Professional Practice 2A

The development of musicianship skills necessary to enter a career in the popular music industry, particularly in the area of the studio musician.

MUSI 246 extends performance and improvisational skills in the study of a repertoire taken from funk, Latin and contemporary blues music for those students intending to enter and maintain a career as freelance musicians. The aim at this level is to further develop the technical foundation on your instrument established in MUSI 146 and MUSI 156, and the paper is consequently designed to broaden your playing skills in a variety of musical contexts. The most important aim of this or any other performance paper is the question of your adaptation to teamwork, and this paper is designed to build your confidence in working in with a variety of musicians in several ensemble contexts.

Learning Outcomes
The goals of the paper are

• To further develop a firm technical foundation on your instrument
• To study a balanced repertoire drawn from blues, funk, music theatre and Latin music that is in line with the level-2 syllabus, assimilating and solving interpretative issues with increasing independence
• To develop appropriate presentation skills to perform the set repertoire
• To further expand performance skills in a variety of modern playing styles
• To enable the critical evaluation of time-management skills in the context of independent practice with increasing competence and confidence