Navigating and developing acoustics research and curriculum within the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology

Abstract

Acoustics at the Georgia Institute of Technology has primarily been based within mechanical engineering with various other faculty spread throughout the university. Within the last decade, the School of Music has developed an internationally recognized graduate degree program and research center in music technology. Since winning the Student Paper Award, my professional career has started in a unique faculty position within the School of Music at Georgia Tech, where my responsibilities are split between being an ensemble/choral conductor and an active member of the Center for Music Technology. One of the recent challenges is the development of an innovative undergraduate curriculum model that fuses music fundamentals, music technology, general musicianship, and engineering/computer science. At the graduate level, new coursework I have created has included a musical acoustics course for music technologists and a historical acoustics and modeling course. Additionally, developing a research track of acoustics within the confines of music technology has allowed my research to morph into musically related areas that my graduate research did not allow. Areas of current research include historical architectural acoustics, active temperament, synthesis, and noise control.