Sound Practice MA
London, United Kingdom
MA
DURATION
1 year
LANGUAGES
English
PACE
Full time
APPLICATION DEADLINE
EARLIEST START DATE
Sep 2027
TUITION FEES
STUDY FORMAT
Key Summary
About: Sound Practice MA at The Royal College of Art treats sound as a creative force. You’ll study listening approaches (aural diversity, polisonics, deep listening) using tools such as 3D and ultrasonic techniques, instrument building, live-coding, machine listening, broadcast. The programme links sound with art, design, environments and digital spaces and supports projects on ecology, urban acoustics and accessibility. RCA ranked world’s #1 art & design university (QS 2015–2026).
Career Outcomes: Graduates launch studios or start-ups, work with global companies or pursue independent projects; InnovationRCA supports enterprise. Potential careers include sound artist, audio designer, researcher, entrepreneur and creative producer roles.
Explore sound as a creative and artistic force in the world.
- This is not another course about making sound, but instead a programme that asks you to engage with the world through sound.
- Investigate how listening and sound-making might transform your practice.
- Work with approaches such as aural diversity, polisonics, forensic, insurgent and deep listening in order to expand your practice and situate your work
- Explore the potentials of techniques and tools such as 3D sound, ultrasonics, hydrosonics, instrument building, audio description, live-coding, machine listening, synthesis and broadcast.
Sound plays a crucial role across many areas of art and design, from physical environments to digital spaces, spanning cultures and continents. The MA Sound will transform and deepen your understanding of how sound functions across different disciplines. By engaging with the possibilities of listening and making with sound, you will investigate how sound opens up new creative, social and political opportunities for artists and designers, offering alternative ways to interpret the world around us.
Your work might explore how sound can support understanding of ecological change, or examine the acoustic dimensions of urban environments, or investigate new approaches to instrument building for accessibility. You might collaborate to produce experimental audio documentaries, create sound installations that reflect shared histories and spaces, or design immersive soundscapes using emerging audio technologies. Through recording, composition, broadcast, installation or performance, you will also engage with communities, spaces and environments, and explore how sound shapes our understanding of the world and ourselves.
Term 1
In the first unit, Polisonics, you will explore the fundamental approaches of the programme, focusing on communal and experimental listening, sonic ecologies and socio-sonics. You will be introduced to a range of listening concepts such as Insurgent, Forensic and Deep Listening. Working in groups, you will create new work which explores the agency and possibilities of making and thinking through sound, supporting you to situate your work within emerging listening territories. You will also participate in Sonic Bodies, where you will develop an embodied approach to sound practice and explore how bodies, racialised, disabled, gendered, and socially marked, produce and experience sound.
Term 2
The unit Ensemble will invite you to build on your knowledge and critically engage with a wide range of sonic tools and approaches to group and individual sound composition. This unit will culminate in an opportunity to showcase your work professionally with one of our creative partner venues in London.
There are two electives in this term. In the first elective unit, you will be offered a choice of two units No Such Thing as Empty Space, in collaboration with the School of Architecture, where you will explore the politics of sonic space through engagement with concepts such as psychacoustics, and Listening Commons, in collaboration with theSchool of Arts & Humanities, where you will explore expanded notions of broadcast, distribution and community listening activities.
You will also choose a further elective from those available to you at the RCA.
Term 3
Your Independent Research Project will be the focus of the third and final term. This project enables students to investigate an area of sound practice of their choosing, through listening inquiry, experimental sound-making, technical exploration and/or community collaboration. The unit offers space and time to consolidate and deepen the methods and critical approaches you have developed across the course so far, therefore allowing you to define, contextualise, produce and evaluate a substantial body of creative and theoretical work. You will be given an opportunity to publicly present your work during the Independent Research Project, in an exhibition or showcase.
This curriculum is subject to validation.
The Royal College of Art is the world’s leading postgraduate art and design university, providing students with unrivalled opportunities to develop their practice, build their networks, enhance their career and to deliver art and design projects that transform the world.
For 12 consecutive years, the RCA has been ranked as the world’s number 1 art & design university in the QS World University subject rankings (2015-2026) - attracting artists, designers and communicators from across the globe.
Each year, the RCA scholarship programme supports hundreds of students. The following scholarships are confirmed for this programme, with additional awards added throughout the year.
Even if you do not currently see a scholarship for which you meet the eligibility criteria, we encourage you to apply to be considered for financial support.
Unless otherwise stated, you must apply in either round 1 or 2, and have received an offer of study on an RCA programme to be invited to make a scholarship application. Therefore, we strongly recommend you apply for your programme as early as possible, but no later than the round 2 deadline.
What types of jobs to graduates go on to?
The RCA has consistently produced world leaders in the fields of creative endeavour – acting as a launchpad for the careers of major international figures.
Our alumni shape the world – whether founding their own studios and brands, pushing the boundaries of possibility through their start-ups or taking on impressive roles with global companies across a wide range of disciplines.
What if they want to start their own business?
Our creative students have ambitions of being their own boss and making their own decisions, so launch their own enterprises or studios either soon after graduating or any some time employed in industry. Many did not intend to start their studies considering themselves entrepreneurs but discovered an idea during their studies with their fellow students that they believe would make a successful business. InnovationRCA – the College’s centre for student and graduate enterprise and entrepreneurship – supports students and recent graduates to transform compelling ideas into successful businesses, providing incubation, intellectual property and commercialisation support.
Students from over 70 countries come to the RCA. We welcome applications from talented, creative individuals from all over the world. Many are from backgrounds you might expect such as art, design, architecture, communications, media and humanities. Others come from disciplines as broad as engineering, social sciences, technology, toolmaking, medicine, business, law, physics, life coaching, economics, teaching, music, etc. The list is endless. What RCA students share is the potential, commitment and ambition to make change in the world through art and design.
You’ll learn through a combination of listening to lectures, workshops, seminars and tutorials. You will regularly work together to form blocs (groups), working towards group and individual outcomes such as performances and interventions onsite and with our partner venues.
You’ll be taught by a team of professionals from the worlds of music, sound, design and fine art, as well as engaging with artists through guest lectures and trips across the course.