Hello,
Need info on music technology summer camps.
Colleges like UCSD, Columbia College in Chicago (Music Technology Interactive Design Electroacoustic Composition Programming Degree Program, Major | Chicago, Illinois) offer them. Looking for Pre-college summer programs in that area for my junior this summer. Any info is appreciated.
Thanks!!!
We’ve been looking for the same for our sophomore, with the added wrinkle that it has to fit with our planned summer vacation travel for family reunions. (We live outside the contiguous US, so nothing’s local for us.) Unfortunately, everything we found was either way too far away from where we’ll be (e.g., the University of Colorado Denver), or painfully expensive (e.g., Berklee College of Music), or was a time conflict with the aforementioned reunions (e.g., University of the Arts Philadelphia), or is being held virtually rather than in-person (gobs and tons of places). (Plus a few that said they were music tech camps, but on a closer look were just playing with GarageBand, not something for a kid who has the beginnings of a home studio going.)
In the end, we started also looking at summer camps done by music lesson places—I have no idea what the actual name for such businesses is, I just realized—and recording studios. Several of them seemed more oriented toward professional musicians, but we found a few places like that with recording tech day camps directed toward teens and that said they’d get into some of the technical aspects of it all, and so our kid will be going to one of those the last week of our trip. (Nowhere near Chicago, I’m afraid, but telling the whole story to say that it might be worth broadening your search beyond colleges—there may be private businesses in your area offering such camps.)
Thank you.
Music technology and production are different from performance, of course, and many summer programs are focused on performance.
I suggest you go over to the music major forum for help.
I can send you a list of college programs, and you could inquire about summer.
It is very important to define exactly what you are looking for because the terminology varies. For instance, you say you want music technology, but do you mean more studio-based technical work, or creative work or both?
Electroacoustic composition is part of the creative classical composition world. It is very different from, say, music production or recording technology etc.
I can PM either of you the list of schools (long) if you like. I could be more specific if I knew more about what you are looking for. See you on the music major forum?!
@compmom, thank you, yes please PM me with the list of colleges.
am interested in actually both, Electroacoustic composition and recording technology. Thank you!
Sent!
Do you know of any music engineering summer programs?
What do you mean by music engineering exactly? The terminology for these things varies quite a but I have never heard that one. Audio engineering? Studio production? Etc.
Yes Audio engineering. My son is interested in engineering and worked in research this summer at a university with programming. He is now involve in another research project on his own with programming music. I do not know the details. He thinks he would like computer engineering in college and says he is interested also in audio engineering. I said the wrong thing with “music engineering”. He also competes in robotics. He and I are trying to find something interesting for him to do this summer before his senior year.
Computer music and audio engineering are very different.
For college he may want to decide between computer science and software engineering, and maybe minor in or take electives in music technology and/or computer music.
There are so many subcategories in this area that it is hard to make a recommendation. Maybe he could provide specifics?
Of the cuff, I would check summer programs at Berklee, Brown, USC, Miami Frost, Columbia
College Chicago, Ithaca, Hartt, U of Denver…well I could go on. Would need more specifics! Some state U’s might also have courses. UC Berkeley had a program focusing on Max. There are also programs in Europe.
I have not heard of software engineering and just googled it. It does sound like something he would like. He has thought about computer science as a major as well. I will search the schools you named. I wonder if better to take pre-college class, research again ( I feel like he does too much research but he likes it), camp or work at an engineering or IT company.
I am not suggesting Columbia College Chicago specifically, but their website provides good info on the various aspects of music technology, and they do have a summer program. Given your son’s interest in computer science/software engineering, it is not clear that he wants to focus on music. There is a lot of intersection between computer science and music, including “computer music.” The question is whether your son prefers the technical side of music tech., the creative side, or both.
