Degree course rocks for students
PERHAPS the most surprising thing you’ll notice on entering the ‘rock school’ building on Dublin’s Francis Street is how very clean it all looks. Granted, it has only been open since October 2011, but when you consider that the 150 students are studying to become the next Mick Jaggers, Phil Spectors and John Bonhams you would expect the place to be just a little bit grubbier. Surely there is a module on thrashing your hotel room or how to choose the best hash pipe?
Not so. Indeed, the stereotype of the crazy, substance-sniffing, sex-craved rock star is a far cry from what you’ll see here. The city centre campus plays host to the Bachelor of Arts in Commercial Modern Music degree which was brought to Ireland by the Brighton Institute of Music Management (BIMM) in association with the Dublin Institute of Technology. The four-year full-time degree course is based on similar courses which have been running in both Brighton and Bristol for a number of years and have produced acts which include The Kooks and Beth Rowley.
It is hard to know at this stage whether the Dublin branch of the college will produce the next Irish multi-million album seller. But if the energy coming from the 60 or 70 students who are buzzing around the ample performance room with their instruments is anything to go by, they are off to a good start. And as 18-year-old vocals student Sarah-Louise Keane explains, there is more to the course than sitting around discussing which Pink Floyd album is the best.
“I kind of hate when people look down on the course,” says the Roscommon native. “We have the whole performance side to it yes, but there’s a huge academic side to it too. We study all the theory, and by the time you’ve finished the fourth year, you’re up to grade eight. And you study music business: marketing, production, accounting. So you might come in here in your first year wanting to be a singer but you might leave wanting to manage a band. So there’s all these different aspects.”
Each student focusses on one of five aspects of modern music instrumentation and composition; bass, drums, guitar, singing and songwriting. All applicants go through an audition and interview process to make sure they are able to handle the rigours of the incessant practice. And although it is undoubtedly enjoyable, it is not for the faint-hearted.
Steven McCann, 19, from Artane in Dublin has been playing the guitar for over three years. Having gone through the audition process, he was already at a fairly decent standard before starting the course. McCann says, however, that he has learned more in the first 11 weeks of this course than ever before.
“They pretty much take the guitar apart as if we’re going back to day one,” he enthuses, as he strums on a Fender Stratocaster. “We learn this thing called the cage system which teaches you to play every single chord in every single position. We do theory and techniques and essential styles. It’s a huge amount of styles we’ve learned; the likes of blues, swing, jazz, reggae. Crazy stuff really and we’re learning off the best in the business. It’s mind boggling how good they [the tutors] are.”
Among the tutors at BIMM Dublin is former Therapy? drummer, Graham Hopkins. Hopkins, who still plays and tours with Glen Hansard’s group The Swell Season, has a long association with BIMM, having given workshops and clinics in its main Brighton campus.
“All the tutors still tour and play,” says Hopkins. “And not to sound egotistical or anything, but when the students see me or the others going off on tour, with the likes of The Swell Season, they sort of say to themselves, ‘that’s what I want to do’ and so they sort of see the real thing. So you do the notations, techniques and theory but a lot of what you’re showing people is the experience that you’ve had on the road or working in a studio. ”
The drummer explains that every Monday each of the five aforementioned disciplines is given a song to work on for the weekly Thursday workshop. Each class has about 15 students and after a brief introduction to the song’s history and genre, Hopkins will take them through the song; discussing it, adding to it and taking away from it where necessary.
“The tutors get completely caught up in the whole thing,” says Hopkins. “I mean you can see it in the performance room. The tutors are in there giving 150%.”
Dara Kilkenny, the daughter of former U2 accountant Ossie, is the college manager. She says the levels of interest in the course have been huge. The current crop of 150 was whittled down from an audition list of 500, but Kilkenny stresses that BIMM is no X Factor-type factory for the promotion of fleeting stardom.
“We’re not interested in short-term celebrity,” she explains. “It’s not about paparazzi. It’s about equipping our students to be employed in a sustainable career in the industry that they love. Generally if you’re a musician, you need to play with other musicians. They need to get into bands and interact with other creative people and this is a great place to meet people in the industry.”
The CAO course code for the BA in Commercial Modern Music is DT506. The deadline is Feb 1 and applications are now accepted from change of mind or late application slips.
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