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Jazz (BMus Hons)

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

UCAS Code: 303F | Bachelor of Music (with Honours) - BMus (Hon)

Entry requirements


Passes in two subjects at A Level

Passes in three subjects at Higher level

You may also need to…

Perform an audition

About this course


Course option

4years

Full-time | 2024

Subject

Music

The Jazz department, led by Professor Tommy Smith OBE, internationally renowned saxophonist and major force in European jazz, is vibrant and energetic, and continues to produce successful musicians and new voices within the UK jazz scene.

Studying Jazz at the Royal Conservatoire offers a high level of training aimed at cultivating your development as a creative and versatile jazz performer. The BMus programme explores jazz in the broadest possible terms, and provide the opportunity to play, perform, compose and record in many different jazz styles and settings.

The BMus in Jazz is a specialist pathway for a performance career in jazz. It is the only full-time degree level jazz course in Scotland and offers many creative and artistic opportunities to you as a performer across a wide-ranging curriculum. You’ll receive tuition from some of the finest jazz musicians and educators in the UK. We give weekly individual lessons on your principal study instrument, and the opportunity to study a second instrument is made available across all four years of study. This allows you to maximise your instrumental skills and nurture your creative potential as an artist.

The BMus programme is delivered to a small, focused cohort of students in each year group that form a unique ensemble and grow together throughout the BMus jazz pathway towards graduation. As a student, you are also encouraged to interact with other year groups and students from other disciplines across the RCS in the spirit of our cross-disciplinary curriculum and collaboration.

Through class teaching in our dedicated jazz studios, you’ll study the essentials of chord-scale harmony, improvisation, classic jazz repertoire, composition, history, music business and arranging. Our vision of jazz is comprehensive and inclusive, and you’ll be introduced to the full range of contexts from solo and ensemble work through to big band settings.

Studying Jazz at the Conservatoire provides numerous opportunities to perform both in and out of the institution. On campus our Jazz concerts, featuring students and tutors, often perform alongside special guest performers. Past clinicians have included Makoto Ozone, Courtney Pine, Jacqui Dankworth, Branford Marsalis, David Liebman, Peter Erskine, Paolo Fresu, Bill Evans, Bob Mintzer, Randy Brecker and Arild Andersen. Students also take part annually in a BBC broadcast recording for Radio Scotland’s Jazz House programme, in which they perform their own compositions. In addition, 4th year students each year undertake a 3-day recording and mixing session with Nimbus Records, resulting in an album release on the record label.

The Jazz department maintains close ties with the Scottish National Jazz Orchestra. This relationship with what many consider Europe’s foremost contemporary big band, has given students in Jazz at the Conservatoire access to performances and rehearsals by Kurt Elling, John Scofield, Gary Burton, Joe Lovano and Gunther Schuller.

Students of the Jazz department have been recipients of the prestigious Yamaha Jazz Scholarship, as well as being various category winners at the Scottish Jazz Awards over the years.

As a Jazz student at RCS, you will reap the full benefits of modern academic facilities, combined with the highest quality teaching in a city brimming with jazz, and a country resplendent with artistic opportunity.

**Please note, the international deadline for this programme is the 1st December 2023, but we would encourage applicants to apply by the 2nd October 2023 to be guaranteed consideration for the first round of scholarship**

Modules

More information about what the course entails can be found on our website: https://www.rcs.ac.uk/courses/bmus-jazz/

Tuition fees

Select where you currently live to see what you'll pay:

Channel Islands
£9,250
per year
England
£9,250
per year
EU
£27,968
per year
International
£27,968
per year
Northern Ireland
£9,250
per year
Republic of Ireland
£9,250
per year
Scotland
£1,820
per year
Wales
£9,250
per year

Extra funding

The Royal Conservatoire is able to offer a number of entrance scholarships which are awarded as part of the audition/selection process on the basis of merit and financial need. Please see our website for more information - https://www.rcs.ac.uk/apply/finance/scholarships/

The Uni


Course location:

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Department:

School of Music

Read full university profile

What students say


We've crunched the numbers to see if overall student satisfaction here is high, medium or low compared to students studying this subject(s) at other universities.

58%
Music

How do students rate their degree experience?

The stats below relate to the general subject area/s at this university, not this specific course. We show this where there isn’t enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Music

Teaching and learning

69%
Staff make the subject interesting
82%
Staff are good at explaining things
74%
Ideas and concepts are explored in-depth
75%
Opportunities to apply what I've learned

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on work has been timely
Feedback on work has been helpful
Staff are contactable when needed
Good advice available when making study choices

Resources and organisation

75%
Library resources
84%
IT resources
85%
Course specific equipment and facilities
31%
Course is well organised and has run smoothly

Student voice

Staff value students' opinions
Feel part of a community on my course

Who studies this subject and how do they get on?

68%
UK students
32%
International students
51%
Male students
49%
Female students
81%
2:1 or above
4%
First year drop out rate

Most popular A-Levels studied (and grade achieved)

B
A
A

After graduation


The stats in this section relate to the general subject area/s at this university – not this specific course. We show this where there isn't enough data about the course, or where this is the most detailed info available to us.

Music

What are graduates doing after six months?

This is what graduates told us they were doing (and earning), shortly after completing their course. We've crunched the numbers to show you if these immediate prospects are high, medium or low, compared to those studying this subject/s at other universities.

£19,000
high
Average annual salary
100%
high
Employed or in further education
58%
med
Employed in a role where degree was essential or beneficial

Top job areas of graduates

77%
Artistic, literary and media occupations
8%
Other administrative occupations
4%
Science, engineering and production technicians

What about your long term prospects?

Looking further ahead, below is a rough guide for what graduates went on to earn.

Music

The graph shows median earnings of graduates who achieved a degree in this subject area one, three and five years after graduating from here.

£14k

£14k

£14k

£14k

£21k

£21k

Note: this data only looks at employees (and not those who are self-employed or also studying) and covers a broad sample of graduates and the various paths they've taken, which might not always be a direct result of their degree.

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Lower entry requirements
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Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF):

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This information comes from the National Student Survey, an annual student survey of final-year students. You can use this to see how satisfied students studying this subject area at this university, are (not the individual course).

This is the percentage of final-year students at this university who were "definitely" or "mostly" satisfied with their course. We've analysed this figure against other universities so you can see whether this is high, medium or low.

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This information is from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), for undergraduate students only.

You can use this to get an idea of who you might share a lecture with and how they progressed in this subject, here. It's also worth comparing typical A-level subjects and grades students achieved with the current course entry requirements; similarities or differences here could indicate how flexible (or not) a university might be.

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Post-six month graduation stats:

This is from the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education Survey, based on responses from graduates who studied the same subject area here.

It offers a snapshot of what grads went on to do six months later, what they were earning on average, and whether they felt their degree helped them obtain a 'graduate role'. We calculate a mean rating to indicate if this is high, medium or low compared to other universities.

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Graduate field commentary:

The Higher Education Careers Services Unit have provided some further context for all graduates in this subject area, including details that numbers alone might not show

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The Longitudinal Educational Outcomes dataset combines HRMC earnings data with student records from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

While there are lots of factors at play when it comes to your future earnings, use this as a rough timeline of what graduates in this subject area were earning on average one, three and five years later. Can you see a steady increase in salary, or did grads need some experience under their belt before seeing a nice bump up in their pay packet?

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