Studying music technology allows you to express yourself through music while developing your knowledge of music and technology. You will develop a broad understanding of the music industry and the skills it requires, such as planning and organising, creative thinking, research, critical thinking and decision making, as well as working both collaboratively and independently.
This course is especially suitable if you have broad musical interests, and are particularly interested in music technology and 20th and 21st century music. This course also provides pathways to higher levels of study.
The skills that you develop in Music Technology are useful in careers such as musician, DJ, sound technician, roadie and musical instrument technologist.
Career Pathways
To see what career areas this subject could lead to and the routes to get there, download and view these career pathways:
Entry is at the discretion of the school/college but you would normally be expected to have gained:
The course consists of three areas of study.
Developing an understanding of 20th and 21st century music
You will learn about:
Developing music technology skills
You will develop a range of skills and techniques relating to the creative use of music technology hardware and software to capture and manipulate audio.
These skills include selecting and using appropriate audio input devices and sources; applying microphone placement techniques; designing and constructing the signal path for multiple inputs; setting input gain and monitoring levels; overdubbing and editing tracks; applying creative and corrective equalisation, dynamics processing, time domain and other effects; applying a range of mixing techniques; and editing multiple takes into a single take.
Music technology contexts
You will gain experience in using a wide range of music technology skills to capture and manipulate audio and sequenced data, and mix down to an audio master in an appropriate file format, in a range of contexts such as radio broadcast, composing and/or sound design for film, audiobooks and computer gaming.
The course assessment has two components totalling 120 marks:
For the assignment component, you will be asked to produce the audio for a film soundtrack, radio broadcast, computer game or other similar context. Marks are awarded for: planning the production (20 marks); implementing the production (50 marks); and evaluating the production (10 marks).
The question paper and assignment components will be set and externally marked by SQA.
The grade awarded is based on the total marks achieved across course assessment.
The course assessment is graded A-D.
Further study, training or employment in:
Your school will give your parents an Options or Choices information booklet, which has detailed information on the curriculum and the individual subjects or courses you can study. It will also invite them along to a Parents’ Information Evening.
They can also read the information leaflet(s):
