Music with Foundation Year (Integrated Degree)
Goldsmiths, University of London
UCAS Code: W310 | Bachelor of Music (with Honours) - BMus (Hon)
Entry requirements
Sorry, no information to show
About this course
**This is a four-year degree including a one-year foundation programme. The foundation year allows you to develop key musical skills and experience to equip you for university life and to continue with our BMus Music.**
**Why choose the BMus Music with Foundation Year**
- This programme gives you the chance to gain key practical and theoretical skills and experience across music theory, performance, technology, composition and musico-cultural theory.
- You'll receive guidance in study skills topics such as critical thinking, researching and writing and inducts you into various musical and institutional facilities and services, from music studios to Wellbeing and Careers teams.
- The Foundation year (Year 0) programme gives you an opportunity to make music with students from across different degree programmes in a lively and vibrant departmental community. This community features everything from orchestral, jazz and pop ensembles to gamelan, mbira and improvising groups.
- Upon successful completion of the Foundation year, you gain automatic entry into our BMus Music degree and/or an internal audition for our BMus Popular Music programme.
- In Year 1 you’ll explore different musical styles and approaches to study - through a range of compulsory practical and critical modules
- Later, you'll be able to choose from our wide range of jazz, sonic art, popular and fringe music modules as well as our practical, skills-based workshop and teaching modules
- You'll also have the opportunity to perform at open mics, student-run showcase and PureGold, our annual music festival that celebrates music created and performed at Goldsmiths.
- You'll be within easy reach of South East London's many venues during your time with us, as well as those across the capital, which provide a connection to music, art, dance, and theatre with an international focus, but also to local promoters, labels and the London-based music industry.
- Goldsmiths has strong links with the music industry, employing professional musicians, producers, and artists as guest speakers and as lecturers.
- We also present frequent, high-profile speakers from the music industry at our talks and events. Recently, these have included Dave Okumu, Nigel Godrich, Darkstar, Mica Levi, Matana Roberts, and Arts Council Music Relationship Managers.
- We attract instrumental and vocal teachers of the highest quality, with many of our staff also teaching at the major music conservatoires. Our performance modules are supplemented with ensemble classes and masterclasses given by top professional musicians. First-year BMus Music students are currently entitled to 12 hours of one-to-one tuition per year
Modules
Year 0 (Foundation Year)
You'll study four core music modules going across music performance, music theory, composition (including music technology) and basic musicology. You'll also study two broad-based modules embedded in our music studios, the library and London cultural life in general.
Practical and subject-related skills are developed through class-based tasks, either individually or in groups, (including analytic, listening-based, or discursive exercises), or by setting up and reviewing follow-up tasks undertaken outside of class through workshops where you are given the opportunity to offer peer feedback.
You will also have an assigned one-to-one instrumental or vocal tutor, and a personal tutor who will guide your study. This mix of practical and academic support is designed to help you make the leap into higher education with confidence.
You will study the following compulsory modules.
Introduction to Musicology
Foundation for Composition
Foundation for Performance
Foundation for Music Studies
Building Your Research World
Reading and Writing Your World
Option modules will become available to you should you proceed onto either the BMus Music or BMus Popular Music on successful completion of your foundation year.
Year 1 (credit level 4)
All BMus Music students take the following modules:
Discovering Music
Performance: Techniques and Repertoire
Composition
Materials, Signs and Symbols
Critical Approaches to Contemporary Music
Year 2 (credit level 5)
In your second year, you'll take at least one and up to three of the following compulsory modules:
Sounding the 19th Century
Aesthetics, Meaning and Culture
Music and Identity
You'll then use your remaining credits (up to 105 credits or 7 modules, depending on your compulsory modules choices) to select from the below list of optional modules:
Performance: Styles and Contexts
Techniques of Contemporary Composition
Composition: Creative Strategies
Electroacoustic Composition
Making Experimental Sound
Techniques in Jazz and Popular Music
Arranging and Composing for the Jazz Ensemble
Contemporary Jazz Performance the UK Scene
Media Composition
Music/Modernities
Soviet Music and Politics
Music Practice and the Black Atlantic: Britain’s Celebrity Culture
Music in Film
What is Jazz?
Sound as Art
Musics of East Asia: Politics, Industry, Creativity
Music of Africa and Asia
Pitching Creative Businesses: Models, Markets and Meaning
Goldsmiths’ Social Change Module
The Goldsmiths Elective
Year 3 (credit level 6)
In your final year, you'll take at least one, and up to two of the following compulsory modules:
Performance: Creative Practice
Composition portfolio
Research Project
You'll then use your remaining credits (up to 90 credits or 6 modules, depending on your compulsory modules selection) to choose from the following optional modules:
Contemporary Jazz Performance the UK Scene
Acoustic Ecology and Field Recording
Performing South-East Asian Music
Improvisation
Creative Orchestration and Arrangement
Introduction to Audiovisual Composition
Music/Modernities
Soviet Music and Politics
Music Practice and the Black Atlantic: Britain’s Celebrity Culture
Music and Screen Media
Advanced Popular Music Studies
Fringe and Underground Musics
Music in Educational, Community and Therapeutic Contexts
Music Workshop Skills
Music Teaching Skills
DIY Practice and Alternative Sites for Music
Live Electronics
Work placement
You as Your Future: Developing Creative Careers
Psychological Approaches to Music
Please note that due to staff research commitments not all of these modules may be available every year.
What students say
We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.
How do students rate their degree experience?
The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Music
Teaching and learning
Assessment and feedback
Resources and organisation
Student voice
Who studies this subject and how do they get on?
Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)
After graduation
The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.
Music
What are graduates doing after six months?
This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.
Top job areas of graduates
What about your long term prospects?
Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.
Music
The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.
£14k
£21k
£21k
Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.
Explore these similar courses...
Higher entry requirementsLower entry requirements
Nearby UniversitySame UniversityThis is what the university has told Ucas about the criteria they expect applicants to satisfy; some may be compulsory, others may be preferable.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is the percentage of applicants to this course who received an offer last year, through Ucas.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Course location and department:
This is what the university has told Ucas about the course. Use it to get a quick idea about what makes it unique compared to similar courses, elsewhere.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):
We've received this information from the Department for Education, via Ucas. This is how the university as a whole has been rated for its quality of teaching: gold silver or bronze. Note, not all universities have taken part in the TEF.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).
This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.
You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Post-six month graduation stats:
This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.
It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
Graduate field commentary:
The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?
Have a question about this info? Learn more here
