCAS points)
• Want to study part-time

THE COURSE

While developing your core skills – theory and harmony, composing and arranging, production analysis, historical and cultural studies, etc. – you learn the fundamentals of music production by working in small groups in dedicated studio environments, and create and edit material using a variety of packages in the Conservatoire's Mac Labs.

Writing and producing music across a range of styles from contemporary songwriting to sound for the moving image, you identify your strengths and begin to specialise in your second year, when you develop a solid portfolio of creative work.

With modules designed to let you explore potential career options – and a work placement – the course is geared to prepare you for life after graduation. The Working in the Creative Industries module introduces you to the framework and mechanisms of the music industry, and in year two you undertake a substantial independent project in Community Music, Music Journalism or Events Management.


YOUR TUTORS

With wide experience of working in the creative sector, your tutors know the music industry inside out.

Lecturer Alex MacDonald Halliday is a specialist in digital audio recording, mixing and mastering, and composes, records and produces for high-profile clients including Opera North and Yorkshire Dance. Guitarist, songwriter, composer and course leader Jez Pritchatt has toured and recorded with numerous bands and was booking manager at the famous Marquee Club in London for many years.

They are joined by a host of part-time tutors, including songwriter, engineer, producer and LCoM alumnus Alistair Jowett, and BAFTA-nominated composer Neil Myers, who has composed for documentaries, adverts, title sequences and film.

Industry partners give guest lectures, supervise workshops, offer guidance on an individual basis and even play a role in assessing your work.


YOUR FUTURE

While many students choose to top up to the full BA (Hons) Music degree in Music Production, others go on to an MA or enter industry in a variety of areas including sound editing and design, and composition for media – and more than 90% of our 2011/12 graduates are in employment or further study.

Alumni include: hip-hop/urban artist Cynikal aka Foundation Degree graduate Tavinder Singh; sound designer, composer and theatre practitioner Jon McLeod, and composers Samuel Clarke and Lucy Claire Thornton, who both compose for multimedia (film, television, gaming and smart devices, etc.). Elsewhere, Emma Thomson's work as a sound engineer has recently seen her man the desks on a number of West End musicals including Les Misérables and Phantom of the Opera.