MS and PhD programs in music technology at Georgia Tech

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Georgia Tech is now accepting applications for the MS and PhD programs in music technology for matriculation in August 2015. All PhD students, and a limited number of MS students, receive graduate research assistantships that cover tuition and pay a competitive monthly stipend. The deadline for applications is January 31, 2015.

The MS in Music Technology is a two-year program that instills in students the theoretical foundation, technical skills, and creative aptitude to design the disruptive technologies that will enable new modes of music creation and consumption in a changing industry. Students take courses in areas such as music information retrieval, music perception and cognition, signal processing, interactive music, the history of electronic music, and technology ensemble. They also work closely with faculty on collaborative research projects and on their own MS project or thesis. Recent students in the program have worked and/or interned at companies such as Pandora, Spotify Apple, Avid, Dolby, Harman, Bose, Gracenote, Rdio, Sennheiser, Ableton, and Smule, and gone on to PhD studies at institutions such Georgia Tech, MIT, and Michigan University and UPF. Applicants are expected to have an undergraduate degree in music, computing, engineering, or a related discipline, and they should possess both strong musical and technical skills.

Students in the PhD program in Music Technology pursue individualized research agendas in close collaboration with faculty in areas such as interactive music, robotic musicianship, music information retrieval, digital signal processing, mobile music, network music, and music education, focusing on conducting and disseminating novel research with a broad impact. PhD students are also trained in research methods, teaching pedagogy, and an interdisciplinary minor field as they prepare for careers in academia, at industry research labs, or in their own startup companies. PhD applicants are expected to hold a Masters degree in music technology or from an allied field, such as computing, music, engineering, or media arts and sciences. All applicants must demonstrate mastery of core masters-level material covered in Music Technology, including music theory, performance, composition, and/or analysis; music information retrieval; digital signal processing and synthesis; interactive music systems design; and music cognition.

Both the MS and PhD programs are housed within the School of Music at Georgia Tech, in close collaboration with the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology (GTCMT). The GTCMT is an international center for creative and technological research in music, focusing on the development and deployment of innovative musical technologies that transform the ways in which we create and experience music. Its mission is to provide a collaborative framework for committed students, faculty, and researchers from all across campus to apply their musical, technological, and scientific creativity to the development of innovative artistic and technological artifacts.

Core faculty in the music technology program include Gil Weinberg (robotic musicianship, mobile music, and sonification), Jason Freeman (participatory and collaborative systems, education, and composition), Alexander Lerch (music information retrieval and digital signal processing), Timothy Hsu (acoustics), Frank Clark (multimedia and network music), and Chris Moore (recording and production).

More information on the MS program is at: http://www.music.gatech.edu/academics/graduate/overview

More information on the PhD program is at: http://www.music.gatech.edu/academics/phd/overview

More information on the GTCMT is at: http://www.gtcmt.gatech.edu

To apply, please visit: http://www.gradadmiss.gatech.edu/apply/

To contact us, please visit: http://www.gtcmt.gatech.edu/contact_us

[KBSoundSmith]

The opportunity cost is simply too high for advanced degrees in music tech. Let's be frank--most graduate programs are designed to create a funnel of candidates for teaching positions (despite there not being enough such positions to justify the number of people who go into these programs), not to generate the next set of entrepreneurs (in an unattractive industry at that). It really strikes me as a grand waste of time and money, with the waste of human capital being tragically outrageous to top it off.

Let's be frank: schooling is not the same as education. The most important learning a person accomplishes happens after schooling--it happens on a continual basis, in fact. I know more now about music tech now, based on my solo efforts, than I ever learned at a university (and I helped teach the stuff, actually).

Frankly, buying a handful of quality books on the subject and sitting your ass in a chair and getting to work is the best way to learn about music tech, not a degree program. If you are going to get an advanced degree, have it be in something where an advanced degree is actually required for admittance into the field (like law or medicine)--anything else is a waste of resources, especially years of your life.

[ghettosynth]

The opportunity cost is simply too high for advanced degrees in music tech. Let's be frank--most graduate programs are designed to create a funnel of candidates for teaching positions (despite there not being enough such positions to justify the number of people who go into these programs), not to generate the next set of entrepreneurs (in an unattractive industry at that). It really strikes me as a grand waste of time and money, with the waste of human capital being tragically outrageous to top it off.

Let's be frank: schooling is not the same as education. The most important learning a person accomplishes happens after schooling--it happens on a continual basis, in fact. I know more now about music tech now, based on my solo efforts, than I ever learned at a university (and I helped teach the stuff, actually).

Frankly, buying a handful of quality books on the subject and sitting your ass in a chair and getting to work is the best way to learn about music tech, not a degree program. If you are going to get an advanced degree, have it be in something where an advanced degree is actually required for admittance into the field (like law or medicine)--anything else is a waste of resources, especially years of your life.

+1, moreover, the current education funnel is becoming an ever more bloated self-justifying machine.

[AstralExistence]

lol music 'school' same as art 'school' you know whats funny of all the jobs these are the two careers you DON'T need to go to school for. dream rider collages. that what i call em

[davidguda]

There is however pretty decent list of companies that they worked with... even though, I would never attend a program like that. I might be really fun and all but it wouldn't really lead me much closer to a good job in the music industry.

[Winstontaneous]

Not really sure what people are on about here, this isn't a Full Sail recording school for wannabe producers. Sounds like a rigorous program along the lines of UC Berkeley's CNMAT, Stanford's CCRMA, or McGill University Music Tech]McGill University Music Tech.

The possibility of free tuition + stipend = a seriously low "opportunity cost." At least in here in the SF Bay area, companies like Meyer Sound, Pixar, LucasArts, Dolby Labs, and Keith McMillen Instruments hire people with the skills these types of programs provide.

[FarleyCZ]

Yeah. Basically this whole discussion is wrong. Choosing a school based on the employment references of their students is absolutely pointless, because these guys were the brightest ones and you never have the comparison between you and that particular referenced student. You might end up in some big company, or you might not. ...but you definitelly will pay a lot of money to that school, especially in US.

I'm not saying though, that schools like that are useless. Not at all. But you should choose them only when you know they teach something you are passionate and eager to learn about. And I don't mean it in the "oh yeah, I like music" way. I mean it in the "I cannot fall asleep without thinking about interactive music, signal processing and novel research" kind of way. In that case, the school is ABSOLUTELY what you should be doing, because it will enrich you, benefit you, you'll love it there and based on your passion you will have high chance to be a stand out student. ...but if it's not entirely your case. If you just feel a need for a degree and you like music, I'd be VERY cautious about making the investment.

It's not just the school money. It's the most productive years of your whole damn life that you giving away here. So make sure you're investing it in the right way. There are tons of ways to fulfill your passion without a fancy degree. And they might be personally more worth it in the end.

[Forgotten]

Over the past 30 years or so the marketing machines of colleges have gone into overdrive, selling degrees to people who either don’t need them or won’t be able to make use of them.

Music degrees are useful in academia, but as far as being a working musician is concerned, they aren’t so useful.