CCRMA: the Master's degree in Music, Science and Technology

The Master's degree in Music, Science, and Technology

The MA in music, science and technology degree is a one-year degree granted at the successful completion of specific coursework. There is extremely little room for individually designed programs. The CCRMA MA/MST program is designed for candidates having an undergraduate engineering or science degree, or a degree that includes course work in engineering mathematics.

This degree program is designed to meet an increasing need in the computer/music industries and in the arts and technology communities for the acquisition of knowledge and techniques from a number of disciplines that have reached a high degree of integration at CCRMA. Interest within the computer industry in CCRMA's work is a result of multimedia capabilities becoming an important part of personal computers and workstations. Sound processing is the important complement to computer graphics in multimedia and is an area that is not broadly understood on an advanced level in the industry. There are, therefore, many well-trained engineers working in the area of sound processing who lack the specialized knowledge in the area for which they are responsible. CCRMA is well positioned to provide that knowledge at a level of sophistication and depth not present in other programs. A unique attribute of CCRMA's courses and research, relevant to these industries, is the integration of music perception, music related signal processing and controllers, and synthesis.

Degree Requirements

The M.A. Music, Science and Technology candidate is required to complete a minimum of 45 academic units. It is highly recommended to take at least 15 units per quarter in order to complete this degree within 3 quarters time. Please see the (PDF) schedule of courses currently required of the MA/MST candidates.

You may download a .pdf file about the program in the Stanford Course Bulletin under the "Music" heading.

Also see the Music Department site for a discussion of the graduate programs in music with application "hints."

Please read the Registrar's information about applying to Stanford.

A copy of the Guide to Graduate Admissions is available here.