The WaterBear Story

WaterBear is all about empowering the independent, DIY artist, who wants to take full control of their music and their life. We foster a culture of self-belief and determination, with a commitment to high-quality musical output, all of which are keys to success and fundamental to the WaterBear experience. By maintaining manageable student numbers, we can focus on each individual, and offer the best work experience and career development opportunities for all. Think of WaterBear as the cool indie label, not the corporate major. 

You won’t find big classrooms or lecture halls here. We keep class sizes limited to smaller groups, something we believe is vital for high quality learning. Typical class sizes range from 6 – 15. Tutors can therefore spend more time with each person, focussing on personal strengths, development and individual learning styles. There’s more time to address each person’s individual needs in these environments, providing a safe space to question, discuss, experiment and learn.

Our unique one-to-one mentoring programme is a key part of the WaterBear experience. It’s designed to drive specific skills development. You cover anything across a wide range of subject areas, from instrumental and vocal coaching to audio production, career planning and artist development – it’s up to you what you decide to focus on. All students receive their 1-1 mentoring time with high-level industry professionals. Your mentoring sessions will help you to focus on those areas that need extra attention, or that you have a specific interest in.

WaterBear founders, senior staff, tutors and mentors have all had successful careers and high-level experience in the music industry. We are a college filled with professional musicians and creatives actively working across many areas of the industry. This not only brings real-world context and experience to the curriculum, but also creates a network of like-minded musicians and creatives, all with lived experiences of a life in music. This is something that continually motivates and inspires our students. It also means we have a huge network of professional contacts through which to generate more student work and career opportunities.

The music industry is all about making solid contacts and collaboration, something that’s essential for starting and maintaining your career in music. Through our network, our students get regular work experience opportunities. These range from festivals, touring, recording, session work, record labels, publishing, PR and marketing campaigns, to live event management, backline, tech’ing, musical instrument manufacturers, teaching, studio internships, and much more. As well as iconic industry brands, WaterBear also works with some of the UK’s coolest festivals and conferences that support new music, including Glastonbury, Tramlines, ArcTanGent, The Great Escape, and many others.

All WaterBear course content is available 24/7 for everyone regardless of whether you are studying on-site or fully online. If you’re studying an on-site course but can’t get to college for some reason, that’s not a problem. With WiFi and a laptop, you can log into the WaterBear VLE and keep up to date with your course and in contact with the WaterBear community. This unique approach allows you to fit study around your life – not the other way around, which is particularly important for today’s musicians.