Music Production

Complete creative control. Craft the sounds you want from idea inception to finished product. In these courses you will learn to multitrack, record, overdub, edit, and mix music in a variety of styles using sophisticated digital audio systems. This program will give you the analytical and professional experience needed for a variety of music production-focused careers.

TAC students also get to produce their own concerts and recording sessions. Collaborating with classmates from across SFCM to create new musical projects. These music productions span every genre of music from electronic, pop, and experimental, to every other genre at SFCM, opera, jazz and orchestral.

Courses include Electronic Music Practice Performances, Advanced Mixing Workshop, and Advanced Music Production. These skills can be applied to career aspects across the board in music from production, to performance, to music editing.

There's something about this environment where most of the students are just getting started in their careers, so there's a blank page of how they're approaching music and the ideas, and I just find it really inspiring."

-Peter Scaturro, Sony Interactive Entertainment Director of Music

TAC's new studios in the Bowes Center, inaugurated in late 2021, are home to digital Avid S6 and analog API 1608-II consoles, as well as a Meyer Sound 9.1.6 Dolby Atmos monitoring system, making them the perfect place for audio recording, post-production, and spatial audio experimentation.

Award-winning film composer Michael Abels met one-on-one with TAC students during a campus visit.

Each semester visiting artists from Sony Interactive Entertainment work with SFCM’s TAC students to record student scores for a fictional video game.

Students work with industry professionals in Studio G, the TAC program's technology hall, to adjust the variable acoustic and truss system in preparation for recording.

50 Oak Street's Studio A, a space designed for large-scale and advanced recording projects as well as clinics and master classes with visiting artists and professionals.

Bay Area's NPR affiliate KQED said, "One could call TAC the perfect marriage of technology, classical musicianship, and experimentation."

Each January, SFCM students participate in Winter Term, a dedicated period of exploration outside one's primary focus area. During Winter Term, TAC students have participated in projects such as building hardware synthesizers, projection mapping in Hume Concert Hall, and performing with modular synths in a public concert.

TAC plays host to SFCM's "Future is Female" concert in honor of International Women's Day.

SFCM’s TAC program offers students a direct path to careers in film, television and media scoring, sound design, and audio engineering. More than 90% of alumni are employed in the field of their choice—one of the highest job placement rates anywhere.

TAC Department

Minors

Customize your degree with minors that deepen your musical interests or expand your skills across disciplines.

Academics

Explore music theory, history, humanities, and interdisciplinary coursework that broadens your perspective as both a musician and a scholar.

Ensembles

Perform in recitals, ensembles, orchestras, opera productions, chamber music, and more than 500 concerts each year.

Professional Development and Engagement Center

Develop skills in entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, contracts, and career planning.

The Bowes Center

Live, learn, rehearse, and connect in a residence designed to bring artists together in one creative community.

Life on Campus

Find community through student organizations, wellness resources, campus traditions, and life in the heart of San Francisco.

Music Production

-Peter Scaturro, Sony Interactive Entertainment Director of Music

Beyond Your Major