Music Technology Courses, your opinions please.

studiorat

Warning Very Long Post.
Your opinions please, we're launching our City & Guilds courses in September and are aiming to provide the course for considerably less than existing prices. In the past we've developed and delivered the City & Guilds courses for a number of colleges, this time we'd like to provide a slightly different experience for "learners". We're hoping to provide a tutorial basis for the course as opposed to a straight out lecture based approach, although obviously lectures are necessary. To this end we are developing the idea of a work or research group as opposed to classes. There's no exams but group members are expected to meet continuous assessment deadlines throughout the year, including presentations, reports and practical demonstrations. We're also developing the idea of 'peer learning' in practical situations according to the latest literature on the subject of music technology education.

Virtu Studios are proud to announce the introduction of three new courses to their existing range of Sound Engineering and Music Production training program. Having successfully gained official City & Guilds Training Center approval we are now offering the full suite of vocational qualifications for the Music and Sound industries. These qualifications are designed to provide candidates with the practical skills and knowledge valued by employers within the industry.

The aims of these qualifications are to fulfill the needs of candidates who work or wish to work in the sound engineering and music technology sector, allowing them to learn and develop the skills required for employment and career progression.

The courses available are as follows:
(7501-01) City & Guilds Level 1 Certificate in Sound and Music Technology.
(7503-02) City & Guilds Level 2 Diploma in Sound and Music Technology.
(7503-20) City & Guilds Level 3 Diploma in Music Technology and Sound Production.

Course Title: City & Guilds Level 1 Certificate in Sound and Music Technology.

Course Duration : (280 hours).
Seven mandatory units.
Candidate Profile:
This course is designed for candidates who have little or no experience in the use of sound engineering or music technology equipment. Candidates are required to have some experience in the use of computers and an interest in music and/or music technology. Training is on a practical level and will introduce the candidate to the core concepts Digital Audio Recording and Editing and their applications, as well as basic MIDI recording and Editing. Candidates will also receive guidance in identifying roles and opportunities in the Sound and Music Technology industries as well as training in the Health and Safety aspects of the relevant industries.


On completion of the course the Candidate will be able to:

• Follow safe working practices in music and sound industries
• Identify occupational roles and employment opportunities in the music and sound industries
• Identify and use basic equipment connections used in the music and sound industries
• Use MIDI sequencing and software applications, including file storage and transportation.
• Use Sound recording skills to record sound in different scenarios.
• Use Digital Sound Editing skills to make editing decisions and improve selected audio files.
• Develop MIDI and audio techniques to record audio and MIDI and create a balanced and complementary mix of Audio and MIDI.

Candidates who complete the course will be equipped to enter any recording scenario with a degree of skill, experience and understanding allowing them to develop their skills in a professional environment.

Suitable applicants include:

• Secondary school/Transition year Students.
• Music Teachers.
• Musicians.
• Home Recording enthusiasts.

Course Title : City & Guilds Level 2 Diploma in Sound and Music Technology.
Course Duration : 480 hours.

Six mandatory units, plus six optional units.

Candidate Profile:
There are no formal requirements for candidates applying for this course, however some experience in the use of computers, musical instruments and/or music technology would be an advantage. The course will cover some basic physics concepts including sound propagation and wave theory, as well as some basic principles of electronic circuit theory. Due to the theoretical nature of some of this coursework, candidates should display an aptitude and willingness to work with these subjects.

Training is on both a practical and theoretical level and candidates are marked on a continuos assessment basis by way of written and practical projects throughout the course. In addition to guidance in identifying roles and opportunities in the Sound and Music Technology, candidates will also receive training in the Health and Safety aspects of the relevant industries, allowing them to enter the sector of their choice safely and with the experience and background to continue learning and developing their relevant skill sets. Practical and theoretical instruction will also cover the use of equipment and software in the recording studio and music industry as well as the building and design of studios and equipment for the music and sound industries.

