I’m a mature student doing the BMus Music part-time at Goldsmiths. I’ve just come to the end of the full-time first year (which has taken me two years). Headline is I’d really recommend this course – it was definitely a good decision to apply. Over the first year I’ve done 5 year-long modules and coming to the end I reckon they have given me a really solid foundation as a musician in terms of my ability to play, write, analyse and think about music.

Getting into a bit of detail regarding the five courses I’ve done over the first year I’ll start with performance. The performance module is all about playing in ensembles and you can either do jazz or contemporary classical and experimental streams and this goes alongside your 1 to 1 music tuition. One thing that Goldsmith’s information about the course doesn’t convey is that you can play a lot of jazz on this degree if you want to (including three different jazz ensembles / workshops) – so if you are into your jazz come and check this out. There are a lot of opportunities for playing in different ensembles (not just jazz, right across the board from the Sinfonietta to contemporary classical to steelpans) –– I’ve gone to some really good jazz workshops with guest musicians. Then there’s a composition course which gives you a basic grounding in the area and covers some quite nice areas like composing for films. Materials, Signs and Symbols looks at notation in a broad way and links to the composition course. It covers stuff like aural skills, critical listening, arranging and transcription. Then there’s Discovering Music which gives you a historical / musicological overview of mostly European notated / art music from 900AD to 1900AD and which also covers music analysis, Critical Approaches to Contemporary Music as the name suggests covers more recent music, it’s pretty wide ranging including free jazz, electronica, noise, contemporary classical. Finally, there are a lot of other things happening that are not part of the core degree modules. They have two recording studios you can book out and all sorts of tech – old synths etc and run training sessions relating to these (there is a proper studio and production module in Year 2) and also a weekly drop-in music theory seminar. There is a lot going on. The lecturers / tutors are really supportive and knowledgeable. There is a foundation / access course if you are not ready for the degree, but I don’t know much about it. Modules / options in Year 2 and 3 look good. The main downside has been around the management wanting to restructure a number of the departments at Goldsmiths – you may have read about this in the papers. While there is a lot I could say about this, this isn’t the place. Basically, the staff and management are, I think, taking a lot of trouble to make sure that this doesn’t affect the students too much. Main thing this year has been a marking boycott at the end of the year which has meant finding out your mark for some courses has been delayed. Not the end of the world. So, if you want to be stretched musically, creatively and mentally on a forward-thinking course then apply and get yourselves to Goldsmiths. I can’t comment on the ‘student experience’ as am now too old for that – but if you can’t find good stuff to be doing in Deptford-New-Cross- Peckham then I suspect you are not trying hard enough.

No

Goldsmiths is all about its diversity of students and its high-calibre professors (who in turn are high-calibre industry professionals). Students are still in a sort of post-lockdown mindset, and I think community is still hard to create, but collaborative ensemble work (specifically in the music department) tends to spill over into the local music scene.

Amazing professors, often there are not enough practice rooms / rehearsal facilities

No