Popular Music

Performing Artist
During your studies, we try to bring you to the necessary level for your band in singing and songwriting: How do I write lyrics? What tools and tricks will help me sing in a healthy way? What kind of sounds can I create with my own voice? How can I improvise with my voice?
Then we look at themes such as circle singing, writing choral arrangements, working with the loop station, effects and computer programmes, ad-hoc songwriting, International Songwriter Week, singing standard repertoire, getting to know other singing techniques, interview training, artist profiles, stage work and the planning of your master’s concert.

Educating Artist
Our mutual goal is to pick you up where you left off with your previous studies. We would like to provide you with methodic-didactic tools to be well positioned in the field of pop music. Body scanning (polarity, shiatsu, music kinesiology), current vocal techniques of popular music (EVT, CVT, Estill, functional voice training, speech level), in combination with singing standard repertoire and songwriting. This is followed by topics such as circle singing, writing choral arrangements, working with effects and computer programmes.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Annette Marquard. Further lecturers.

Major
The main focus is on fine-tuning your personal profile. You will not only make your mark through your technical skills on your instrument, but also contribute to the music world through your unique artistic personality. This is why the strengthening of this identity is of utmost important and is tied together with concrete goal-setting.

Lecturers:
1st semester: Peter Wölpl
2nd semester: Jan Zehrfeld
3rd semester: Gagey Mrozeck
4th semester: Kosho Koschorrek

Minor
Lecturers: Gagey Mrozeck & Kosho Koschorrek, prior knowledge is not required, but allowed.

• General fretboard navigation, basic overview for correlations of chords & scales, open tunings
• Chord inversions to develop and expand songwriting abilities on the guitar
• Song examples, guitar riff compilation and exercises for different guitar styles
• Relevant basic knowledge about the different guitar types and their sound and play types; amps, effects and sounds

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Peter Wölpl. Further lecturers.

We’ll prepare you for a sustainable career as a live performance and recording session musician. The emphasis in the classroom is on sound formation based on influential bassists, sensitivity for tone lengths and timing as a groove factor and phrasing as a basis for bass lines and melodies. Furthermore, playing with a pick and using slap technique are part of the instruction.

Grouping, phrase-shifting and equipment instruction are key topics throughout the course of study. We also include stylistics and a detour into the sight-reading genre such as musical, orchestra pit and conducting, the ternary rhythms as well as ethnic and fusion music with all its complexity.

Our goal is to set you up with the broad skills needed to meet the challenges of a career as a professional bassist.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Frank Itt. Further lecturers.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Anika Nilles. Further lecturers.

Now that you’ve acquired many skills and your talent has been promoted, we will support you on your journey to become a complete artistic personality.

For this it is necessary to analyse which strengths and weaknesses favour or prevent an optimal position on the market. Accordingly, we will create an individual programme with you, focusing on creativity, mastering of the instrument, stylistic confidence, virtuosity and flexibility.

We will work on technical exercises, transcriptions and your own compositions and arrangements. In addition, you’ll have the opportunity to deepen your knowledge in the fields of sound aesthetics or keyboard sounds as well as arranging electronic music for keyboarders.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Mathias "Maze" Leber. Further lecturers.

The main focus of the Educating Artist programme is not only to further develop artistic personalities in the field of popular music in their artistic activities, but also to further develop, deepen, specialise and professionalise their pedagogical skills. The course contents are designed to be hands-on, teaching a variety of models and concepts of popular music education. In addition, you will learn theoretical knowledge, which enables the Educating Artist to coach music at a high level, tailored to different target groups and goals.

At the Popakademie Baden-Württemberg, our experience has shown that there is increasing demand for authentic artists who are also able to impart their art to others. Changes in the educational landscape (e.g. full-day schools, integrated classrooms, cultural education, etc.) have created new opportunities for artists with pedagogical qualifications.
The course contents are intended to educate artists so that they can teach popular music in targeted music coaching sessions. These target groups run the gamut, from pre-schoolers to high schoolers, children with special needs, adults and seniors. As a freelance artist you will be able to work with various institutions to meet different goals.

Although the Educating Artist works primarily as a freelancer, there are many examples of graduates also working in permanent positions, e.g. in music schools; at private and some public mainstream schools; at public schools in the SEk1+ sector with lateral entry in some federal states with the single teacher; at vocational schools; at universities for teaching assignments in the pop sector, or in cultural youth education.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Axel Schwarz. Further lecturers.

Arrangement, recording, sound design, groove and beat programming, mixing, mastering, production of own projects and individual tasks, electronic music producing (EMP) and remixing, sound engineering with a focus on stylistic design and sound trends, analysis, new technologies for production and distribution, film music in production and business, working with surround sound formats, game music, sound branding and advertising, development of individual tools and working environments, group dynamic processes in the recording/ ­production situations, psychological skills in dealing with artistic production situations, techniques of artistic influence/­design in studio-related creative situations, producer typologies, dealing with the human voice in the context of popular music/­vocal producing (in-depth), vocal arrangement and harmony singing in the studio, orchestral arrangement and recording in the studio, advanced instrumentology (focus on ethnic and rare instruments), mixdown in various settings and contexts, mastering (in-depth), execution of productions/ recording of existing or new acts with support from specialist lecturers, music business practice and knowledge specifically for producers, songwriters, EM producers, DJs, music business in the field of media music, specials by and for producers.

Artistic/technical advice and project support: Prof. Alexander Paeffgen and Prof. Florian Sitzmann. Further lecturers.