MU3005 - The Music Profession

You will attend five sessions with musicians making their living in various ways; each will be followed up by a seminar in which you will reflect on what you have learned from the sessions, and relate it to your own reading and research.

The sessions will vary from year to year, but they will cover areas in performance (solo/chamber freelance and orchestral), choral/church music, instrumental/vocal teaching (peripatetic and private practice), classroom music teaching (early years, primary, secondary, special, music therapy), musicology, and arts administration (festivals and institutions). The sessions will also introduce you to organisations with which we have partnerships.

The programme leader and Course Tutor will be on hand to offer help and guidance, either in person during seminars and the advertised office hours or via email, and you will be working in an environment where you and your peers will offer one another mutual support. You will be given appropriate material via the eLearning environment and the online reading lists.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:
• You will demonstrate a knowledge of various career options in Music and how they may be combined, and the skills necessary for them.
• You will demonstrate a knowledge of the music graduate’s skillset and how this may be related to careers outside Music.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
• You will develop skills in producing reflective written work.
• You will develop your ability to communicate through different media, especially oral presentation and discussion.
Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):
• You will have a capacity for independent, self-motivated learning and time management, thereby demonstrating an awareness of professionalism in Music.

1. Diary/Blog (50%) recording individual responses to sessions, combined with reflective piece based on reading/research undertaken for seminars. MLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
2. Essay (50%). Research what a particular career path (e.g. music therapy) entails, what qualifications you need, who offers them, and what skills you need to have developed before you start, or research the career of one musician (or a category of musicians). MLOs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

You will receive oral feedback on oral presentations and participation in class.

There will be written feedback on the diary/blog in the form of a report.

You will receive written feedback on your essay, comprising annotations to your script and a short report.

Entry to the Music Foundation Year in Music

N/A

This module is intended to help you think about your longterm career aspirations as you progress through the Foundation Year and look towards a degree in Music. What careers are open to Music graduates? You will meet performers, scholars, teachers of various kinds, and music administrators in the places where they work. You will be encouraged to think about the musical and generic skills you will need for various kinds of work in the music business, and about how the skills you acquire when studying music may be useful in other contexts, leading to the many and varied careers open to music graduates outside the world of music and the arts. There will be five sessions, some of which will make use of people working for organisations with which we have a partnership.