Module manager: Ellis Jones
Email: e.n.jones@leeds.ac.uk
Taught: Semester 2 (Jan to Jun) View Timetable
Year running 2024/25
MUSS1816 Introduction to the Music Business
This module is approved as a discovery module
Today’s music business is interconnected. Managers and artists work across live music, recordings, and branding to build multi-faceted careers. Labels, platforms, and media conglomerates co-invest in each other’s activities. New global centres of pop music production are creating complex connections with old epicentres in the UK and US. The aim of this module is to reveal these connections, enabling a holistic understanding that is vital not just for musicians seeking success, but also for reflecting on our everyday engagements with music.
By the end of this module, students will be able to comprehend a range of sources – from industry reports to trade press – and to combine these sources to demonstrate a holistic understanding of how the aspects of the music industries are interconnected.
Seminar discussions focussed on specific important contemporary music businesses will enable students to highlight, critique and compare specific management practices and approaches to enterprise development.
A portfolio of reflective activities will enable students to situate their own music-making and music-listening within the wider world of music business.
Lectures will introduce students to core areas of music business history as well as a range of contemporary challenges facing the music industries.
On successful completion of the module you will be able to:
1. Demonstrate an understanding of key music business terms and concepts.
2. Identify and use relevant methodologies in the study of music-related enterprise.
3. Situate everyday musical practice in a wider music industries context.
Skills Learning Outcomes
On successful completion of the module you will be able to:
4. Find and validate appropriate sources to develop understanding of contemporary challenges in the music industries.
5. Reflect on your own engagement with the music business, and relate this to your learning, achievement and personal and professional development.
6. Communicate in ways appropriate to the discipline
Details of the syllabus will be provided on the Minerva organisation (or equivalent) for the module
| Delivery type | Number | Length hours | Student hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lecture | 10 | 1 | 10 |
| Seminar | 9 | 1 | 9 |
| Independent online learning hours | 13 | ||
| Private study hours | 168 | ||
| Total Contact hours | 19 | ||
| Total hours (100hr per 10 credits) | 200 | ||
In weeks 2–5, students will be set 250-word tasks reflecting on an area of the music industries, drawing on their own recent experience. Students will be asked to post these on a VLE area, where peers and instructors can respond. Assessment 1 (‘The music industries and me’) compiles these four tasks into a single 1,000 word submission. Accordingly, students will already have received some formative feedback on the content of this assessment before submission.
For Assessment 2 (‘Mapping the music industries’), four seminar sessions will be dedicated to development of students’ individual ideas, including time for short individual presentations. They will additionally benefit from formative feedback provided on Assessment 1.
| Assessment type | Notes | % of formal assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Portfolio | 1,000 words (4 x 250 word tasks) | 40 |
| Assignment | Annotated diagram plus 500 word summary | 60 |
| Total percentage (Assessment Coursework) | 100 | |
Normally resits will be assessed by the same methodology as the first attempt, unless otherwise stated
The reading list is available from the Library website
Last updated: 2/15/2024
Errors, omissions, failed links etc should be notified to the Catalogue Team