Universal Credit?

The income replacement part of universal credit is for people who are available and looking for work, and because of your age they will be even more intent to get you into a job or training quickly, like 1-2 weeks.
Asking to be giving funding while you stay home and learn the flute for months is just not realistic IMO, most people would call that a luxury. The fact it's self study with no accreditation or defined job at the end doesn't help either. When push comes to shove, everyone with a job is expected to fit their hobbies, development and family responsibilities around that, you can't walk into a jobcentre and say you've no time for a job.

The income replacement part of universal credit is for people who are available and looking for work, and because of your age they will be even more intent to get you into a job or training quickly, like 1-2 weeks.
Asking to be giving funding while you stay home and learn the flute for months is just not realistic IMO, most people would call that a luxury. The fact it's self study with no accreditation or defined job at the end doesn't help either. When push comes to shove, everyone with a job is expected to fit their hobbies, development and family responsibilities around that, you can't walk into a jobcentre and say you've no time for a job.

The income replacement part of universal credit is for people who are available and looking for work, and because of your age they will be even more intent to get you into a job or training quickly, like 1-2 weeks.
Asking to be giving funding while you stay home and learn the flute for months is just not realistic IMO, most people would call that a luxury. The fact it's self study with no accreditation or defined job at the end doesn't help either. When push comes to shove, everyone with a job is expected to fit their hobbies, development and family responsibilities around that, you can't walk into a jobcentre and say you've no time for a job.

I should probably add though that it's a Level 4 qualification in music so equivalent to the first year of a degree. It's not like I'm staying at home to get a Grade 3.
But you're right about it not being realistic.

Yeah I get you're saying the exams you want to sit at the end would give you a qualification, but the DWP likely wouldn't consider self study beforehand to be be the same as structured and assessed study like an enrolled student, not that they would pay unemployment related UC for either of them.
Is working part time not an option? Plenty of places hiring for winter part timers and anything around the 16-24 hour mark tends to keep the DWP off your back if you still wanted to claim, plus you get to keep some of the UC payments on top of wages.