In addition, candidates will also receive training in acoustics and loudspeaker design, sound design for film and television, multi-media and web based sound techniques, advanced use of MIDI and music technology as well as training in audio electronics and studio and equipment maintenance for the sound and music industries.
On completion of the mandatory course units the candidate will be able to:

• Identify employment opportunities, roles and responsibilities in music and sound industries
• Follow correct routing and wiring procedures for analogue and digital audio equipment.
• Identify relevant layouts and practical applications for mixing and recording consoles
• Correctly use microphones and direct inject (DI) techniques for use in music and sound recording and amplification
• Identify common frequency ranges and understand and correctly use equalization (EQ) for music and sound applications.
• Understand and correctly use dynamics and effects techniques and equipment for the music and sound industry.

Following completion of the optional units the candidate will be able to:

• Use various sound synthesis and sampling techniques and develop their own simple software synthesizers.
• Understand the acoustics and monitoring requirements for music and sound industries, and make effective judgments regarding monitoring and acoustic environments.
• Effectively synchronize sound and music to picture for film and TV sound.
• Understand the requirements and techniques for Multi-media and Web-based Sound and Music.
• Effectively composing music with MIDI-based technology.
• Perform basic installation and maintenance duties for the Sound and Music industries, including soldering and component replacement.
• Understand basic concepts of audio electronics design for music and sound industries.

Suitable Applicants include:

• Musicians.
• Music teachers.
• Home and Professional Recording studio owners.
• Artists wishing to work with sound.
• Multi-media and web content developers.
• Film sound designers and composers.
• DJ's and electronic music producers.
• Computer games developers.
• Candidates who have completed the Level 1 Certificate in Sound and Music Technology.

Candidates who complete this qualification may progress into employment and continue developing their skills through a number of pathways; the qualification provides candidates with the experience and understanding to continue research and learning on their own as well as through further educational frameworks and qualifications. Candidates may also progress to the following City & Guilds qualifications:

• Level 3 Diploma in Music Technology and Sound Production. (7503)
• Level 3 Diploma in Media Techniques (7501).

Quality Assurance Statement:
Virtu Studios are committed to providing a enjoyable and rewarding educational experience to all our clients. All our courses are informed by both academic and industrial best practice methods and we continually strive to develop new and original methods to ensure each client is provided for according to their specific requirements and needs. Our staff have continually proved themselves in both educational and industrial fields to the highest academic and professional standards, it is our aim to provide our clients with this insight and encourage them to attain the highest standards possible in their own work and study.

Any observations or suggestions would be greatfully recieved. As would offers of help regarding web design, leaflet printing, and DIY.

Undue criticism will be met with distain and abuse from our dark army of internet sock-puppets. :pac:

Welease

How do you envisage these work groups (research groups) being formed and implemented? How are they significantly different from class based courses?

(although training is not my background nor my future ..I did work with a training organisation and just finished running a global program which trained about 5,000 people on hi-tech collaboration tools, hence my interest)

studiorat

The concept is driven by some research in Scotland recently, there's very little research in the field of Music Technology education at the moment, but the concept of peer learning for practical tasks seems to prove more useful in certain circumstances. One of the reasons being that outside of timetabled hours students seem less likely to approach staff and lecturers with questions. (Most practical work is carried on outside of these hours). The mindset of group learning seems to encourage participation and students to work together to find solutions. It appears that in certain circumstances it's easier to understand a concept explained by a peer than from a lecturer, I've come across this myself as both student and teacher.

The work group is the class as it were, the group will have an absolute maximum of eight, in fact eight may be two groups. Groups will work together on research projects as well as practical work as part of their coursework. As well as lectures each group will be asked to contribute to the knowledge base of the rest of the candidates, adding their own research and findings.

For example a written project may be divided into chapters in which each member must contribute to the total work handed out. Assesment will be on the members contribution to that project. But the project will make up the sum of the parts. This enables the finished work to have detail and content that will be useful as a learning and study resource in the future.

As for collaboration tools we have developed an internal database system called Gradebook, mainly for student/teacher communication. We're also pushing the open source thing and are hoping to fill a Moodle server with content as the lectures progress.

