Bangor launches first degree in song-writing

Jan 29 2008 by Robin Turner, Western Mail

A WELSH university launched the first degree in songwriting yesterday.

The move by Bangor University came as Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied “dumbing down” education by allowing McDonald’s to issue A- level equivalent diplomas to burger bar staff.

It will run a basic shift manager course in marketing, human resources and customer service.

And yesterday the England and Wales Qualifications and Curriculum Authority also approved Network Rail’s track engineering and Flybe’s airline trainer courses up to A-level standard.

It is the first time firms have been allowed to act as exam boards and award nationally recognised qualifications based on workplace training.

Bangor University yesterday announced its unique “Degree in English with Songwriting” would be taught from 2008.

A university spokesman said, “This is the only degree in the UK that teaches songwriting in all its aspects. It will involve the composition of words and music, the theory, the history, recording technology and business skills.”

In 2004, a degree course in surf management was dropped after criticism.

Swansea Institute (now Swansea Metropolitan University) said it had pulled the BA in surf and beach management to protect its image.

But Ian Gregson, poet, literary critic and lecturer at Bangor University’s School of English, said of the song-writing degree, “Academics, literary critics and people in general have for centuries gained pleasure from enjoying and analysing all forms of culture from high art, classical symphonies, novels and plays ... to popular culture: story-telling, folk songs and ballads to contemporary forms such as the soap opera and pop song.

“Songs have formed the inner soundtrack to so many people’s lives.”

Composer Pwyll ap Sion of the School of Music at Bangor added, “We can all relate to songs because they richly represent the changing face of our culture and other people’s.

“The song form has undergone radical transformation since the Tin-Pan Alley tunes and 12-bar blues of the 1920s and 30s. The proliferation of forms and styles in the late 20th century has meant that there has been no better time to study songs and their backgrounds, to contextualise their meanings, and become inspired to write some ourselves.”