AS Music Technology Scheme of Work

PLEASE NOTE: THIS WAS WRITTEN FOR THE LEGACY (2008) SPECIFICATION, BUT IS STILL OF MUCH VALUE FOR THE NEW SPECIFICATION. IT WILL BE UPDATED SOON PRIOR TO THE 2022-23 ACADEMIC YEAR.

Written by an experienced teacher and sixth form head of department, this workbook and set of board resources is designed to help students in their Edexcel AS studies and in their transition to A2.

It contains a simple introduction across all technical aspects of Music Technology, along with key word exercises to reinforce terminology and where appropriate, pieces of equipment to label and discuss. Examples of appropriate listening are included with necessary topics.

The ‘board-friendly’ resources organised as full screen PDFs to retain fonts and formatting which introduce and reinforce the workbook content.

Introduction to Sound
What is sound? What is the impact of frequency and amplitude? How does this relate to phase, harmonics and wave cycles?

Microphones
What are the different types of microphones? What properties are important when choosing a mic, and how do they pick up sound?

Synthesisers
What do the different parts of synthesiser do? What types of synthesiser exist and what are they used for? What are envelopes and LFOs?

Dynamics Range Processing
How do compressors and noise gates control the volume of sounds? What are limiters, and what creative things can we do with dynamics?

EQ and Filtering
What is an EQ? How is EQ applied and how do we use filters correctively and for creative effects? What do filter graphs look like?

Reverb
How was reverb created? What is it? How do we generate reverb now, and what parameters can we change?

Samplers
What is sampling and what is a sampler? How can they be used? How can samples be manipulated and what must we bear in mind?

Delay Effects
What does a delay do? How was delay created historically? What parameters might we see on a delay? What different types are they?

Modulation Effects
What is modulation and how are LFOs used to create it? What effects are created with modulation and what do they sound like?

Distortion Effects
What are the different types of distortion? How is it created? What functions / parameters might you see on a distortion effect?

Creative Effects
What other effects can be used creatively in Music Technology? What do they sound like? How are the parameters changed?

MIDI
What is MIDI? What impact did it have on Music Technology? What are MIDI controllers and how can we use them to create musical work?