Subject Benchmark Statement: Music
Publication date: 07 Apr 2025
Music
Subject Benchmark Statement
Subject Benchmark Statements describe the nature of study and the academic standards expected of graduates in specific subject areas. They show what graduates might reasonably be expected to know, do and understand at the end of their studies.
Below you will find the full Subject Benchmark Statement for Music. Alongside it, we have also published a summary designed to provide a short and accessible overview of the main Statement for students, employers and academics.
Subject Benchmark Statement: Music - the basics
Publication date: 07 Apr 2025
About this subject
The study of Music in higher education is an extremely rich field of endeavour, providing students with opportunities to engage in a broad spectrum of intellectual and creative activity, enabling them to develop a wide range of specialised and generic skills, and preparing them for a diverse array of careers, both within Music and beyond it. Music graduates have skills and knowledge of great value to society. They are agents of social cohesion, cultural understanding, artistic expression, and individual and collective well-being.
Professor Chris Collins - Chair of the Advisory Group
Head of School, University of Aberdeen
The latest revision of the Subject Benchmark Statement for Music has presented an opportunity for us to reflect on the many ways in which the subject has expanded its reach and deepened its impacts over recent years. Music has always been a plural discipline, encompassing modes of creation, re-creation, investigation and understanding. The Statement embraces the many ways in which these modes of practice are constantly refreshed and enriched in dialogue with new technologies, new discoveries, and new ways of thinking. It acknowledges the increasingly important role of Music in enhancing cultural understanding and collective well-being, and recognises ways in which Music contributes to creativity and innovation across multiple artforms, careers and scholarly disciplines.The new Statement has been prepared by a diverse team representing the full range of musical subdisciplines, and it has been our aim to celebrate the vibrancy of the subject as it is currently studied and practised in UK higher education. A Music degree equips graduates with skills and knowledge that are immensely valuable to the intellectual and emotional health of our society. I believe that the Statement reinforces this and helps to ensure wide understanding of the subject’s relevance today and in the future.
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