WaterBear: A College for Today’s Musicians and Creatives

11th June 2018 0 By Jon Deaux

A New College Offering Flexible and Innovative Higher Education for Creative Minds

WaterBear is a new Brighton-based college for musicians and creatives, now accepting applications for courses starting September 2018. Working in partnership with the University of Chichester, WaterBear offers BA (Hons) and Master of Arts courses for today’s musicians and music industry professionals, including a brand-new BA (Hons) in Commercial Music; an MA in Music Industry Innovation and Enterprise for degree graduates; and an MA in Music Industry Innovation and Enterprise for mature students.

WaterBear is run by its founders: Bruce John Dickinson (Little Angels), Adam Bushell (Freak Power) and Mark Clayden (Pitchshifter) – a formidable management team of highly experienced professionals, each of whom has significant experience in the music industry as established touring musicians and recording artists. What’s more, the team members also share a deep-set passion for music education, each with over 20 years’ experience at the forefront of the UK’s world-leading private music education sector, having set up and run several highly successful music colleges.

WaterBear is also proud to announce the exciting appointment of Rob Chapman as Director of Innovation in Guitar. YouTube sensation Rob is a guitarist, singer, and content creator. In both 2015 and 2016, Rob was named Total Guitar Magazine’s ‘Guitar Personality of the Year’. He was also featured in Forbes magazine as an entrepreneur who had made exceptionally good use of YouTube. Rob Chapman also founded and owns Chapman Guitars: the UK’s fastest-growing guitar company. He also served as the frontman of chart-topping heavy rock band Dorje and has built a well-established reputation for creating and delivering charismatic, entertaining and educational videos on YouTube for the past decade, currently getting over 5 million views per month.

As Rob explains himself: “It’s my job to call upon my many years of experience to help you guys reach your final form and reach your absolute potential in what it is you want to do, through a forward thinking and practical curriculum. One of the big differences with WaterBear is that your own music and projects form the foundation of the course. WaterBear will help you expand on what you already do. They will give you one-to-one mentoring to really help you take your playing and your career to the next level.”

WaterBear’s courses have been designed for musicians, producers, tour managers, event managers, songwriters, solo artists, film makers, social media content creators and creative entrepreneurs. WaterBear aims to take students’ real world activity and amplify it, to form lasting industry careers.

Founder Director Bruce John Dickinson explains: “WaterBear will offer something new and different. We believe that people like us who design and deliver music degrees should be active professional musicians themselves – just like the team at WaterBear. If you study with us, your own music and projects will form the foundations of your course. You can study online, on site or a mixture of the two. WaterBear believes your college work should fit around your life, not the other way around.”

WaterBear CEO Adam Bushell adds “WaterBear is a practical, modern approach to music education. We are really excited to be accepting students onto our new MA and BA courses. We see all applicants for a one-to-one consultation prior to making any offers, as we want to hear all about each individual and where they’re at, experientially and creatively. We believe that every creative is an individual who deserves one-to-one attention, mentoring and guidance.”

WaterBear Principal Mark Clayden explains “Innovation is at the heart of what we do. For example, we are proud to be the first creative college to take social media seriously and offer a degree that focuses on filmmaking and content creation for social media. It’s all about forming a creative community of like-minded individuals who share knowledge, skills and contacts.”