Practice, Sustainability and Music Cultures (W3082)

15 credits, Level 5

Spring teaching

This module invites you to consider your emerging practice in the context of the changing landscape of the production, distribution and consumption of music and other sonic media.

You’ll focus on personal sustainable practice as well as considering collective and social sustainability issues. This means you’ll be able to better articulate your activities to an audience. You’ll also develop an understanding of what it means to make music as a contemporary practitioner.

We help you prepare for creating and promoting work, as well as anticipating how music industries might evolve, by exploring: 

• the history of musical media and its effects upon music industries and practices
• significant changes brought by the online world
• technology's role in contemporary music cultures.

Topics will include areas such as: creativity, curation, wellbeing, promotion, copyright, licensing and income streams, audiences, consumption and listening practices, distribution, experimentation and sustainability.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.