International Foundation Certificate in Electronic Music, Computing and Technology

The course covers the key aspects of writing an essay. These include features of academic style, the planning process, structuring an argument, summarising, paraphrasing techniques, referencing, avoiding plagiarism, and drafting and editing. Emphasis is given to the logic underlying Western academic writing conventions, rather than simply looking at the procedural aspects. This is supported by work on the main areas of English grammar, with a particular focus on improving grammatical range and accuracy in students’ writing.

Reading skills are also developed. Textual analysis enables students to learn about cohesion, extend their vocabulary, read for gist and specific information, infer meaning, as well as develop summary skills. The texts generally focus on a background to Western thought and culture, taking into account ancient Greeks and Romans, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the influence of modernity, feminism and Marxism. There is an emphasis on how to use reading in writing: to learn from other writers’ style and using their points as evidence for students’ arguments.

As a preparatory module for the BMus Music Year 1 module ‘Discovering Music’, this module introduces you to the development of music in its historical and cultural context. It explores musical repertoires of all kinds (from classical, electronic, to popular) and of all periods (from medieval, renaissance, to contemporary).

You'll focus on the stylistic/formal changes in music. As part of the module, you'll develop your understanding of diverse musical styles, and familiarise yourself with technical terms and definitions important in musical studies. As an integrated part of this module, you will be expected to develop your reading and writing skills in the English language to the standard appropriate for entry to the BMus programme.  

In the module, you will acquire skills for software packages such as Word, Powerpoint, and Zotero (a bibliographic management tool).

This module aims to give students a basic understanding of computer programming. On completion, students should have the necessary skills to be able to design, build and test a small system in a high-level language that supports object-oriented programming (eg. Python).

As a preparatory module for the BMus Year 1 module ‘Composition’, this module introduces you to several basic compositional techniques drawn upon compositional practices and modes of presentation from various musics.

You'll be expected to apply a selected number of those techniques in your own work and to develop your capacity for creativity by creating short exercises and an independent composition. The module also develops basic music technology skills by using a DAW for music creation.