I have gotten great responses to my other discussions on music but here is one I am unsure of–If my son is not a very strong student and has no computer programming experience, will a music technology program be too difficult. Are the students who apply to music technology programs kids who are in advanced math, physics and computer classes in HS? He is a talented electric guitar player/performer who dabbles in computers and sound editing.
Our oldest graduated with a degree in music technology, with a minor in business. He took mainstream (not advanced) math classes in high school and no computer science whatsoever. He did have to take additional math in college to catch up to where he needed to be as well as finance for the business minor.
He may have made it to precalc in HS but I am not sure. No physics. He was a 3.0 ish student overall with no honors or AP’s and did just fine.
Most people I know who majored in music technology programs or who work in the music industry as studio engineers have no computer programming experience or even much techie chops outside their area of music technology.
Observation comes from not only having several friends who work in those areas, but also having several as regular computing clients.
Incidentally, the only musicians/musical technology related person I know who is fully conversant in programming and CS are a drummer with a MS in Applied Math/CS, a HS classmate with BS/MS degrees in CS from CMU who quit a supervisory position at a household name tech company* to become a fulltime musician/guitarist, and a guitarist whose day job is a music and CS Prof at a respectable private university with undergrad/grad degrees from two elite Us.
- Think Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc.