Students take 60 ECTS credits (one year of full time dedication) plus up to 60 credits of complementary credits from advanced undergraduate courses (extending the program to two years). Of the 60 ECTS credits of the master, 40 correspond to courses and 20 to the thesis project. 

 Schedule information

Program Structure

• Core Courses (15 or 20 ECTS)
• Thesis Project (20 ECTS)
• Research Methodology (5 ECTS)
• Optional Courses (to complete the 60 ECTS)
• Complementary Courses (extra courses for up to 60 additional ECTS)

Courses

Core Courses

• Audio and Music Processing (5 ECTS): Signal processing methodologies and technologies specific for audio and music applications. Special emphasis is given to the use of spectral processing techniques for the description and transformation of sound and music signals [web].
• Audio and Music Analysis (5 ECTS): Methodologies and techniques for the automatic characterization of musical audio in terms of different facets (e.g. melody, harmony, rhythm, timbre, and spatial location), temporal scopes and abstraction levels (from low-level to semantic descriptions). Special emphasis is given to state-of-the-art signal processing methods for audio content description, interdisciplinary research and music information retrieval [web].
• Music Perception and Cognition (5 ECTS): Principles, structures and functions that make possible humans to perceive and understand sound and music, presented from empirical and computational point of view. The psychophysics of the transduction, the neural encoding of the acoustic input, the perceptual organization of audio streams, musical memory, melodic, rhythmic and tonal cognition, emotion and music, and the development and learning of musical capabilities. [web]
• Real-time Interaction (5 ECTS):  Analyse real time stimuli generation techniques, as well as the system requirements needed to offer the user an interaction close to null delay perception in each of the possible modalities. Focus on music applications [web].

Thesis Project

• Research Project (20 ECTS): Carry out a research project and write a thesis report under the supervision of a teacher. Includes a weekly class to present and discuss relevant topics to help decide, develop and present the individual thesis work.

Research Methodology

• Research Methods (5 ECTS): Review of the graduate studies research context, skills and methodologies, introducing the essential aspects in research proposal writing and research reporting. [web]

Optional Courses (5 ECTS each)

• Advanced Topics in ICT: Seminar covering core methodological and application topics of relevance to Sound and Music Computing.
• Audio and Music Processing Lab: State-of-the-art methods and tools for the automatic processing (focusing on its generation and transformation) of music content [web].
• Music Recording and Mixing: Theoretical and practical examination of the most usual microphonic and multitrack recording techniques, the audio processing techniques that are used in a musical recording, and the technical and practical problems that need to be addressed in mixing [web].
• Linear and Nonlinear Time Series Analysis: After introducing the relevant theoretical concepts of dynamic systems, the course presents the underlying theoretical principles of linear time series analysis, nonlinear time series analysis and the concept of surrogates.
• Advanced Interface Design: Paradigms, methods and tools used in construction of complex multimodal interfaces between people and artefacts[web].
• Systems Design, Integration and Control: Paradigms within design, integration and control of truly feasible complex systems, with a special stress on neuromorphic principles underlying biological, interactive, cognitive and emotive systems [web].
• Research Seminar: Weekly research seminars with presentations related to the research in Information and Communication Technologies [list of seminars].
• Web Intelligence: Study how to gather, process, search and mine data in the Web and its applications to search engines. Understand the basic concepts behind information retrieval and data mining.
• Natural Language Interaction: The subject covers central themes related to interaction with intelligent agents through natural language. The approach will be built on models of written dialog, analysis and generation of natural language, and implementations.
• Cognitive Science and Psychology: Mind, Brain and Behaviour: The seven central disciplines that form traditional cognitive science, showing how the concepts and paradigms of these disciplines bring complementary visions of mind, brain and behaviour [web].
• Machine Learning: The course covers the theory, definition, and implementation of various machine learning methods and algorithms. These are algorithms that generalize from labeled or unlabeled examples.

• Courses from the undergraduate programs in engineering of the Polytechnic School covering topics such as: Audio Signal Processing, Software Engineering, Data Structures, Software Programing, Artificial Inteligence, Music Technology, Mathematics, and Interactive Systems (many undergraduate courses ara taught in spanish or catalan).