Science and music meet in new degree at WMU

Kathy Jennings | Thursday, May 15, 2014

Professional music production is a high tech business these days. Western Michigan University has a new degree that will prepare those who want to be able to meet the profession's demands.

WMU now offers a bachelor's degree in multimedia arts technology-music.

Twenty students will begin studies in fall 2014, with 20 added each year. They will not have to be proficient at a traditional musical instrument. Their studies will revolve around the program's five areas: audio engineering, generative audio technology used in commercials and video games, live sound reinforcement for concerts and shows, computer programming and performance with technology.

The manager of Western Sound Studios, John Campos, and Dr. Christopher Biggs, assistant professor of music at WMU worked closely together for several years to develop a program that reflects the needs of the modern world of music productions, centered around technology.

"The changes are just breathtaking in both how fast they're happening and how profound they are," Campos says. "So we wanted to have a degree that could give our students a really broad technical background."

Biggs will oversee students as they create their projects and write their content, while Campos will specialize in the studio audio engineering component. Dr. Richard Johnson, who is starting later this summer, will handle the live sound reinforcement and video.

The fact that the multimedia arts technology degree is being paired with a broader liberal arts education, and without as much traditional music core courses, means WMU is among a select few places offering such multimedia technical music production training at a four-year institution or technical school, Biggs says.

The program requires students to take 18 to 20 hours of core music classes, a course in music appreciation, a course in music theory, eight credit hours of music performance classes and 37 to 38 hours of multimedia arts technology courses. Students also will be required to take at least nine hours of related courses from other departments.

"We had auditions for next fall and we were blown away with the talent our incoming students have," Biggs says. "There's been remarkable interest in this."

More information is available here.

Source: Mark Schwerin, Western Michigan University