The innovative MA Popular Music Practice provides fantastic opportunities for you to explore your own specialism within popular music in line with your personal career aspirations. It allows you to stand apart from others in your chosen field and lead the discussion in contemporary music.

You are a popular music practitioner – either a performer, producer, composer or entrepreneur – with innovative ideas and a desire to work together with students from different fields.

During your MA, we’ll help you to turn your ideas into reality. We’ll introduce you to cutting-edge research and assist you with broadening your network within the industry.

Through four modules across Autumn and Spring Semesters, you will apply a theoretical lens to your own and others’ professional practice. Drawing on contemporary research, you will be encouraged to actively investigate areas such as popular musicology, performance and composition, the music industry and entrepreneurship and the application of technologies to practice.

During Summer Semester, the course will culminate in your Major Project: an extended piece of work that explores your chosen area of specialism.

Your contact time will be split between 1-2-1s with a specialist from your field, lectures and seminars where you study alongside students from different disciplines, and workshops with students from your own field. You will collaborate with both your peers and external stakeholders.

MA Popular Music Practice is a single qualification with a capacity to provide specialist-named awards including:
MA Popular Music Practice (Entrepreneurship)
MA Popular Music Practice (Performance)
MA Popular Music Practice (Production)
MA Popular Music Practice (Composition)