Develop your own signature sound and production style, through this forward-thinking, cutting edge music composition and production course. You’ll be able to tailor the course’s content to your own style and skills.
The content will cover aesthetic considerations as well as technology and techniques utilised in modern music making. The award is deliberately unbounded by genre and there are opportunities to take an interdisciplinary approach to sound production, including contemporary electronic music, studio and field recording, experimental music and sound design for composition. Opportunities for working with visual media are also encouraged.
The MA Sound Production programme is tailored towards individuals who are keen to hone their composition and production skills inside an intertextual and cross-disciplinary framework that pushes at the stylistic boundaries of genre.
The programme encourages interdisciplinary and collaborative working methods with students from the wider music community at Bath Spa, as well as visual media and other departments within the University.
While the programme has a music production focus, it also covers key areas of practice such as:
sound design;
electronic music composition;
soundscape and field recording;
traditional studio practices;
sound engineering;
spatial audio and sound design; and
composition for visual media.
You won’t be expected to cover all of these areas. You’ll be able to use the course to develop an individually-tailored portfolio of skills, experience and top-level work across them.
The course is part of a suite of courses available across music and sound, operating alongside ‘sister’ pathways in Sound Design and Sound Arts, which allow further specialism in these areas.
Entry requirements for our postgraduate courses vary. We are generally looking for a good honours degree or equivalent. Some courses also require an interview or the submission of a portfolio of work.
Trimester one
Gain the skills you’ll need to fulfil the rest of the course.
The Skills Portfolio module is built on the idea that you’ll already have technical skills in this area, but that students entering the course have differing skillsets depending on background. It therefore allows you to choose a handful of skills projects from a large number of options – these cover skills right across the Sound Production, Sound Design and Sound Arts pathways and include (optional) elements of multimedia.
The Research Methodology and Context module develops skills in postgraduate-level research and writing. It is designed to give you the tools for an onward journey in academia, but not to be, in the colloquial sense, ‘academic’. It encourages your research to be around the practical and creative elements core to your practice and therefore to feed your creative work.
Trimester two
You’ll advance the knowledge gained in the the first trimester and begin exploring the intertextual possibilities of music composition. In addition, you’ll develop a creative project that will further extend the work undertaken on the trimester 1 Skills Portfolio module.
The module Intertextuality In Sound Production aims to capture and contextualise emerging trends and innovation at the forefront of sound production and composition, and develop composition skills that extend beyond the limits of genre. You’ll produce practical outputs exploring a range of influences from a rich milieu of sound related practices. The ultimate goal of the module is the creation of new music that explores the continuum between contemporary electronic music and more avant-garde musical forms.
Alongside the Sound Production modules there are additional optional modules that you can study from the other pathways. From the Sound Arts pathway, the Visual Music module explores the idea that musical thinking can be extended to the visual, and encourages students to develop multimedia projects that explore this idea. Sonic Architecture centres around the construction and organisation of sound, and focusses on the tensions that may be explored and exploited in both the spatial and temporal domains.
From the Sound Design pathway the Post Production module explores an industry-level workflow for audio post production for picture. There are also choices in composition, performance, musicology and professional practice.
Trimester three
Trimester three represents the culmination of the course, in an independent research project. While most Masters level courses consist of a substantial written dissertation component, the MA Sound Production programme focuses more on high-level practical work and the concept of ‘practice as research’ through the creation of a large-scale practical project.
The project will fulfil the same function as the traditional dissertation; you’ll develop individual and original research, but through the creation of a portfolio of works, rather than through the written word. You’ll develop a body of practical work which will serve as a substantial portfolio for the next stage in your career.
You can use the course to develop an individually-tailored portfolio of skills. This will equip you for the current employment landscape, where a combination of traditional music roles are required alongside broader practice in sound and other media.
The course also provides the breadth necessary for FE and HE teaching in the field, and provides the basis required for PhD research and beyond.
