Music production
The line for those who want:
- Choosing specialization that best suits your wishes interests and needs
- Learn technical, theoretical and creative techniques
- Work in professional studios with high-end equipment and plugins
- Finalize music and learn new genres
Hear from former students
Alexander Paulsen
Attending this line was absolutely amazing! With a very committed and skilled teacher, as well as free access to the classroom almost 24/7 — I got a lot done. It's wonderful to be able to be in one collective of people who are passionate about the same passion as me. I also became much more confident in myself and my music, and not least I've made friends that last a lifetime.
Felix
Philip Killengren-Pedersen
Content on the line
As a student with us, you will experience a lot of breadth and value for your money. Here you adapt large parts of your own learning through internships, projects and topics. This means that no semester will be exactly the same, but we have some projects and topics that we consider important during the year.
Felles
Common
Autumn
Spring
Depending on the type of specialization you choose between Live/Performing and Music Business, you will get certain topics tailored to your interests and goals. You will therefore have relevant lessons together with the Performing Musician and Music Business when these are taught, and otherwise there will be several collaborative projects between the different courses of the section.
Those who choose this specialization are often students who like to stand in the spotlight on stage or behind the big mixer.
If you like to stand primarily on stage, this is an immersion where you learn to perform your music live, combining instruments, lights, vocals and mac as part of your show. You will learn the technical skills you need to be able to perform your music live, automate and program various functions to be able to do shows completely on your own.
If you like all the technicalities surrounding live music, then this immersion will suit those who want to specialise in live sound and light, rig complex stage rigs and get the eye for what looks good. We work closely on the industry and cultural life, and this is therefore perhaps one of the most direct paths you can take into an eventual job in cultural life after the school year.
If you are interested, we have the expertise and network that can take you further.
If you choose to immerse yourself in Business you will learn more about the industry, legislation, marketing strategies, and the economics that come with running a music store.
Here you can work on creating your own image, digital presence on social media, start your own business - or simply want to get better at promoting and planning your own releases. Here you will also get to specialize in networking and branding, which are absolutely essential strategies of making a living from your music.
You will learn how to plan tours, write applications, book gigs, copyright/trademark, sync/licensing, playlist strategies, contract work, union work and more.
As the only school in the country with a direct collaboration with the headquarters of Ableton in Berlin, There is no better way to learn this program than here. Line teacher has 20+ years of experience in the software, and when we go on a study trip to Berlin we visit their office and get both tour and workshops. It is also possible to give personal feedback and wishes about what features you would like to see in future software, get close to the industry and create networks and memories for life. It's amazing and rewarding to get so close to the industry! It gives students a tremendous inspiration and motivation to work on learning everything The program has to offer.
Being able to create your own sounds is important to make your own sound. We often have lessons where we focus on technical expertise to be able to create bass, drums, pads, leads, FX and sound from scratch. We explore technical theory in the various plugins we have, teach us how envelopes, ADSR, lfos, macros, filters, oscillators and effects work. The aim is for all students to learn the basic principles of subtractive, additive, wavetable, fm and granular synthesis. We also work on projects to sound both games and movies, design fx and sound. But most of all, we explore how we can use sound design as a central part of creating our own sound and music.
One of the concrete missions we do to teach ourselves as much as possible is immerse ourselves in specific genres. This includes the whole package. We listen, analyze, recreate, mix, produce, and acquire the theory associated with the means of those particular genres. Often the goal may be to transcribe and recreate the soundscape of a concrete song, but we focus primarily on key and basic instruments. We always end by listening to each other's results and provide constructive feedback on how this resonates with the genre. The teaching consists of both theoretical, analytical, creative and technical work. Our students learn a lot from this.
It is essential to learn good arranging techniques when composing music. We look at very specific techniques that give us the skills we need to create music. Everything from what sounds that fit together, why they do so - and what to think about to achieve tenzione and release. We look at very concrete transitions and various forms one can use to arrange the music. At the level of detail, we are talking about the placement of the bass/sub on drum grooves and how to easily create more life and interplay between the various musical elements - to how to create variations in melodies and harmonies.
