Enrich your studies with a minor in music or applied music technology.
If you are interested in pursuing music as your secondary degree at the UBC School of Music, we have two options for you to choose from. You can minor in music or applied music technology.
Minor in music
In the minor in music, you will broaden your undergraduate liberal arts education through a wide range of complementary and elective courses, where you will place music within broader intellectual and cultural contexts.
Our flexible minor in music welcomes students from all fields. You can take performance and academic music courses for credit and expand your musical knowledge and experience.
Get a foundation in music theory, history and composition. At the same time, you learn and perfect your performance in a musical instrument in one of the many student ensembles you’ll have access to as a minor in music student.
Minor in applied music technology
The exciting minor in applied music technology provides training in technology for music composition, performance and software programming, and knowledge about interactive video manipulation and art installations.
Lower-level courses focus on music technologies' basic theory and practice, such as understanding the recording and creative manipulation of sound, becoming familiar with the repertoire, and learning to program using Max/MSP/Jitter. Finally, fourth-year courses emphasize innovative programming and performance.
Group and individual projects create interactive environments or manipulate live sound using game controllers, webcams, tablets, and smartphones. Recent and current projects include visual tracking of a pianist's hands to control piano samples; interactive dance with PlayStation Move Wands; a video mixer; real-time creation of 3D visuals representing sound modifications; infrared tracking of hand motions to move sound around Barnett Recital Hall; and working with engineering students to create smartphone apps that help process image and video in performances.
The four specialized technology courses MUSC 319, 320, 419, and 420 provide the core of the minor. In the culmination course – MUSC 420 (the supervised capstone project) – you develop your own technology-related ideas, creating a software environment or hardware interface that directly relates to your future plans. If you have a particular interest in music technology, we also encourage you to take other courses at UBC (such as film scoring or theatre sound) as part of your electives to strengthen your knowledge in the area.