Staff profile

Michael Brown


Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Music and Subject Leader for Joint Honours Popular Music Production

Subject

Music and Music Production

College

College of Arts, Humanities and Education

Department

School of Arts

Campus

Markeaton Street, Derby Campus

Email

m.brown2@derby.ac.uk

About

Programme Leader for BA (Hons) Music and Subject Leader for Joint Honours Popular Music Production.

I am currently the Subject Leader for JHS Popular Music Production. I was formerly the programme leader for BA (Hons) Popular Music with Music Technology and have held this position for eight years. In this period I have contributed to a number of programme revalidations as part of the normal programme review cycle and in response to institutional and wider initiatives. I have also been involved in two programme periodic reviews leading the process for the PMMT programme in 2013 and led the programme through the JAMES accreditation process. I have actually been directly involved in developing and evolving the curriculum for this particular suite of programmes since 1997 when I supported the first programme leader Dr. Richard Hodges in the production of the original PMMT programme approval document, based upon identifying a need from trends within the CAMS (now joint-honours) programme of students from less conventional backgrounds that would normally not come to university to validate their skill-set and professional direction.

Teaching responsibilities

My main teaching responsibilities lie in the area of Music Composition but I have contributed to a range of areas over the past twenty years such as Performance Studies (ensemble and solo), Session Musicianship, Sound Recording, contextual and Post-Production Techniques.

Module Leader for:

BA(Hons)Popular Music with Music Technology

BA(Hons) Applied Studies (Music) - Vision West Notts College (VWNC)

BA(Hons) Applied Studies (Music) - Loughborough College

Taught, assessed or moderated:

BA(Hons)Popular Music with Music Technology

PMMT Diploma of Professional Practice

MA Music Production

FdA Creative Music Production – Loughborough College

FdA Music Performance – New College Nottingham (NCN)

FdA Creative Music Technology

Research interests

My main areas of academic interest are music composition, performance and production technology underpinned by an understanding of creativity and how this may be meaningfully applicable.  Over the past five years I have been developing my research portfolio collaborating with a number of academic peers upon a range of projects (see below). My primary area of research focus is in the area of creativity and how this impacts upon my practical academic specialisms. I have presented at conferences at universities internationally and have a number of publications to my name. Musical education traditionally is concerned with fostering and developing skills and knowledge across a number of established dimensions, and then encouraging application initially through imitation of known models of good practice. The area of creativity related to composition, performance or use of technology is not ordinarily taught in any explicit way. Moreover our understanding of creativity, although in broad terms has been studied formally over the past one-hundred years, is still in its infancy in terms of how it relates to and offers insight into specific artistic disciplines.

Membership of professional bodies

Professional Membership:

External Examiner Positions:    

External Consultancy:

Qualifications

Undergraduate Qualificaions

Postgraduate Qualifications

Recent conferences

 2012-2015

Experience in industry

Before teaching full-time I worked self-employed as a PT teacher privately and in FE, I also worked as a performer in numerous original local bands as composer and as a session player. I created my own company in 1992 called MBM, which is still active outside of teaching commitments, to receive commissions for compositions and broadcast solutions predominantly for Independent Television.

International experience

I have delivered papers at conferences internationally in Philadelphia, Boston, Maine USA and Riga, Latvia, Istanbul, Turkey and Berlin, Germany.

Recent publications

PUBLICATIONS 2013-2015 

BOOK: Making Projects Sing: A Musical Perspective of Project management