We know you’re out there. Curious, open-minded, adaptable. Keen to acquire new skills and consolidate your existing knowledge across all areas of new music creation. You may have been making music in your bedroom with experimental sound software or have three string quartets under your belt. You could be a trained performer looking to develop a new musical voice by creating new sounds, systems and music for your instrument, or you could be hoping to skill up so that you’re attractive to the film and game music industries.
Whatever your compositional background and whatever your compositional ambitions, if you’ve been composing and creating music at University level or producing work and sharing it with your community, this programme will help you learn a great deal more about your craft and to deeply explore your potential as creative musician.
This Composition Masters Programme offers its students a broad skills training aiming to prepare the most imaginative and versatile musical minds for a future in music-making across the creative industries.
The Reid School of Music is situated within Edinburgh College of Art, with the possibility of collaboration with art-forms including film, video, art writing, sculpture and many others.
What you will study
Our MMus in Composition offers a series of 120 taught course credits that focus on different areas of compositional and sonic arts expertise from creative coding to crafting live music for screen.
At the heart of the programme is a portfolio of compositions produced across two taught semesters. These are guided into being with one of our specialist supervisors chosen to match your aspirations as a music inventor. You also select a range of other taught options designed to help you build up your skill set and knowledge across the fields of musical composition, sound design and sonic-arts. The new skills you develop are then applied over the summer where you devise and produce your own body of creative work and write a detailed paper explaining your process and influences.
Participants can also take advantage of a vibrant creative environment which includes free improvisation, algorithmic composition using computer software, and live interactive electronics. The annual Dialogues Festival provides a series of performances by exceptional visiting artists.
