Creative Music Technologies (W3077)

15 credits, Level 4

Spring teaching

This module introduces you to the core methods of electronic music composition and production through software environments aimed at flexible sound synthesis and musical composition. The module provides you with a grounded understanding of the key concepts in digital signal processing and acoustics as applied in the digital computer. Max/MSP, Pure Data, Ableton Live and SuperCollider are amongst the music software used to explore concepts of synthesis, sampling, and generative composition. You'll get to know key work by pioneers in electronic music and understand the techniques developed by them in the context of modern musical production environments.

You will develop your own musical systems as part of this module, using creative coding environments for audio production. The module provides a preparation for the second year modules ‘Interactive Music Systems’ and ‘Digital Music Cultures’.

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 22 hours of contact time and about 128 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2022/23. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.