The Music Technology program offers a varied curriculum that includes courses focused on techniques and concepts related to electronic music composition balanced with courses that involve individual creative projects. In addition, students take private composition lessons each semester they are in school, except when they are in a Music Composition seminar. Mixed with that are the courses required of all Music majors, which include four semesters of music theory and musicianship and several courses in music history, and general courses required by the University. Students also have the opportunity to take free electives from outside their major.

In the first year, students take Music Technology I and Music Technology II in successive semesters. These courses use Curtis Roads' Computer Music Tutorial (MIT Press) as the course text and introduce students to a range of topics, such as sound synthesis, sampling, MIDI, digital audio, and basic acoustics within a compositional context. Students study the underlying theoretical basis of each of these topics, listen to music that employs them (where appropriate), and learn software tools that allow for their implementation on the desktop, then compose original pieces that use them. Among the synthesis methods covered in the first year are FM, AM, granular, and physical modeling. Other major topics include spectral analysis, analysis/resynthesis and convolution. The first year also includes a course in instrumentation and notation.

In the second year, students take Digital Audio Processing, which is aimed at preparing music for different delivery options (Web, DVD, CD, etc.) This class covers mastering and mixing on the desktop and uses Digidesign's ProTools to implement many of the techniques it explores. Students also take their first Music Composition Seminar. This class brings together students at similar levels in the program in an interactive, group environment. Students present both completed work and works in progress to the class for feedback and critique.

By the third year, students are ready to implement many of the skills they have learned in Sound Design, a course that requires the composition of music for a variety of other media. In the past, this course has covered techniques of composing for games, radio dramas, short scenes from films, animation, and other media. Students have the opportunity to collaborate with students from the Visual Arts department on short works that combine music and original animations.

The fourth year includes the class Interactive Real-time Performance. This class covers current techniques of using a computer in a live performance setting, most often in conjunction with a human performer. Max/MSP software is used as the tool to implement the course content. History of Electronic Music, an intensive survey/analysis course covering 100 years of music, is also taken this year.

In the fall of their fifth year, students take Composition for Electronic Instruments, which covers a number of advanced compositional techniques for which a computer is ideally suited. Topics range from microtonal music to algorithmic composition to simulating acoustic instruments using digital tools. Other projects, such as composing music for a hypothetical television or radio commercial, are also included. This course requires that students compose extended works that employ the various techniques they have explored through the semester.

The fifth year concludes with the required Music Technology Capstone/Senior Recital, in which a small group of students prepare a public concert of their work under the tutelage of a faculty member.