The BA (Hons) Songwriting & Music Production course is designed for songwriters, DIY producers, and creative performers who want to write, produce, and perform original music. Whether you're developing your sound as a solo artist, exploring storytelling, or experimenting with different creative approaches, this course helps you grow as a self-sufficient and forward-thinking music maker. You’ll explore songwriting across a range of styles and contexts, from introspective lyricism to commercial topline, and conceptual work to genre-fluid expression. Alongside this, you’ll build technical confidence in music production, learning how to record, arrange, and refine your work with creative control. This course will help you to shape your artistic identity, build a distinctive body of work, and prepare for a career as a versatile, original, and self-driven music artist.
Why you'll love this course
Artistry at the core - Develop as a songwriting artist and performer through modules that explore lyrics, melody, harmony, structure, narrative, and engaging live delivery. Your creative identity is the focus, supported by space to experiment and grow.
Learn to self-produce - Build the technical fluency to produce your own music with confidence. From demo creation to final mix, you’ll gain hands-on experience with professional tools and workflows that empower creative independence.
Experience and collaboration - Work with producers, vocalists, musicians, composers, DJs, technologists, event managers, audio engineers and sound designers on projects that reflect real-world creative practice.
Year 1
In your first year, you’ll build a strong foundation in songwriting, music production, and creative performance. You’ll explore structure, melody, harmony, lyrics, and musical storytelling while developing essential skills in studio craft, mixing, and collaborative practice. One-to-one songwriting support and creative performance workshops help you shape your identity and develop confidence in your voice and ideas. This year is about developing fundamental songwriting skills, learning to self-produce, and finding new ways to bring your songs to life.
Year 2
In Year 2, you’ll deepen your songwriting practice, refine your production skills, and explore more advanced approaches to arrangement, narrative, and creative direction. You’ll continue to receive one-to-one support as you begin to define your artistic voice and build a more intentional body of work. You’ll also choose from a range of optional modules in areas such as commercial music creation, immersive audio, marketing, performance technologies, and scoring and arranging. You’ll also work more independently, with increased emphasis on collaboration, creative research, and real-world application to help you prepare for your final year projects.
Year 3
Your final year is all about realising your creative vision and preparing for professional life. You’ll complete two major self-directed projects: one focused on building an industry-ready portfolio that reflects your artistic identity, and another that explores an area of innovative practice through songwriting, production and/or performance. You’ll also have the opportunity to explore optional modules in areas such as education and wellbeing, music industry management, or collaborative creative practice. A research-led module in sound cultures encourages deeper reflection on the cultural, social, or political dimensions of your work and its place within the wider music landscape. This is your opportunity to develop a bold and original body of work, define your next steps, and graduate as a confident, multi-skilled music creator.
Year 1 - Core Modules
Year 2 - Core Modules
Year 2 - Option Modules
Year 3 - Core Modules
Year 3 - Option Modules
Please note. Option modules are subject to availability and may change, depending on factors such as demand, staffing and timetabling. As part of our process of continuous improvement, we routinely review course content to ensure that all our students benefit from a high-quality and rewarding academic experience. As such, there may be some changes made to your course which are not immediately reflected in the content displayed on our website. Any students affected will be informed of any changes made directly.
Learning is practical, collaborative, and artist-led. You’ll spend time in studios, rehearsal spaces, and production environments, developing your ideas through workshops, technical sessions, and one-to-one tutorials. Songwriting and performance development is embedded in your experience, supported by creative production training that helps you bring your songs to life. You’ll learn how to write, produce, and perform your work with intention, building confidence in your artistic identity.
Assessment Methods:
Assessments are 100% coursework.
Written assignments.
Presentations.
Portfolio development of creative, practical and/or technical work.
The following entry points are available for this course:
We regret that this course is not available to international applicants who would require a Student Visa. At this time, we are currently unable to accept international students on our on-campus undergraduate degree programmes. Students who hold settled or pre-settled status may qualify, more detail can be found on our website.
Who's this course for?
We’re looking for passionate and self-motivated songwriters who want to write, produce, and perform music that feels personal, expressive, and original. You might already be recording at home, sharing demos online, or experimenting with live performance - and you’re now ready to take your ideas further.
This course is ideal for those who want to develop both their songwriting and production skills, build a distinctive sound, and work creatively across performance and studio settings. You don’t need to be a trained instrumentalist, but you should be excited to develop your musicianship and learn how to bring your songs to life with professional tools and creative intention.
Find out more about qualification requirements for this course.
You can find full information of accepted qualification on our validating partner's website.https://www.falmouth.ac.uk/study/international/english-language-requirements
We consider all applications on their own individual merit and potential, you will be invited to an interview/audition, where you will have the opportunity to discuss your experience and suitability for the course.
This section shows the range of grades that students who received offers were previously accepted on to this course with (learn more).
It is designed to support your research but does not guarantee whether you will or won't get a place.
Admissions teams consider various factors, including interviews, subject requirements, and entrance tests. Check all course entry requirements for eligibility.
We are unable to show previous accepted grades for this course. This could be because the course is new, it's a postgraduate course, there isn't enough historical data, or the provider has opted out of sharing their entry grades data for this course - learn more.
This report uses your grades to show how students with similar results have done when applying to this course in the past. Sometimes, there isn’t data for every possible set of grades. When that happens, universities and colleges occasionally fill in the gaps for sets of grades that are typically accepted.
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Tuition fee status depends on a number of criteria and varies according to where in the UK you will study. For further guidance on the criteria for home or overseas tuition fees, please refer to the UKCISA website.
No additional fees or cost information has been supplied for this course, please contact the provider directly.
Email:clearing@dbsinstitute.ac.uk
Phone:01615526467
Monday to Friday 09:00 - 17:00
Email:admissions@dbsinstitute.ac.uk
Phone:01615526467
2 Mitchell Lane
Bristol
BS1 6BU
At dBs Institute
