Digging for douze points: What makes a great Eurovision entry?

We spoke to Tim Chaundy, Curriculum Manager for Performing Arts and Music at Capital City College to get his insight into the Eurovision Song Contest.

This year’s Eurovision Song Contest Final will be made up of entries from 37 countries including the UK. The UK entry for this year is Remember Monday, an all-female group featuring singers Lauren Byrne, Holly-Anne Hull and Charlotte Steele who will perform the song What The Hell Just Happened?

To celebrate the 69th Eurovision Song Contest happening in Basel, Switzerland this week, we caught up with Tim Chaundy, Curriculum Manager for Performing Arts and Music at Capital City College (CCC).

Tim talked us through CCC’s excellent Music and Music Production Courses and shared his thoughts on all things Eurovision.

What Music and Music Production courses do you teach at CCC?

I oversee our UAL (University of the Arts London) Music and Music Production Courses at Capital City College. We run Level 2 and 3 vocational courses and they are very practical, but there’s also a good amount of theoretical understanding involved. 

Our courses offer a good mix of performance and production, and nowadays you need knowledge of both of those skills nowadays to progress into the music industry. As a learner on those courses, you have some choice about what skills you want to develop, where you want to take your musical journey and your musical learning during the one or two years that you’re with us. We provide our students with the platform to get to the next steps – a lot of our students go to university or music school, and some go straight into the industry. 

What do you enjoy about teaching music?

Music is wonderful and everyone in the world appreciates music in some form. I’m not actually teaching music at the moment as I primarily teach performing arts, but what I do love about teaching music is bringing small groups together, creating musical ensembles, and introducing people to different genres and styles. I’m particularly interested in international music, so I enjoy exposing people to new styles and getting them to play in different ways, as well as developing their own repertoire.

What do you know about Eurovision?

I watch Eurovision occasionally and I do appreciate it, but I wouldn’t say I’m a big fan. It is such a huge event though, and lots of people love it. I have friends in Sweden and it’s really popular there. Also, we’ve just had a group of teachers and students visiting us from a college in Reykjavik, Iceland. They were talking about it a lot because they absolutely love it and it’s huge in Iceland, even though Iceland has never actually won it. Also, someone who worked with us at CCC a few years ago went on to become one of the production managers for the Eurovision events. 

What makes a great Eurovision entry? 

I think it’s about having a catchy melody – and actually it’s quite difficult to write something that really has a strong tune. It’s also about appealing to a modern audience, and that’s quite a tricky thing to get right. 

But it’s not just about the music itself, it’s about the way it’s performed – and that’s down to the styling of it, the aesthetic, the production value – and bringing all of those elements together is really what makes a great Eurovision entry. 

What skills and techniques are important for a strong Eurovision performance? 

From a performance perspective, it’s important to have all the elements of performance such as musical performance, dance, being able to really engage an audience – and it takes a lot of technique to really develop confidence in those areas. 

It’s important to understand how to choreograph that kind of large scale performance event and think about the design elements as well – and some of the Eurovision performances really tie in with their cultural outlook.

Do you have a favourite Eurovision entry from previous years?

I think it would have to be any of the Abba performances, Abba became huge and wrote really amazing pop songs, which were very much in that Europop tradition. Obviously, that led to Mama Mia, the musical and then the film. Abba have a lasting legacy which has grown and grown, and there are still performances going on now using modern technology. 

What skills and techniques can students learn on music courses at CCC?

We teach you about the fundamental skills involved in performance and production, and you’ve got that flexibility, that choice that you can make as a learner, to decide on where you want to go and what pathway you want to take.

Also, from next year our Music and Music Production Courses will primarily be run at our King’s Cross centre, and I think that the resources at King’s Cross are genuinely fantastic. We’ve got a Steinway grand piano, an amazing band practice room and fantastic professional recording studios – all of which can be used by the students. I think that we offer an opportunity to really develop your own pathway through the course, which hopefully leads to bigger and greater things. 

How do the courses at CCC support students in creating original music?

Our courses are all about creating original music and UAL, our awarding body, is very much centred on delivering a creative qualification. It’s all about encouraging the student’s voice, the student’s own authenticity, and we try to really develop that here. Last year, some of our students won the UAL origins creative award for original music that was based on Latin music. We really do try and encourage students to draw their own authenticity, their own interests, and to develop that into original music. 

Whether it’s Europop, Afrobeats or Classical music that inspires you, our range of Music and Music Production Courses offer an opportunity to find your own unique pathway into music creation. Apply today!

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