Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover

Course leading to the degree of Bachelor of Music
Regular course length: 8 semesters

The "multi-specialist" in the field of popular music
You can make music, but you don’t feel competent to involve yourself in musical issues? You can describe, judge or manage music, but you lack the true feel for it that a player or an artist has? In the field of popular music, it is very difficult to be like this without running the danger of becoming a dilettante. The professional reality demands "multi-specialists" who are qualified in many directions and have proved themselves in a variety of professional contexts. It is precisely this reality that the combined performance and academic profile of the Popular Music course seeks to do justice to, with its broad practical and theoretical base and its multiple opportunities for specialisation.

Among the content of the Popular Music course are in particular practical musical tuition in a principal and a subsidiary instrumental subject, training in Composition/Arrangement/Songwriting and the realisation of studio productions, music theory, wide-ranging familiarity with musicology, a sound knowledge of media science, and also of the segment of Popular Music outlined by the terms "Media Management/Journalism/Market". In addition, there exists a wide range of options through which one can choose one’s own individual focus, and a requirement to undertake interdisciplinary work.

The knowledge and skills are imparted that are required as entry qualifications for the broad range of professions in and around popular music: this relates to performing and performance/educational work, studio activities, media professions and activities relating to pop music in the fields of public and private sector service provision.

Applicants should therefore have prior performance training and a high level of interest in reflecting on and debating the existing musical, economic and media situations. In addition, they should be prepared to work at the computer with music and text software, and have an interest in live studio work.

The Bachelor’s degree course in Popular Music is embedded in an optimum environment, featuring the vigorous JazzRockPop faculty, a Musicology department that offers all segments, the celebrated IJK (Institute of Journalism and Communication Research), Hannover Pop Institute (Popinstitut Hannover) and last but not least a broad range of post-graduate Master’s degree courses ranging from performance training on the highest level to "Media and Music".

This original concept in an intact environment gives rise to a study situation that is unparalleled at any other institution of higher education in Germany.