I'd be interested to hear about your collaboration software.

Welease

Sounds interesting ... it will be interesting to see how you can successfully breakout the groups so that the student feel a level of fairness applies in the scoring of the projects. The one issue that always seems to arise is clashes of communication/effort and attributing fair value to the input of each member (dominant folks, lazy gits etc.).. Your breakout of individual pieces seems to be a nice solution, it should be more apparent from the quality of their piece who put the group effort in.

The work we were doing was more general. Large multinational spending tens of millions on technology that is either not used or not used properly by those who could benefit from it. Training is a low priority for most people, and how do you know what you need to know about whats available if you don't know it's available and that you need to know about it
Dealing with a multitude of favoured learning styles (in class instructor, online, bite sized, podcasts, virtual etc)..
and how do you take something which could be complex, mash it down to the key items they need to understand (critical path almost), and bring it to people who frankly don't care (initially, because they don't understand the value till they see it).. Focus on the value elements.
Program was a huge success because we threw out all the old training ways, and approached the problem from the "how do i get the information into the heads of people who don't give a sh1t, and won't attend training", not "what do i need to tell them about these products"

Glad I;m doing something else now though

DamagedTrax

Welease wrote: »

Sounds interesting ... it will be interesting to see how you can successfully breakout the groups so that the student feel a level of fairness applies in the scoring of the projects. The one issue that always seems to arise is clashes of communication/effort and attributing fair value to the input of each member (dominant folks, lazy gits etc.).

it is an interesting dynamic. in college we were split into groups of 5 and (as i suspect always happens) we ended up with some good some bad. at first it was easy to work past it but as it came closer to finishing it became obvious who was doing the work to a point were our only option was to not include certain parties in the final hand up as there was zero return contribution.

obviously there was pleading from that side but at the prices we paid (and after numerous warnings) we felt it was our only option.

but the group idea is a very good one, we split our work up into various sections for differant people and those of us that put in the work got a lot out of it.

dav nagle

I think its a brilliant idea and what I can say is that there is no point in getting ripped off in over priced colleges for any sort of education. Education is the knowledge you need and you shouldn't have to pay more than 4k a year for that no matter who you are or what you have to offer. There are few jobs in this field so good prices and good education = good value and a successful course and most importantly good music. All the best with the course Studiorat, you taught me and you were the coolest dude so I wish both you and Barry the best with it.

noodle650

dav nagle wrote: »

I think its a brilliant idea and what I can say is that there is no point in getting ripped off in over priced colleges for any sort of education. Education is the knowledge you need and you shouldn't have to pay more than 4k a year for that no matter who you are or what you have to offer. There are few jobs in this field so good prices and good education = good value and a successful course and most importantly good music. All the best with the course Studiorat, you taught me and you were the coolest dude so I wish both you and Barry the best with it.

i disagree with "there are few jobs" im booked up almost until christmas!

you have to be willing to do anything and to be as accommodating as possible, do whatever they want you to if its its possible, and if its not possible, find a way to make it possible!

off.the.walls

dav nagle wrote: »

I think its a brilliant idea and what I can say is that there is no point in getting ripped off in over priced colleges for any sort of education. Education is the knowledge you need and you shouldn't have to pay more than 4k a year for that no matter who you are or what you have to offer. There are few jobs in this field so good prices and good education = good value and a successful course and most importantly good music. All the best with the course Studiorat, you taught me and you were the coolest dude so I wish both you and Barry the best with it.

I'm doing a music production course in kylemore college starting in september i did the performance one last year and the audio tech course looked amazing i was thinking about going to pulse but then i decided to go here and for the whole year i am only paying 175 euro, The equipment is top notch neuman and akg vocal mics, akg c3000s for drum over heads and then shure 57's anf 58's for toms and amps etc, the console is a digidesign c24 and its pro tools hd 2 system installed.

over all im expecting this to be a brilliant course.

studiorat

Now enrolling for the Part-Time course beginning in September. Check here for more details :

http://www.virtustudios.ie/page8.php

Thanks.