Music

Music as an academic subject encompasses the study, performance and creation of music across a wide range of traditions, historical periods and cultural contexts. It is a discipline that combines practical musicianship with intellectual rigour, training you to make music with skill and intention while also developing the analytical, historical and critical frameworks to understand it as a cultural and human phenomenon. The two dimensions reinforce each other, as playing, composing and listening deeply are all ways of knowing music that formal analysis alone cannot replace.

Goldsmiths, University of London has a distinctive tradition in music, particularly known for its engagement with contemporary composition, popular music and the social dimensions of musical practice, which gives its music department a character somewhat different from more conventionally conservatoire-oriented programmes. This part-time degree allows you to pursue a serious and sustained engagement with music at university level while managing other commitments alongside your studies. The part-time format requires commitment and self-organisation, but it also allows you to pace your learning and to connect the ideas and skills you develop in the programme to your existing musical practice and professional context.

The curriculum covers musical analysis, history and theory alongside performance and compositional work, and Goldsmiths' particular strengths in contemporary and experimental music mean you will engage with a wider range of musical traditions than many music degrees cover.

Studying music develops critical listening, the ability to analyse musical structure and style, historical knowledge, creative thinking and, where the performance dimension is engaged, the discipline and communicative capacity that performing in public demands.

Graduates work as performers, composers, music teachers, music journalists and critics, arts administrators, music publishers, sound designers, studio producers and in a wide range of roles in the music and creative industries. The degree is also excellent preparation for postgraduate study in musicology, composition, music education or music technology.