Do you want to get more out of your reading? This free course, Approaching prose fiction, is designed to develop the analytical skills you need for a more in-depth study of literary texts. You will learn about narrative events and perspectives, the setting of novels, types of characterisation and genre.

This course will introduce you to the work and writings of George Orwell through a study of his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). By studying the book, well-known for its depiction of a totalitarian state, and the techniques, language and oppressive methods used by such states, you will gain a wider understanding of the meaning of ...

This free course, Listening for form in popular music, explores form, or how music is organised in time. It looks at three strategies for communicating form – through the use of specialist terms (such as ‘chorus’ and ‘bridge’), alphabetic designations (for example AABA), and visual diagrams. It also considers how the form of a song works with ...

This free course, Music and its media, examines some of the main ways in which music is transmitted. It considers how the means of communicating a particular piece can change over time; and how the appearance and contents of a source can reflect the circumstances in which it is produced. The course focuses on three examples of musical media that...

This free course, Recording music and sound, provides an historical introduction to music and sound recording in the creative industries and offers some guidance about making your own recordings. Many of the processes that have been developed and the issues that have been raised in the first 150 years of recording are still relevant today, and a...

There are many approaches to using film music in the classroom including: a focus on pupil experience; a focus on the structure of composition; a focus on the relationship between music and image. This free course, Using film music in the classroom, explores them all.

This free 12-hour course explores the intriguing world of film production, and illuminates the processes of film development, distribution and finance.

In this free course, Form and uses of language, we will consider how language can be used in different ways for different purposes. To do this we will use the theme of memorial and commemoration. In the first section we briefly discuss the life of the poet Siegfried Sassoon before examining both his poetry and his prose. Through this we will see...

A freelance career in the creative arts is a free badged course which lasts 8 weeks, with approximately 3 hours’ study time each week. You can work through the course at your own pace, so if you have more time one week, there’s nothing to stop you pushing on and completing another week’s study. This course has a specific focus on the ...

This free course, An introduction to material culture, introduces the study of material culture. It asks why we should study things and outlines some basic approaches to studying objects.