Music Education (ME)

Purpose

The Master in Music Education is a 2-year programme that gives you qualifications both as a performing and creative musician and as a music teacher within voluntary music education, providing you with advanced pedagogical skills in teaching ensemble playing as well as first instrument instruction.

The purpose of the Master programme is to give you further qualifications for the labour market by extending the compentencies of your Bachelor degree. The advanced studies of the Master programme are organized so as to allow the students to focus on and become specialized in subjects areas of their own choice. The education is to a large extent based on project activities.

Job opportunities

The Master in Music Education will qualify you to become a music teacher at music schools, MGK (a Danish state funded music course preparing students for admission to conservatories), evening schools, folk high schools and similar institutions of voluntary music education. Most of the graduates who seek a career as performers find employment as freelance musicians in bands and in television, radio, theatre, films etc.

Qualifications

Upon completing the programme, you will have acquired a whole range of professional, personal and creative skills on an advanced level, including:

• Musical and technical qualifications at an advanced level;
• Teaching qualifications at an advanced level;
• The ability to make and account for personal as well as collective musical and artistic choices;
• The ability to make and account for personal as well as collective pedagogical choices;
• Insight into central pedagogical and psychological theories and concepts;
• Extensive experience with and insight into project-based work;
• Experience with central processes and work methods in relation to your own artistic development;
• Knowledge of general affairs in relation to culture and the arts;
• Knowledge of the music industry;
• The ability to create, maintain, develop as well as to work within open and changing networks;
• The ability to collaborate with others as well as to work independently;
• The ability to structure your own learning processes;
• Communicative skills;
• The ability to be unprejudiced and culturally open-minded;
• The ability to create and develop music, teaching methods and materials;
• The ability to combine existing knowledge and skills in new ways;
• The ability to develop and promote ensemble playing in multi-cultural settings;
• The ability to strike a balance between mediating tradition and promoting renewal;
• Knowledge of the music industry.

Structure and organization of the programme

The Master programme is rated at 120 ECTS credit points, the full-time equivalent of two years of 1,620 working hours each. A one-year full-time equivalent includes all the work that is required in connection with the programme, including classes, self-studies, exams and all other study-related activities.

Click here to see the distribution of course units and ECTS credit points in the programme.

Click here to see the course unit descriptions.

The programme’s main areas of study are ensemble playing, first instrument and pedagogy. Final examination is in the form of two main projects, one in performance (concert project) and one in pedagogy (Master project). The topics of these projects shall be defined by the individual student in accordance with the requirements that apply.

The development of your final competencies within the central subject areas is supported by various courses in the first year of study, which provide you with relevant knowledge, skills and competencies. All subjects are obligatory.

The studies in the Master programme are advanced level studies, where the students are encouraged to make individual choices, to focus and specialize and work innovatively, so that their individual profiles as performers and educators are strengthened. Consequently, the teaching is to a large extent organized as individual projects, where you plan your own subject activities, on the basis of individual guidance from a subject supervisor and in accordance with the requirements that apply.

To some extent, the programme also involves weekly classes and common modules, and some of the subjects are taught jointly with the Master programmes in MP and MME. In addition to this, there will be collaborative projects with RMC’s other Master programmes as well as with the other institutions of Higher Education in the Arts which are located on Holmen.

Other conditions

The Master in ME is a full-time study programme, and attendance is compulsory to all teaching activities. The primary language of instruction is Danish. However, the programme will also include courses and modules taught by foreign teachers, where the language of instruction will typically be English.