The Institute Of Contemporary Music Performance
BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance
London, United Kingdom
Bachelor's degree
DURATION
3 years
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
14 Sep 2026
TUITION FEES
GBP 16,250 / per year *
STUDY FORMAT
On-Campus
* international student fee
Key Summary
The BMus Popular Music Performance degree will see you develop your technical performance skills to the highest level, as you gain impressive academic abilities and an entrepreneurial understanding of the music industry. Launch your professional career as a portfolio musician with this highly relevant collaborative degree.
This dynamic and distinctly forward-looking degree will provide you with the playing, performing, technical and theoretical skills you need for a career as a professional portfolio musician in today’s ever-changing music industry.
Our fast-moving and increasingly digital world has seen many opportunities for the modern music industry to evolve recently, bringing performers, musicians, audiences and music lovers together in exciting new ways. This programme embraces the diverse nature of performance, allowing you to focus intensely on your chosen instrument to develop your individual voice, while learning essential business, promotion and technology skills as you carve out your own unique place in the music industry.
At the core of your BMus degree is the development and refinement of your principal instrument – guitar, bass, drums or vocals. Through research and analysis of established genres, styles and repertoire, you’ll develop a broad, comprehensive understanding of genre conventions, so you’re set up to succeed in a wide range of performance scenarios – whether live, livestreamed or recorded.
You’ll develop outstanding technical skills on your primary instrument, with regular one-to-one instrumental tuition with your ICMP tutors across all three years of your degree, plus you’ll be encouraged to explore a foundation in keyboard skills and an additional second instrument study. Unique opportunities are available within the ICMP community to perform in a wide range of contexts. Whether performing original material or covers, you’ll become a well-rounded, technically accomplished musician who can work across multiple musical environments and contexts, allowing for a diverse and, most importantly, sustainable career.
Creative Development Scholarship 2026/27
ICMP offers a scholarship up to the value of £4,000 to each eligible EU, EEA or Swiss student enrolling on one of our undergraduate CertHE and degree programmes or postgraduate programmes, starting in September 2026.
To qualify for this scholarship you should be an EU, EEA or Swiss applicant, who has been resident in either the UK, an EU or EEA country or Switzerland for a minimum of three years.
All applicants fulfilling this criterion will automatically receive our Creative Development Scholarship. There is no need to complete any additional paperwork.
ICMP reserves the right to review and amend scholarship criteria at any time. We also reserve the right to withdraw this offer of a scholarship to new applicants at any time.
Course Details
Year 1
During the first year of this performance-focused degree, you’ll develop your performance abilities, instrument technical skills and digital music technology knowledge. You’ll also gain a strong foundation in musical literacy and an understanding of the way the music business relates to your performance career. Studying these fundamentals of music builds a solid base for further study while allowing you to begin recognising your strengths and identity as a professional performer and progressing your talents to an industry-standard level.
- Live Performance Skills
- Musicianship Skills I
- Musicianship Skills Ii
- Music Business For Performers
- Performance And Identity
Year 2
In your second year, you’ll focus more deeply on the music industry and the direction you’d like your music career to take. You’ll cover music technology and music theory at a more advanced level, basing your performances and study on a practice-as-research approach. Delving into more advanced techniques, you’ll start to critically reflect on your ‘identity’ and adjust how you perform, whether in-person or virtually.
- Live Performance Industries
- Applied Musicianship
- The Reflective Musician
- Arranging and Composing
- Studio and Recording Practices
Year 3
In the final year of your degree, your experience will be highly personalised and self-directed. The focus of this year is to prepare you to launch your career as a portfolio musician, and you’ll further refine and critically assess your performances, playing and musical identity. The modules in your final year encourage you to follow your passions, fine-tuning and sharpening your skills so you’re ready to take your chosen place in the modern music industry.
- Industry Performance Standards
- Professional Identity
- Music and the Stage
- Advanced Composition Skills (Optional)
- Music in Education (Optional)
Teaching and Learning
On the BMus (Hons) Popular Music Performance programme, your learning will be in small mixed groups for seminars and writing classes and small workshop groups for practical skills. Some lectures are in larger groups.
When not attending lectures, seminars or other timetabled sessions, you'll be expected to continue learning independently through self-study. Typically, this will involve reading articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library, and preparing coursework assignments. Your independent learning is supported by a range of excellent facilities, including our Learning Resource Centre, our many performance and practice rooms, and well-equipped tech suites.
In your first year, you'll be in timetabled teaching activities such as lectures, seminars, practical classes and workshops for typically 10-12 hours a week, you’ll also have personalised one-to-one tutorials scheduled throughout the year.
You'll undertake more independent study and have less scheduled teaching in years 2 and 3, but can typically expect 8-10 hours of timetabled classes per week in your second year and 6-8 hours of timetabled classes per week in your third year.