Studio engineering is about technical expertise inside a studio. Since we have various workrooms and studios at the school, this is quickly becoming a broad work. We see which microphones one can and should use, we patch patchbays, learn to mix on traditional mixing tables, route sound, good listening conditions, sound insulation, techniques for recording various instruments, various outboard gear such as analog compressors, clamps, euro-racks, etc. We are preoccupied with learning the necessary technical knowledge required to create music, both on a portable mac and in a professional studio.
Sounds a bit scary to someone who doesn't quite know what it entails. Therefore, we are working on creating an exclusively positive approach to music theory! It should be fun, relevant and engaging. Because the truth is, no one needs actually to be able to theory to create music. Theory is a subject we have to help people better understand why stuff sounds like it does and creates that feeling you get when listening to music. In this course, students learn basic and advanced theory within topics ranging from basic functional harmonics, triangles, melodies and scales - to re-harmonization, extended chords, intermodal changes and polyrhythmics.
Some weeks we focus on learning new creative approaches to music production. It's important to learn to think new and outside the box, to reassure yourself that you've always explored the different directions you have with your music. We facilitate teaching to the extent that you work with challenges, limitations and various specific tasks whose main goal is to strengthen your creativity first and foremost. Then we can do things like flipping a sample into different genres, different instruments and concrete constraints that force you to rethink. We can also spin a wheel with different keywords, effects, pace, etc to end up with challenges that one would otherwise never think of exploring.
These are essentially two subjects that are classified as separate professions. Over time, on the other hand, the modern music producer has acquired the expertise and equipment it needs to be able to do this on its own. There is a lot of creative work in mixing and mastering, and just you know how you want your product to sound in the end. We work a lot with different techniques to create lucidity in the soundscape, control dynamism, balancing elements, sound theory and effect doctrine to help you further polish your product
Have you been interested in starting DJ'ing, but perhaps didn't quite know where to start - or had the courage to invest in the necessary equipment to give it a try? Then you can learn how to DJ here on the line with our boards. We have annual introductory courses with various DJ's and you get to learn everything you need to start your journey as a DJ. First of all, this is a very good chance to see how your music works for people in different settings such as lounge or party - but also a skill that can become a very lucrative source of income if you practice. You learn how to program and rig equipment needed for live performance - which is a lot of fun!
It's a nice contrast to the hours we sit at rest producing music, piece by piece. When we jam and program music in real time - we usually create music that you would otherwise never have been able to make if you were sitting alone in the studio and moving midi with the mouse and keyboard. At the same time, it is very nice to learn how sound works in a live setting and how you can mix well on more traditional mixing tables and large facilities.
During the year we have established artists with us to hold longer workshops or shorter masterclasses. Of the masterclasses, there are often Norwegian artists traveling through, but workshops — as a rule, very relevant artists of international origin are hired. Then we fly up one or more artists/producers, hang out with them for a whole week - and aborbe all the knowledge that they possess!
We have had workshops in Breakbeats and Drum and Bass with producers like Pluvio and Frequent, IDM and future with Grynpyret and Refraq, Live electronica with Men Imitating Machines, DJing with Dj Torben, improvisation and live performance with Espen Berg and Simon Albertsen ++ many more. Our musical network is large, and this is something the students often benefit from in further networking within the music community.
Vår
Common
Sometimes we book one of the coolest studios in Norway. Studio Nord located in the middle of Mosjøen! Here you get new insights and knowledge about the music industry and studio work from producer Fred Endresen. There are about as many working methods as studio technicians in the world, no one thinks totally alike — and each studio be designed and connected differently. Sometimes, you need new input to understand how to think and work in the studio. Maybe you have your own music that you want to work on, or maybe you just want to sit, observe and learn in a different studio and on different equipment? You are always left with a cool experience, there is a lot of knowledge to be gleaned from Fred in Studio Nord.
Tour? Album-drop? Music video? Sound-Design? Sync/Licensing? During the year we have set aside a period where we raise the focus on “quality and immersion”. Here you can immerse yourself in a self-chosen topic, and you can spend up to several weeks sharpening your knowledge around this particular project. Collaborate with other lines, set up your own concerts and tours, create music videos, attend the cultural center with sound/light and stage work, complete an album or specialize in sound design of “robot sounds” for film and television, all up to you!
