Music Technology

The Music Technology A Level encompasses a wide range of industry-standard skills, techniques, and knowledge to create a fantastic springboard for anyone interested in entering the dynamic and exciting world of the Music industry, as well as creative and technical audio pathways within the Gaming, IT, and Film industries. Combining recording, creative composition, sound design, production, and elements of audio engineering, we ‘look under the hood’ of music and audio to see what makes it tick and how we can manipulate it to provide an unlimited sonic palette from which to create!

Course content:

Component 1 – Recording (coursework – 20%):  Plan, arrange, and engineer your own recording sessions and edit, mix, and master your tracks to create a final multi-track recording.

Component 2 – Technology-based Composition (coursework – 20%): Let your creativity run wild in a commission-style production task whereby you use recording, synthesis, sampling and creative FX to build a musical composition to meet your chosen brief.

Component 3 – Listening and Appraising (exam – 25%): A listening exam with a focus on identifying, describing and analysing production features in popular music from ~1940-present day.

Component 4 – Producing and Analysing (exam – 35%): A primarily practical exam; tracks and stems are provided by the exam board to which correction techniques and other production processes are applied as dictated by the questions. Written questions in this paper are generally of a more technical nature, focussing on industry-standard approaches to production.

Entry requirements: Five GCSEs at 5 or higher. Strong maths/science is beneficial but not essential.

Please note this course DOES NOT require a GCSE in Music or any supplementary instrumental tuition. Whilst these are very beneficial to the course, pupils instead should display a passion for popular music and creative confidence. They should also have a willingness to devote time and practice to learning some challenging new software!

This course would suit anyone interested in careers in the music, gaming, or film industry, such as: producers; artists; mixing and mastering engineers; A&R; management; podcasting; video game/film composition and soundtracking; Music supervision; library management etc. It would also suit aspiring musicians who want to increase their technical knowledge alongside their traditional musical education.

Updated 08/10/2025