Music Production, BA

​​The staff and students on this degree are part of a wider community of creative practitioners that includes performers, composers, producers, film makers, game designers, photographers, and dancers; we hope you’ll take advantage of the opportunity to gain inspiration from this diverse group to help expand and enhance your own creative practice.

You will work within the studios and labs in our new Creative Arts Building, which takes its name from the trailblazing electronic composer Daphne Oram, a founding member of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop who taught at Canterbury Christ Church University in the 1980s.

We hope your time on the course will give you the opportunity to discover new sounds and ideas, develop your technical skills, and form new creative relationships to help you realise your artistic and professional goals.

We will fist meet you during Welcome Week (14 - 18 September 2026) where there will be a number of activities for you to get to know the academic team and your fellow students.

During this week you’ll find out about your timetable and any groups that you might be in for practical classes and you’ll start to gain access to our materials on Blackboard, our online repository of learning materials for your modules. You will also be assigned a Personal Academic Tutor.

​Follow Canterbury Christ Church Music on Instagram @cccu_music

The academic year is split into two Semesters:

• Semester 1 - September to January
• Semester 2 - January - May

​​During Semester 1 you will complete the following modules:

• Computer Audio Production Essentials 
• Studio Recording and Mixing 
• Success Modules – 3 online 5 credit modules 

During Semester 2 you will study:

• Songwriting, Composition & Culture
• Creative Production Skills

To help you prepare

A big part of the degree is about exposing you to new sounds, so we suggest you start to focus on listening to a wide range of music, both historical and contemporary, including music from styles with which you are less familiar.

​We’d also encourage you to start to think about the technical and creative process behind the music and sound you hear, challenging yourself to ‘reverse engineer’ productions to understand how they are made.

​Below are a few podcasts that we’d recommend:

• ​Song Exploder

• ​Tone Benders

• ​Sound and Process

​Preparatory exercise (not assessed):

Create a playlist (links to streams if possible) of 5 tracks/excerpts of music that represent your inspirations, influences, or interests in music right now. Include a sentence or two for each track explaining why you have included it on your list.

​Follow Canterbury Christ Church Music on Instagram @cccu_music

To prepare for your compulsory Computer Audio Production Essentials module, you may find it helpful to look at the following free resources :

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/logicpro/welcome/mac

https://learningsynths.ableton.com/

https://www.soundonsound.com/

And in addition the following books are taken from the recommended reading list:

• Gold, H., Ryan, R. (2020) Audio Production Basics with Logic Pro X. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• Kuehnl, E. (2020) Audio Production Basics with Ableton Live. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
• White, P. (2011) The Producer’s Manual. New York: Hal Leonard Publishing.
• Huber, M. (2013) Modern Recording Techniques. 8th edn. London: Focal Press.
• Izhaki, R. (2017) Mixing Audio: Concepts, Practices, and Tools. Routledge

It is useful to note that the University Bookshop offers 10% discount on most titles in print and have some price-beating book bundles. They also price match Amazon on core texts recommended in the module handbooks you will receive when you start in September.