Music and Sound Design for Film, Television and Games with Integrated Foundation Year

Music and Sound Design for Film, Television and Games with Integrated Foundation Year

This course is available to Home (UK) students and International students who meet the English Language requirements.

Our Integrated Foundation Year for Arts and Humanities is a thorough, skills-building course that will give you everything you need to start your study of BA Music and Sound Design for Film, Television and Interactive Media with confidence.

Arts and Humanities subjects, like Music and Sound Design for Film Television and Interactive Media, provide key ways of understanding our complex world, its histories, and current debates facing contemporary society. Identity, political and social conflict, our interaction with new digital and genetic technologies, our stewardship of the environment are all issues where the voice of creative and critical thinking are key. Literary texts, films, plays and digital games offer important ways in which societies have debated - and continue to represent - their values and their futures.

Our Foundation Year sets you up so you’re ready to explore those debates and issues, providing you with opportunities to gain knowledge and understanding of how to approach studying the humanities, including your chosen degree subject. Learning from friendly, expert tutors, you’ll explore modules designed to give you a solid start to your study of arts and humanities subjects, helping you to grow critical skills to explore a range of literary, visual, and cultural forms, including plays, films, and digital media.

Once you have completed your Foundation year, you will normally progress onto the full degree course, BA Music and Sound Design for Film Television and Interactive Media. There may also be flexibility to move onto a degree in another department (see end of section, below).

BA Music and Sound Design for Film, Television, and Interactive Media at Royal Holloway is a flexible, all-round music degree with a special focus on music and sound for film, TV, games and other media.

Studying across both our music and media arts departments, you’ll deepen your core skills in both areas, whilst gaining expertise in music and sound design. You’ll collaborate and work with the next generation of filmmakers and media creatives, designing soundtracks for new projects just as you would in professional practice. Whilst being taught by our expert scholars, composers and sound designers, you’ll have access to our excellent facilities including our professional-grade composition studios.

You will join a music department that is among the very best in the country, ranked third in the UK for research quality (REF 2014) and the only music department in the country to hold a prestigious Regius Professorship. Our well connected department means you have the opportunity to make valuable music industry contacts. Our staff are connected with musical networks such Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms, Royal Opera House.

• Learn to compose and create soundtracks for a variety of media and contexts

• Graduate with a portfolio of work to get you started on your career

• Gain musical and academic skills to become a creative, versatile and employable practitioner

• Study music and sound to understand how it works in film, television, games, and beyond

• Learn how to collaborate and work as a composer on media projects

Please note: On successful completion of your Foundation Year, you may be able to choose an alternative pathway which could include a Single Honours, joint or minor degree within Music, or degrees within the Humanities (Classics, Drama, History, English (except pathways with Creative Writing), Philosophy, Comparative Literature and Culture, Liberal Arts).  If you'd like to do this, you may take your Foundation Year Department Based Project in one of the other departments in Humanities.

We sometimes make changes to our courses to improve your experience. If this happens, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Course Modules

Core Modules

Foundation Year

• Digital Cultures

• Cultures of Thinking

• Society on Screen

• Textual Cultures

• Fundamentals of Music Studies

Year 1

• Theory and Analysis

• Fundamentals of Music Theory

• Introduction to Composing with Music Technology

Year 2

• Studies in Composition

• Studies in Music, Media and Technology

• Sound Art and Design

• Composing with Technology 1

Year 3

• Composing with Technology 2

• Creative Sound Design

• Special Study Composing with Music Technology

Optional Modules

Below is a taster of some of the exciting optional modules that students on the course could choose from during this academic year. Please be aware these do change over time, and optional modules may be withdrawn or new ones added.

Foundation Year

Year 1

• Fundamentals of Music Theory

• Creative Composition Techniques

• A Very Short History of Music

• Introduction to Historical Musicology

• Introduction to World Music

• Contemporary Debates in Music

• Introduction to Media Histories 1

• Critical Theory and Textual Analysis

• Digital Storytelling

• Screen Narrative: Theory and Practice

Year 2

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

• Music and Video Games

• Silent Film Performance

• The ‘Classical’ Canon and ‘Popular' Culture since 1945

• Popular Music and Musicians in Post-War Britain and North America

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

• Telling Stories with Music (Collaborative Module)

• Studying Music with Digital Tools

Year 3

• Practical and Creative Orchestration

• The Music Film

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

• Music and Video Games

• Silent Film Performance

• The ‘Classical’ Canon and ‘Popular' Culture since 1945

• Popular Music and Musicians in Post-War Britain and North America

• Special Study: Dissertation

• Special Study: Composition

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

• Digital Tools for Music

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/music/ba-music-and-sound-design-for-film-television-and-games-with-integrated-foundation-year/

In the foundation year, you will spend the first two terms working on your academic study skills and key themes in the humanities. You’ll enjoy a wide variety of perspectives and approaches to topics designed to introduce you to all sorts of key ideas and methods of study. In the third term, you will specialize in music, focusing on foundational music theory skills, or sources and methods of studying music. You’ll also explore musical topics and discussions in depth.

In the first year, you will learn the foundations of composing and understanding music. You’ll gain a broad overview of music to draw from in your creative work. This year doesn’t count towards your final degree result, so you can relax and explore all sorts of new topics.

In the second year, you will develop your skills for composing and designing sound for picture even more, while still having room in your timetable for other subjects from the Music and Media Departments.

In the final year, amongst other topics, you will undertake a large collaborative project. You will collaborate as a composer/sound designer on a project with students from the Media Arts department, working with the production team. This is a simulation of real-world professional practice, building your network and giving you experience and preparation for your future careers.

There are a wide variety of assessments and forms of delivery on this degree. Composition modules are assessed by coursework portfolios, but you’ll also perform, write essays, give presentations, and so on, depending on the options you take. Some courses are lecture-based, while others primarily use tutorials, one-to-one sessions, or seminars. On this degree, you’ll spend your time composing, playing music, writing, reading, watching/studying examples and experimenting with new approaches to music and sound on screen.

You’ll join a vibrant School of Performing and Digital Arts. We have a huge number of concerts and events, giving you opportunities to perform, compose and listen to music of any style, both as part of the degree and beyond.