The Bachelor of Music (Contemporary) is AIM's most popular course, offering students a rich diversity of performance & theoretical experiences & helping students develop their skills as performing musicians.

Major Study
Major Study involves a weekly one hour individual lesson and a two hour masterclass which is divided by instrumental groupings: Guitar, Keyboard, Woodwind, Brass, Vocal, Bass, Drums and Percussion. The main areas of this degree are:

Performance Studies: Performance Studies contains two units – Performance Studies and Concert Practice & investigates specific genres of music with a rich collection of styles from which to push their performance skills. Genres studied include Rhythm and Blues, rock, pop, early Jazz to 1950’s, Australian Contemporary Music, World Music & Modern Jazz post 1950.

Ensemble: Students are given the opportunity to develop their individual and collective skills, with weekly rehearsals to develop a 20 minute set per semester for public performance.

Foundation and Critical Studies: These units are comprised of Foundation Studies in theory, history and aural, and Critical Studies that provide an in-depth study or major musical periods and styles. Students can elect to study a range of subjects to suit their personal interests and shape their career path - these subjects include Audio, Music Theatre, Film Music, World Music and follow classical history and theory as part of their Critical Studies.

Associated Studies: Students elect two Associated Studies every semester. Popular Associated Studies include Digital Technology, Keyboard Skills, Guitar Skills, Songwriting, Arranging and Arts/Law Core Studies: Ensemble - Through a range of instrument combinations and music styles including rock, blues, jazz, swing, reggae, and Latin, students develop skills in improvisation, transcription, transposition, interpretation, notation, band leading, accompaniment and rehearsal techniques.

Music History - An overview of the development of the history of music in Western civilisation from the beginning of Christianity to the present day. Attention is then given to the contribution of music to the total dramatic entity that is opera over its 400-year history and to the 100 years of film. Students also examine and compare various significant aspects of 20th-century music drawn from both the ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’ streams.

Theory - Students undertake a comprehensive grounding through the revision of basic principles and an introduction of the main elements of contemporary music theory. This includes: modes, voice leading, jazz chords, inversions, guide tones, pentatonic and blues scales, chordal pluralities, and dominant 7th and extended chords.

Aural - Students develop the aural skills essential for professional musicians based on a program of rhythm, interval, melodic, tetrachord and 12-tone row dictation; chord, scale and mode recognition; and the development of relative pitch.

Research - Students are introduced to the processes of research methodology and, through individual research purposes, identify techniques and procedures used to investigate and document strategies.

Instruments Available: Vocal, Guitar, Bass, Drum, Keyboard, Percussion, Saxaphone, Brass, Woodwind and Strings.