For summer at Columbia College Chicago:
Summer Online Courses for High Schoolers — Columbia College Chicago Community
For college:
Audio Arts and Acoustics | Media Arts | Columbia College Chicago
Here is Brown (they have changed their major- used to have music tech)
Any course of study that could be undertaken in our previous concentration structure remains possible. A student interested in Computer Music and Multimedia, for instance, can still take the foundational courses in that area—Computers and Music (MUSC 0200), Recording Studio as Compositional Tool (MUSC 1200), and Real-Time Systems (MUSC 1210)—as well as more advanced course offerings at the MUSC 12XX and MUSC 22XX level. The difference is that we no longer require our concentrators to follow a particular track.
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Look at Berklee and at Oberlin’s TIMARA as well.
If your son does not want to focus on music, I would think a job that involves computer work of some sort might be clarifying, but he could also attend any number of academic summer programs to help clarify his interests, or live at home and take a class locally.
Maybe there’s a good nugget or two in here. Also, look to Middle Tenn State (MTSU).
Each page on the link has a different category - one is music technology. Hopefully it opens to that one for you.
A student interested in the tech side of Audio Engineering might be interested in Electrical Engineering. It’s more broad than Computer or Software Engineering which are more specific streams under the more general umbrella. In addition to the option for courses in computer and software engineering, the broader field will often also offer electives in Signals and Systems, Digital Communication Systems, and Audio Signal Processing. It generally allows students more latitude in directing their studies to their specific interests. This is the reason why my son who also has an interest in Audio Engineering and electroacoustic music chose it over the more specific computer engineering stream at his school.
Summer camp: My D23 sent in her application (and while not even remotely intense, it was more of an application than I’d expected, not just a “Let us know who to bill for it”) for Colorado-Denver’s summer music industry camp last night. It includes a pair of electives and a pair of ensembles, and audio tech is an option for both of them alongside the musicianship and music performance ones (so I guess the audio tech ensemble is maybe running the sound for the closing performances?—just a guess, though), and of course she put audio tech as her top choice for both, we’ll see if they allow that. (They also have a music business track for both. No idea whatsoever what the music business ensemble would be.)
The engineering side of music tech: My kid isn’t remotely interested in the harder-core engineering side of music tech, but for those who are, along the way we’ve seen that Alabama and Northern Arizona both have programs that are at least as much engineering (if not more so) as they are musicianship.
The BA/BS vs BMus question: One of the things my kid is working through is the extent she wants musicianship to be a focus of her college program. Some music tech programs are generalist BA/BS degrees with a major in music business and recording just like any other arts & sciences program; others are a BA music program (or, due to requiring a little bit more math and/or physics, a BS but functionally the same as a BA music program) with recording tech in place of at least most of the musicianship requirements; and some are a BMus program with musicianship requirements plus work in recording tech or entertainment business. (Plus a small number—see San Diego State, Florida International—where it’s kind of a generalist BMus program in terms of the musicianship requirements, plus recording tech.) And there isn’t any consistency whatsoever in what they’re called, even! It’s a bit of a mess trying to wade through it all. Looking closely at curricula is rather a must.
The terminology definitely lacks consistency as @dfbdfb says.
One possibiity is Walden School in Dublin NH. They have classes in various aspects of music technology with a focus on composition.
The best way for me to make sense of all this terminology chaos is to think of creative studies and technical studies, or sometimes both. I think that aligns with what @dfbdfb was describing.
For the creative end of things (and Walden would fall there), look at Oberlin’s TIMARA, just to get the gist. And a lot of composers write electroacoustic music, use computers, and use digital audio work stations as well (there is some snobbery on this!).
Spending a lot of time in the studio learning technical skills for a job in, say, production or recording technology or acoustics etc. etc. is a different focus entirely.
Thank you to all of you. You all have given me a lot to think about, I didn’t realize how specialized all of it can be. I will pass along to my son. He will know what he likes. And I am pretty sure he didn’t know about all of these programs. I know he is enjoying the research with music that he is doing now but not sure if he wants to branch out in other areas of technology. He has a music side to him with which he does spend a great deal of time… I do know he likes computer programming, graphic design, research and building (robotics). He wants a great summer plan and now you all have opened us up to many new ideas.