The Music Technology Studio at the Taylor Music Center was filled with sounds from digital musical productions. As students fell in love with his 90-second track, Chris Chandler encouraged them to listen carefully to what they heard.
He wanted students to identify attributes or characteristics of the work they created.
Students in music technology courses analyze compositions and listen for sound, harmony, melody, rhythm and growth. Building on the strength of the university’s liberal arts and engineering programs, Union now offers a music technology minor.
“Think about sound, harmony, melody, rhythm, growth,” said Chandler, an assistant professor of music. “How do these different elements change in different sections of your work? You can see where layers have been added or removed. What are some qualities that define these different sections? ?”
An accomplished composer, Chandler introduced Music Technology 1: Sound Transformation, Music Creation to the Music curriculum in 2019. He then introduced another course, Music Technology 2: Recording, Mixing and Synthetic Sound.
These two courses are integral to Union’s new program.
Building on the strength of the university’s liberal arts and engineering programs, Union now offers a music technology minor. Approved in a faculty vote last spring, her minors consist of six courses drawn from the departments of music, engineering, computer science and visual arts.
The program is open to students of all majors and provides students with analog and digital techniques and fundamental concepts through creative expression and scientific inquiry.
Chris Chandler, Assistant Professor of Music, Music Technology 1: Teaches Sound Transformation, Music Creation. Starting this fall, Union now offers a minor in Music Technology. The Minor consists of his six courses drawn from the Music, Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts departments.
“I have some engineering students in my music technology class, and their eyes light up when I talk about the creative and artistic application of concepts I encountered in my engineering courses,” Chandler said. It’s very rewarding to watch,” he said.
He will oversee a new program developed in consultation with Jennifer Miriot Matsue and Tim Olsen from the Department of Music, and Shane Cotter, Luke Doshik and Sherrith Traver from the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering.
Music technology programs are not uncommon in large colleges and universities, but liberal arts institutions, especially engineering institutions such as the Union, rarely offer this option.
“One of the things that drew me to Union was the strong engineering program and the potential for interdisciplinary collaboration,” says Chandler. “There is a fair amount of shared content, especially between music technology, electrical engineering, and computer science. It meets the needs of both music students.”
Students who choose to minor in Music Technology are required to take three core courses. In addition to Music Technology 1 and Music Technology 2, this includes an introduction to audio electronics developed by the Department of Electrical, Computer and Biomedical Engineering. Students also choose three electives from two categories, Music and Technology, including courses from several departments on campus.
“This minor’s flexibility allows students to make the most of Union’s liberal arts core and find connections between different disciplines that intersect with music and technology,” said Chandler.
Chandler plans to develop additional courses that count as electives. This includes an introduction to film scoring, which fuses music technology and music theory with an emphasis on composing music for visual media, and an approach to performing music using technology such as synthesizers and hardware controllers. Includes focused music technology workshops. He also plans to develop Music Technology 3, a special topic course focused on modular synthesis and algorithmic approaches to digital music production.
Enrollment for the Chandler’s Music Technology 1 class is limited to 16 students this semester. Typical majors include economics, computer science, psychology, political science, biology, and biomedical engineering.
Abby Mitty ’23 is a Psychology and Spanish interdisciplinary major (ID) from Boston who has been playing guitar and writing her own music for the last seven years. In her music technology class, she taught her how to use music production software.
“I mostly write acoustic music, but learning how to use digital instruments has allowed me to add more features to my music,” says Mitty. After graduating, she plans to study organizational psychology while continuing to pursue her passion for music.
“I want to develop my music further and learn how to produce my own music,” said Mitty. “I haven’t done anything about my music yet, but this class inspired me to keep working on it and finally share it.”
The minor introduction of music technology comes at a time when a major renovation of the music technology studio is scheduled for this winter. A gift from Kurt W. Hillig ’75 and his wife Kathy J. Dien Hillig allowed him to lay out the space by upgrading the studio’s equipment, including new computers, workstations, audio his interfaces, and microphones. will change.
For more information on Union’s music tech miners, visit their website.
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