Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship
The Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship (BACM) is designed to prepare the practicing musician for the 21st century cultural economy.
Students will learn to capitalize on the artistic product through courses in marketing, entrepreneurship and nonprofit management. They will learn to prepare a deliverable for various sectors of the industry through courses in music technology, studio production, song writing, scoring and arranging.
The degree also provides ample space for electives, allowing students to tailor their degree to their career goals, i.e. courses in from Business, Information Technology, Creative Writing or New Media and Communications.
Music students will have the option of two concentrations: classical and commercial.
All students will study standard technique through classical repertoire for the first two years. The final two years, students can choose to remain in a classical concentration or transition to a commercial concentration where they apply their technical study to various genre, including R&B and gospel.
Consequently, students will acquire an omnicultural musical language that will equip them to move between various cultural marketplaces and serve a rapidly expanding entertainment sector in Georgia.
The BACM is an auditioned program.
Classical Study
All students in the Contemporary Musicianship bachelor’s degree program and all students enrolled in the Associate of Arts in Music degree program will receive classical training for the first 2 years of applied study. During the final 2 years, BACM students are invited to couple their classical training with an exploration of different musical styles.
Why?
If you want to be a classical musician, you want to develop your technique and interpretive style using historical best practices. But you also recognize that there will be a lot of gigs for you in non-classical genre. You need to know how to improvise and read charts, how to groove on a Latin beat and how to be stylistically accurate across the spectrum. We have built that into the Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship.
Commercial Study
All students in the Contemporary Musicianship bachelor’s degree program and all students enrolled in the Associate of Arts in Music degree program will receive classical training for the first 2 years of applied study. During the final 2 years, BACM students are invited to couple their classical training with an exploration of different musical styles.
Why?
If you want to be an R&B artist or songwriter, a rapper or a country musician, you want a competitive edge so you can emerge from the crowd. You need technical ability to wow your audience and musical skills that are only possible through the study of hard-core music theory and technique. You also need to understand how the industry works. We have built that into the Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship.
If you want to be a church musician in contemporary styles, including gospel, you want mastery in different styles. That means you need to be able to read music well; riff with an advanced technique; have the ability to compose, arrange and rehearse your choir or team; and the marketing skills to take your ensemble on the road. We have built that into the Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship.
If you want to be backstage in the industry, you need to understand arts nonprofit management and administration and have a broad understanding of how the arts economy functions. You also want to develop non-musical skills that relate directly to your unique career goals such as Accounting or Writing for the Digital World. But first, you need to be a practicing musician. We have built that into the Bachelor of Arts in Contemporary Musicianship.
Music Education
All students in the Contemporary Musicianship bachelor’s degree program and all students enrolled in the Associate of Arts in Music degree program will receive classical training for the first 2 years of applied study. During the final 2 years, BACM students are invited to couple their classical training with an exploration of different musical styles.
If you want to be a music educator, you want the BA in Contemporary Musicianship to serve as a platform to a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) in Music Education degree, which gives you certification.
The typical music student takes 5+ years to complete a bachelor’s degree in Music Education. An increasingly popular trend in music education is a 4+ model, where you get your 4-year degree in music (not music education), then add on the teaching masters.
Depending on the MAT-Mus Ed program you select, you could potentially enter the teaching force within the same time frame as the typical music education major but with a lot more musical experience and the advanced degree. It is typical that students seeking this route would continue in a classical concentration during their applied study at MGA.
Information about Curriculum And Emphasis
