Professional Sound and Music MA

This course is in clearing

Overview

Course options

Select year

MA

  • MA Professional Sound and Music, home applicant, full time

    • Home Applicant
    • Full time, 1 year
    • Pound 10200 per year
  • MA Professional Sound and Music, home applicant, part time

    • Home Applicant
    • Part time, 2 years
    • Pound 1700 per 30 credit module
  • MA Professional Sound and Music, international applicant, full time

    • International Applicant
    • Full time, 1 year
    • Pound 15420 per year
    International applications are closed for 2024

MFA

  • MA Professional Sound and Music, home applicant, full time

    • Home Applicant
    • Full time, 2 years
    • Pound 10200 per year
  • MA Professional Sound and Music, home applicant, part time

    • Home Applicant
    • Part time, 2 years
    • Pound 1700 per 30 credit module
  • MA Professional Sound and Music, international applicant, full time

    • International Applicant
    • Full time, 2 years
    • Pound 15420 per year
    International applications are closed for 2024

What makes this course different

Professional pathways to industry

Our teaching staff and mentors have significant and wide-ranging industry experience and remain active at the cutting edge. Our collaborative partnerships with external professionals and organisations provide a dynamic space for creativity in sound and music.

Interdisciplinary practice

We recognise and nurture the opportunity of working in interdisciplinary ways, developing skills that can be leveraged for different professional environments, to meet the demands of a changing working practice.

Embedded projects

Creative and collaborative projects are the main mode of learning and development, in which a student’s professional context will support practice-led research inquiry and development.

Course modules

NOTE: Modules are subject to change. For those studying part time courses the modules may vary.

Your future career

Your future career

You are likely to have professional industrial experience and/or have joined the course as a graduate within the specialist areas of music performance, music technology and production, sound and music for media, games or theatre. This will inform your path of study and practice. 

A significant feature of the course is to establish creative and collaborative interdisciplinary projects applied in professional industrial contexts, which may include your current place of work. 

This mode of embedded study will significantly increase your opportunity to operate and work in a wide range of roles across the music, media, theatre, games and multi-media industries. 

Our links with industry partners will provide opportunities to enrich the professional practice and research base of the course.

Explore the different career options you can pursue with this degree and see the median salaries of the sector on our Career Coach portal.

How we support your career ambitions

We offer dedicated careers support, further opportunities to thrive, such as volunteering and industry networking. Our courses are created in collaboration with employers and industry to ensure they accurately reflect the real-life practices of your future career and provide you with the essential skills needed. You can focus on building interpersonal skills through group work and benefit from our investment in the latest cutting edge technologies and facilities.

Career Zone

Our dedicated and award-winning team provide you with careers and employability resources, including:

  • Online jobs board for internships, placements, graduate opportunities, flexible part-time work.
  • Mentoring programmes for insight with industry experts 
  • 1-2-1 career coaching services 
  • Careers workshops and employer events 
  • Learning pathways to gain new skills and industry insight

Mental Wealth programme

Our Professional Fitness and Mental Wealth programme which issues you with a Careers Passport to track the skills you’ve mastered. Some of these are externally validated by corporations like Amazon and Microsoft.

Our Mental Wealth programme

We are careers first

Our teaching methods and geographical location put us right up top

  • Enterprise and entrepreneurship support 
  • We are ranked 6th for graduate start-ups 
  • Networking and visits to leading organisations 
  • Support in starting a new business, freelancing and self-employment 
  • London on our doorstep

What you'll learn

You will develop advanced skills in sound design and production, music performance, composition and production, placing emphasis on the particular context of your work (e.g. media, games, theatre).

You will develop skills in working with technology as a collaborator, innovating processes and practices to support your creative project work.

A key feature of the course is our expertise in Interdisciplinary learning, through which we will support you in making interdisciplinary intersections - connections between disciplines to establish modes and models of collaborative creative practice derived from industry, as well as innovating through experimentation to develop hybrid approaches.

You will be guided in the design and implementation of creative projects, involving modules for the arts, design thinking, and innovation practice. This will form the foundation for your practice-led final project, together with the deepening of the scope and effectiveness of your research skills, leading to the completion of the MA course.

A further year of practice-led research embedded in a professional context relative to your specialism will culminate in a significant body of applied reflective praxis (Meta-Praxis) and research (Research Praxis), in which original ideas and concepts have derived and cultivated, capturing both planned and emergent methodologies and impact.

How you'll learn

This course suite will develop knowledge, cognitive and practical skills and experience for the emerging marketplace and employment context.

You will develop core technical and creative skills relevant to several industrial and professional contexts and select an appropriate programme title that captures the nature of professional practice within your chosen industrial domain.

Core skills will be developed through collaboration and in-context application across all programme pathways, and industry-specific skills will be developed and applied within the industrial context of the student's workplace, placement context, or chosen community / professional setting.

The main focus of the course is on designing and leading creative and collaborative projects that are designed and implemented by students, supported by teaching staff and industry mentors, to create impact for students and the public, communities and collaborators with which they are working.

Study will be practice-led, with a focus on developing a range of research skills and models for creative practice, applied in diverse professional contexts. You will also develop context awareness and responsiveness, examining the influence and impact of your work for and upon the many contextual layers interconnected with it, including but not limited to the social, cultural, historical, economic, technological, environmental, and ethical.

Assessment tasks and portfolios

Assessment frequently includes the creation of portfolios, comprising production reports, written reports, extended essays, and live practical assessments relevant to disciplinary and interdisciplinary practice.

Portfolio content will depend on the module assessment task in which the portfolio features, consisting of a wide variety of mediums from digital content, such as video and audio recordings, or digital images, which capture the production and performance/ media of practical work and technical outcomes. Portfolios will be digital documents presented online using web publishing tools.

Details of the requirements and content for portfolios and assessment tasks will be provided in module guides for each module. To allow for diversity and inclusivity across course clusters, it will be appropriate, based on the relevant course subject, to further stipulate the form of assessment required i.e. artefacts and performance/ media pieces captured as evidence digitally and or non-digital formats (e.g. published printed book), which may subsequently be documented digitally (i.e. coursework portfolio).

Portfolios will take the form of digital and physical documents presented online using web publishing tools and or physical portfolios that have been printed and curated into a portable portfolio.

From this practice, students demonstrate and reflect upon the process of creating and preparing a final professional body of work for professional display, and further development in production and or industry.

How you will be assessed

You will be assessed through the development and delivery of live projects, applied in professional contexts appropriate to your area of specialism.  

Project development, outcomes, and impact will be captured and disseminated and assessed by:

  • Interactive portfolios
  • Literature reviews
  • Critical evaluation
  • Research and development repositories
  • Presentation, workshops, and seminars
  • Reflective journals
  • Collaborative practice-led research

All assessment is a combination of 60% practical and 40% coursework.

Ongoing formative feedback will provide you with continuous support and opportunities for development and growth.

For formal assessment, we aim to provide feedback in 20 working days.

Campus and facilities

University Square Stratford