Popular musical styles have distinct and interrelated histories, and the performance of popular music has a set of long-established traditions. The study of this subject will not only develop the student's musical skills; it will broaden his or her knowledge of, and expertise in, the various genres that comprise contemporary popular music.
Why study Popular Music Performance at Chester?
Popular Music Performance is not just about playing music; it is about being a versatile performer. Any musician needs an understanding of performance, as well as an understanding of musical forms and styles; both the ability to play in front of an audience and the ability to play with other musicians responsively and sympathetically are crucially important parts of the musician's repertoire. At Chester, the course will aim to equip you with these skills.
Features:
This course is all about performance. You will spend your time looking at performers and talking and writing about how they perform, learning about the technology that performers use, and lots of performing.
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Programme Structure:
Year 1
Popular Music Practice (Core)
A double module, primarily including band performance workshops, small group instrumental tutorials, introductory music theory, live PA work and choral ensemble skills. This module helps to make connections between the main elements of practice and music theory within popular music.
Introduction to Popular Music Studies (Core)
This module introduces some of the key concepts and theories within the field of popular music studies.
Music, Harmony and Understanding (Core)
This module is designed to help students to understand the place of harmony, and its importance within the performance of popular music. It also gives them a basic introduction to musicology and the way in which we listen to, and understand, what we hear.
Performance Platform 1 (Core)
This module aims to develop the student's understanding of their instrument and/or voice, and gives students an opportunity to reflect carefully on how to make appropriate decisions about repertoire selection.
Popular Music: Histories (Core)
This module follows the broad development of popular music in the 20th and 21st Centuries. Focussing on the period from the mid 1950s through to the present, it deals with the evolution of definitions of popular music; the changing role that popular music has played in Western society; the evolution of the popular music industry; and an examination of the work of representative artists and groups.
Year 2
Musicianship and Performance (Core)
This module advances and diversifies the student's instrumental and/or vocal skills alongside an awareness and an ability to play in group situations. It serves to develop an advanced understanding of the etiquette of playing with other musicians, and helps students to develop advanced skills for live performance
Popular Music: Genres and Contexts (Core)
This module provides students with an overview of the development of popular music in the 20th and early 21st Centuries. It introduces students to the main movements in the field, and to the critical and theoretical debates that have grown up around the study of popular music.
The module also looks at the organisation of the music business, both as it relates to the development of various genres and as an object of study in its own right.
Songwriting and Composition
This module introduces students to a range of compositional techniques associated with a variety of popular music styles and genres. It gives students an opportunity to analyse different styles of writing and an ability to incorporate this understanding within their own songwriting.
Popular Music: Case Studies (Core)
This module consists of seminars dedicated to aspects of research in popular music (audience studies, performance studies, cultural studies); students then nominate a topic for independent research, and work under supervision towards the submission of a piece of research on that topic.
Performance Platform 2 (Core)
A continuation of Performance Platform 1, this module further embeds appropriate practices in rehearsal scheduling and efficiency, and repertoire selection.
Performance Practice (Optional)
Students embarking on this module will have the opportunity to engage in an intensive music project involving the preparation, rehearsal, administration and management of a performance event or short tour. This is an opportunity to bring together, and put into practice, a number of the skills acquired in the first two years of study on the popular music programme.
Work Based Learning (Optional)
Year 3
Popular Music as Event: Genres and Contexts (Core)
This module provides students with a detailed, theoretically informed vocabulary with which to analyse the development of popular music in performance in the time period covered in the Popular Music: Genres and Contexts module.
So You Want to be a Session Musician? (Optional)
This module concentrates on the skills needed to become a working musician, either in recording or live session work. Key areas covered are live sessions and recording sessions in a simulated real session environment.
Developing Professional Practice (Optional)
This module affords students the opportunity to address issues of professional practice and professional development. It provides an opportunity for students to deliver professional presentations and to participate in interview role play. Students use such opportunities to identify their skills, abilities and knowledge and to create personal marketing materials. They also identify areas for personal development.
Performance Platform 3 (Core)
Developing the skills acquired during the first two years of study, this module helps to consolidate instrumental and vocal work. It also allows students time to consider some of the key practical elements of performance in the wider sense, and how those elements fit in the context of the work they are doing.
Popular Music Portfolio (Optional)
This double module gives the student the opportunity to undertake a major composition project in any style under the supervision of a specialist tutor.
Negotiated Study (Optional)
This is an opportunity for students to undertake a major practical project in an area of their own choice. Popular Music Students do various interesting things in this module, ranging from writing and recording music, rehearsing a band and taking it on tour, collaborating with dance and drama students to make contemporary performance work, teaching in schools, and many other exciting ideas.
Dissertation (Optional)
A dissertation gives students the chance to write in depth about a subject that interests them. In Popular Music student cover an amazingly diverse range of topics whose titles have included: The Digital Download and the Downfall of the CD and From the Sex Pistols to Muse, the recent history of the male pop performer
