Bachelor of Music is an academic degree awarded by a college, university, or conservatory upon completion of a program of study in music. In the United States, it is a professional degree, and the majority of work consists of prescribed music courses and study in applied music, usually requiring proficiency in an instrument, voice, or conducting. In Canada, the B.M. is often considered an undergraduate degree. Programs typically last from three to four and a half years.
The degree may be awarded for performance, music education, composition, music theory, musicology / music history (musicology degrees may be a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) rather than a BM) music technology, music therapy, sacred music, music business/music industry, entertainment, music production or jazz studies. In the 2010s, some universities have begun offering degrees in Music Composition with Technology, which include traditional theory and musicology courses and sound recording and composition courses using digital technologies.
In the United Kingdom, the Bachelor of Music – often referred to in speech as a BMus /ˌbiː ˈmjuz/ – is generally a first degree lasting three years (or four years in Scotland) and consisting of a wide range of areas of study (normally including performance, composition, music theory, musicology/music history), but at the University of Oxford and University of Cambridge it is a one-year postgraduate degree which can only be taken if a student is a graduate in music with honors at those universities; the undergraduate course is in the Faculty of Arts and leads to the Bachelor of Arts (and subsequently the Master of Arts (Oxbridge)).