Music Creation and Technology
Expand your artistry through new tools, forms, and creative possibilities.
BM in Music Creation and Technology
Eastman’s Music Creation and Technology degree is designed for students whose musical practice is grounded in electronic and digital technologies. From electronic music creation and performance, sound design, and recording and editing to DJing and the design/development of software and hardware, students will blend hands-on experimentation with engagement in a variety of musical styles and practices.
Welcome
The Music Creation and Technology major invites students to explore how music is imagined, built, and experienced in a rapidly evolving technological landscape. Students will create original electronic music and sound art using a wide range of tools and approaches—from digital audio workstations and synthesis platforms to Max/MSP, hardware controllers, and embedded systems.
At Eastman, technology is a means of expression. Students will apply skills in programming, electronics, and digital signal processing to realize artistic ideas and solve creative challenges. Work may take shape as live performance, recordings, installations, software, hardware, or web-based experiences—reflecting the many ways music moves through the world today.
While students will work with the latest tools and platforms, the program emphasizes a deeper goal: not just learning the tools but learning to transcend them. By developing adaptable, critically minded artists, the program prepares students to navigate—and shape—the ever-evolving technological and cultural landscape of music.
Dennis DeSantis
Associate Professor of Music and Technology
Graduates of the Music Creation and Technology program will be able to:
- Create original electronic music and sound works using a broad range of tools, techniques, and conceptual frameworks.
- Design, build, and perform with custom music technology systems, including interactive software, hardware controllers, and integrated performance environments.
- Develop fluency in contemporary music technologies, including digital audio workstations, synthesis platforms, Max/MSP, Max for Live, grooveboxes, DJ tools, and embedded systems.
- Apply technical skills in programming, electronics, and digital signal processing to realize expressive artistic goals and solve creative problems.
- Deploy music technology across diverse formats and platforms, including performance, recording, installation, software distribution, and web-based presentation.
- Analyze and interpret electronic music from multiple aesthetic, cultural, technical, and structural perspectives, situating their own creative practice within broader musical and social contexts.
- Engage critically with the history and current landscape of music technology, understanding how innovations have shaped and been shaped by musical practice, identity, and society.
- Collaborate and communicate effectively in creative, academic, and professional settings through presentations, critique, discussion, and documentation of artistic work.
- Participate in a community of practice, offering and receiving constructive critique, reflecting on personal growth, and contributing to an inclusive and supportive creative culture.
- Demonstrate adaptability, curiosity, and self-direction, preparing for lifelong engagement with evolving tools, methods, and ideas in music technology.
Curriculum
Courses include:
• Applied Music Production and Technology courses
• Symposium
• Music Engineering courses
• Music Theory
• Music History
• Performance and Ensembles
• Piano Class
• Humanities/Sciences electives
• Colloquium
• Capstone
Application and Admissions Criteria
In addition to the standard Eastman application requirements, applicants will submit a portfolio of work consisting of original compositions, as well as a reconstruction, cover, or remix of an existing work chosen from a list of very recent music. Additionally, students will submit videos in which they talk through their music-making process and perform music from their portfolio, either on a traditional instrument or with electronics. Applicants are also invited to submit additional work outside of the above categories (e.g. original software or hardware projects.) All applicants will be interviewed via Zoom to discuss and demonstrate aspects of their portfolio submissions.
Interested in more from Sound Arts and Engineering?
Explore BS in Audio and Music Engineering and BA in Audio Arts and Technology degrees through Hajim School of Engineering, or MM in Contemporary Media/Film Composition through Eastman.