Music Business HND

Course description

Music Business HND is designed to break you into the music industry and show you what it takes to be a success in this competitive industry. Push your creative potential as you gain real-life work experience and practical skills in the various music sectors, from live events & gigs, to releasing and promoting records.  This unique course is taught by highly qualified and experienced lecturers in Edinburgh College's state-of-the-art facilities. These include a 100-seat auditorium, Mac labs and recording studios. On successful completion of the course you have the opportunity to progress to a third year, the BA (Hons) in Music Business which is delivered in partnership with Kingston University, London. 

Explore your career possibilities as you work directly with industry professionals and start your own record label, sign bands, produce music and learn essential marketing and events skills. The course is aimed at preparing you for a job in the industry or, alternately, developing your career as a musical artist. You will attend major music-industry networking events and local music festivals. These will give you essential industry connections and explore your career possibilities. You will discover crucial skills in how to organise and create marketing campaigns; negotiate deals; create promotional materials; manage a tour. You will gain up-to-date and specialist knowledge of all significant areas of the industry including live music events and touring; scouting for new music acts; managing artists’ careers; effective marketing of artists online as well as covering legal issues including contracts and copyright.

What you will learn

• Learn how to put on events and gigs
• Create your own record label
• Learn how to promote brands and artists
• Learn how to negotiate
• Learn about recording and live sound
• Learn about the key sectors of the music business including Live Music, Recording Labels and Music Publishing
• Learn about all the different roles in the music industry and what they involve
• Learn how to understand contracts
• Create digital marketing campaigns
• Work with artists in the college's CRE-8 studios
• Attend a variety of music networking events
• Learn how to create artwork and promotional material for a band/artist
• Learn how to organise and manage a tour

Learning outcome

Students who successfully complete our HND with an A or B in Graded Unit 2 are guaranteed a place on our BA honours degree in Music Business, delivered in partnership with Kingston University, London. Our degree is unique in that only 1 year of study is required to top up the HND to a BMus (Hons) due to being validated by an English university.

We also support students to make applications to universities or other institutions during the HNC or the HND years, should they wish to do so. In recent years, music students have progressed to

University of Highlands and Islands

University of West of Scotland

Edinburgh Napier University

Glasgow Caledonian University

University of West London

BIMM Institute Manchester