Music

Popular Music is one of the most influential cultural forms of the modern world, shaping identity, community, politics, and commerce across every society that has encountered it. Studying it at university means engaging with it seriously as both a creative practice and a subject of academic enquiry, asking what popular music is, how it works on its listeners, how it has developed historically and geographically, and what its relationship is to the industries, technologies, and cultural contexts that produce and circulate it. It is a degree that rewards musical passion and critical curiosity in equal measure.

At the University of Hull, this three-year full-time programme develops the skills, knowledge, and confidence to pursue a music career across the range of roles that the popular music world offers. You will develop expertise in music performance, songwriting, music technology, production, broadcasting, and the industry knowledge needed to navigate careers as a performer, songwriter, music technologist, radio broadcaster, or events organiser. Hull's cultural identity as the city of the Housemartins, Everything But the Girl, and a long tradition of independent music-making provides a distinctive backdrop for popular music study, and the university's strong links to the local and regional music scene give the programme practical relevance.

Graduates of Popular Music degrees pursue careers as performers and recording artists, session musicians, songwriters, music producers and engineers, radio presenters and podcasters, music journalists, live events managers, and in music education. Many develop portfolio careers that combine several of these roles, which is the norm in professional popular music. Others move into music management, music publishing, A&R, and the wider creative industries.

The skills in performance, production, critical thinking and creative communication that the degree develops are applicable across a surprisingly wide range of professional contexts.