UNDERGRADUATE
MUSI3042 Music Procduction (capstone experience)
Course Type: disciplinary elective for music majors/minors, free elective for others
Prerequisite: NIL (admission by interview and / or audition)
Instructor: Professor Giorgio BIANCOROSSO
Semester: Second Semester 2025/26
Time: 2:00pm–3:50pm, Wednesday
Venue: CPD-LG1.19 Studio
This course offers students the opportunity to develop an idea for a musical production — be it a digital recording, live performance, or multimedia work. Blending practical and theoretical perspectives, the course combines lectures, workshops and master classes with practitioners (performers, directors, sound engineers — to name a few). Taking advantage of the facilities in the music department and the new tech lab housed in the Faculty of Arts, students will engage with and reflect on the impact of new technologies on the creation and dissemination of music across a wide range of genres. The course culminates with the student-driven realization of the idea(s) created collaboratively over the first half of the semester.

[Registration & Audition] Enrolment into this course is confirmed by audition. Interested students are welcome to register during the course selection period in either August 2025 or January 2026. Audition details will be announced later.
At the end of this course, students who fulfil the requirements of this course will be able to:
  • develop an understanding of music production in a holistic perspective — from ideation to realization;
  • develop the ability to work in a collaborative fashion not only with other musicians;
  • develop a nuanced understanding of the role of technology in facilitating music-making.
Mid-Term Presentation 40%
Final Project 60%
  1. 1. Music Production in the 21st-century
  2. 2. Production I: A Short History
  3. 3. Production II: The Roles
  4. 4. Production III: The Venues
  5. 5. Case Study I: the EMI Recordings of the 1950s and the Producer as Glorified Listener
  6. 6. Case Study II: Readying an Opera for Production
  7. 7. Case Study III: Scoring Film
  8. 8-12. Workshops and Master Classes (Guests: TBA)
  • R.J. Burgess, The Art of Music Production: The Theory and Practice, 4th ed. (Oxford, 2013)
  • Bourbon - Zagorski-Thomas, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Music Production (Bloomsbury, 2020)
  • Brian M. Jackson, The Music Producer's Survival Guide: Chaos, Creativity and Career inIndependent and Electronic Music, 2nd ed. (Routledge, 2018)
  • David Earl, LMMS: A Complete Guide to Dance Music Production (Packt Publishing, 2012)
  • Timothy A. Dittmar, Audio Engineering 101: A Beginner's Guide to Music Production (Focal Press, 2012)
  • J. Reiss, "Artifical Intelligence in Music Production: Controversy and Opportunity," The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (October 2022)