MUMBAI: Banging your head to a university degree is now possible. In a first of its kind, a new two-year course on heavy metal music will start this September and award degrees to students who pass the course.
UK’s Nottingham’s New College’s course will include composition and performing of heavy metal music. The modules will cover the music industry and history of heavy metal, including its role in films and video games. As part of the second year of the course, students will be able to perform in music venues around the country. They will also be offered the chance to stay on for a third and final year, where they will be able to get a full degree awarded by Nottingham Trent University, which has accredited the course, reports said.
The college’s website said, ” We’ve created this pioneering course in response to student demand and Nottingham’s growing music and creative economy.”
Heavy Metal has huge cultural significance in Nottingham, nationally and internationally and this will be explored during the course.
At its heart is music performance so students will be forming bands, gigging and promoting, while academically delving into what makes metal such a music phenomenon.”
Nottingham is known for its music scene. Download Festival attracts more than 75,000 rock and metal fans every year and Metal label Earache Records was founded in Nottingham in 1985.Unsurprisingly, like the music itself the course has attracted criticism.
Campaign for Real Education (CRE) has labeled the course an “easy option”. “It might seem an attractive, easy option to some people. But you don’t need to do a degree in heavy metal. It’s a waste of time,” CRE chairman Chris McGovern told BBC.
However, course developer Liam Maloy, a lecturer in music performance at New College Nottingham, who spent long time developing the course has defended it.
“It’s a degree, so it will be academically rigorous. In the past, heavy metal has not been taken seriously and is seen as lacking academic credibility when compared with other genres such as jazz and classical music. But that’s just a cultural construction.”