Music with Integrated Foundation Year

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

Passionate about music but not ready for university study? Royal Holloway’s four-year BMus Music with Integrated Foundation Year builds your confidence through a mix of humanities learning and hands-on music training.

You’ll develop key skills in theory, composition, performance, and critical thinking from a department ranked first in the UK for research that includes music (REF 2021/THE).

In your foundation year, you’ll gain key academic and creative skills across music and the wider humanities. We’ll help you step confidently into the full BMus programme.

Strike a chord

• Prepare for university study and build your critical skills in humanities modules like Digital Cultures, Cultures of Reading & Looking, and Cultures of Thinking

• Strengthen your musical literacy through Theory & Analysis, Fundamentals of Music Theory, and Sources & Methods for Studying Music

• Shape your own path with flexible study across composition, music tech, performance, world music, and media

• Perform in professionals venues including Windsor Auditorium, the Chapel, Boilerhouse Theatre, and the Picture Gallery

Become an artist

Boost your employability through our connections with organisations like Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms, and the Royal Opera House.

You’ll develop both your academic potential and your artistic identity, ready to thrive in music and beyond.

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

• Creative Composition Techniques

• A Very Short History of Music

• Introduction to Historical Musicology

• Introduction to World Music

• Contemporary Debates in Music

• Solo Performance

• Creative Ensemble Performance

• Introduction to Composing with Music Technology

Year 2

• Studies in Music Analysis

• Studies in Composition

• Studies in Music History

• Studies in Ethnomusicology

• Studies in Music, Media and Technology

• Practical Performance I

Year 3

• Special Study: Dissertation

• Special Study: Theory and Analysis

• Special Study: Solo Performance

• Special Study: Composition

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

• All modules are core

Year 1

• All modules are core

Year 2

• Adorno’s Philosophy of Music

• Analysing Late Tonal Music: Riemannian and Neo-Riemannian Theories

• Bach: Context and Reception

• Baroque Performance Practice

• Britten's Operas

• Claude Debussy and French Musical Aesthetics

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

• Composing with Technology 1

• Composing with Technology 2

• Composition Portfolio

• Contemporary Music Performance

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

• Digital Tools for Music Studies

• Ensemble Performance

• Ideas of German Music from Mozart to Henze

• Introduction to Jazz: Theory, Practice and Contexts

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

• Korean Percussion Performance

• Late Beethoven

• Mahler and Viennese Modernism, 1897-1918

• Mozart's Operas

• Musical Aesthetics

• Music and Gender

• Music and Video Games

• Music Pedagogy

• Music, Power and Politics

• Music and Society in Purcell's London

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

• Practical and Creative Orchestration

• Practical Conducting (Choral and Orchestral)

• Practical Performance I

• Silent Film Performance

• Solo Performance

• The String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

• Wagner's Ring

Year 3

• Adorno’s Philosophy of Music

• Analysing Late Tonal Music: Riemannian and Neo-Riemannian Theories

• Bach: Context and Reception

• Baroque Performance Practice

• Britten's Operas

• Claude Debussy and French Musical Aesthetics

• Composing with Technology 1

• Composing with Technology 2

• Composition Portfolio

• Contemporary Music Performance

• Creative Project in Composition, Performance and Technology

• Digital Tools for Music Studies

• Ensemble Performance

• Ideas of German Music from Mozart to Henze

• Introduction to Jazz: Theory, Practice and Contexts

• Issues in Sound, Music and the Moving Image

• Korean Percussion Performance

• Late Beethoven

• Mahler and Viennese Modernism, 1897-1918

• Mozart's Operas

• Musical Aesthetics

• Music and Gender

• Music and Video Games

• Music Pedagogy

• Music, Power and Politics

• Music and Society in Purcell's London

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

• Practical and Creative Orchestration

• Practical Conducting (Choral and Orchestral)

• Silent Film Performance

• The Music Film

• The String Quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich

• Wagner's Ring

https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk/studying-here/undergraduate/music/bmus-music-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 core elements of all aspects of music. You’ll gain a broad overview of music. Some will be familiar to you, some completely new. 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 start to focus on areas most interesting to you with our ‘flexible core’, and start to take more specialist options as you explore more advanced topics and themes.

In the final year, amongst other topics, you will undertake at least one Special Study in composing, performing or writing about music. This is your opportunity to explore a topic or your own practice in depth. You’ll still have space in your timetable for other topics, too.

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.

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.