Høst
Common
Here we often work very concretely with an image or a film, where the goal is to add music/sounds. This is delicate work, and requires a lot of knowledge, timing, understanding and technical expertise to do in a good way. This is also an introduction to a completely separate direction in music production, namely the film/television industry.
Working with sync, licensing and film music can be very profitable if you do it well, and is an area of the industry that is growing. Often we start by “soundadding” silent films, other times we sound design epic trailer music for sci-fi and action — or simply “recreate” iconic sound effects for a game.
In the autumn we go to amazing Lovund, which is a small island community out in the sea gap outside Helgeland. It's easy to be fooled when you search for Lovund on Google! We do not only go there to look at the absolutely insane nature with birds and salmon - but we go here to experience a creative community without equal.
We work closely with ”CtrlMakerSpace”, which is a creative/technological gathering place, where citizens can unfold freely in all possible creative directions. They have everything!
3D Printers, Laser Cutters, Sewing Machines, Podcast/Recording Room, E-Sports Club, Virtual Reality, Lego Robot, Photo Studio, Band Room +++.
The intention of this tour is to “break our established routines” when it comes to making music. In autumn we focus very intensively on getting started making music, and then it is extremely refreshing to break free from the patterns you establish where you feel like you are doing the same things all the time. Because with today's technology, you can apparently make music anywhere!
We rent our own cabins, which we apparently rig into small studios - and then we hang out here for a few days and really focus on creating new expressions, write new lyrics, new beats, record new sounds, record instruments and unfold as creatively as we can. We “log off” the hustle and bustle of mobile and society, and then we “log in” to the creative process of writing music and lyrics.
What you get out here on this island far out in the ocean is a truly unique experience that is hard to describe in words. It simply has to be experienced!
Music production has a large classrooms which are equipped with workstations (mac) to each individual student on the line. Here all the machines are connected on the same network and the digital ecosystem works immaculate. It's extremely easy to collaborate on each other's projects, send and receive files/samples, get feedback directly in the program from teachers, etc. The macs are also set up with the most remarkable plugins and the software that follows market standard in a professional studio. You also get a sound card, mouse, keyboard, midi keyboard and headset on every desk - and free access to “the big closet” where we have countless equipment/instruments that can be hooked up and used as you like. Of these, we can mention analog synths, samplers, modular racks, Ableton Push and Move, MPC, Native instruments Machine, pocket operators, drum machines and much more.
Moreover, the line is equipped with 2 studios, where one of them is rigged with 3-4 desktop macs that are connected and linked together to become an electronic/creative”Collab-rum”. Here you can send audio to speakers, play riffs and things you work on, link tempo and projects together, etc. This is a lot of fun and the result is a more hands on and open space for 2-3 people to be able to make music together. In here you will also find DJ drives and more fun.
We also have a studio that is set up more traditionally, where the focus is on addressing vowels and instruments. Here we find a lot of hardware and outboard effects, patch bays and lots of mics. There is also an acoustic piano in here, ready to be recorded. You can also record your own drums and smaller crews with bands at the same time. The room is equipped with a mixing console and several different pairs of speakers to ensure that you can ensure quality assurance Mixens your on multiple devices before taking it out into the world.
Teaching takes place primarily on one level, and the classroom we use the most is adjacent to a main entrance which has electric doors with large opening and HC toilet. The hallway outside the classroom is narrow but meets the requirements of escape routes, etc. People who are visually impaired will also be able to navigate easily to and from our classroom.
In the teaching itself, we use mac, but we are open to having our own equipment rigged up if necessary. We also do a lot of teaching such as lectures on the projector and of the technical solution as of now, not something that would work with a screen reader as it is interactive and dynamic teaching in software Ableton. However, line teachers follow up students who do not directly benefit from this type of teaching with customized follow-up and arrangements after lectures.
- Registration fee 2,700, -
- Living allowance 95.922, - Covers food and drink expenses for the entire school year.
- Common costs 10,300, - Includes joint excursions/cinema/performances/concerts, laundry, internet and administration costs. In the price you also get a school picture, a yearbook, various trips locally and a project period.
- Line costs cover all costs on the individual line, material and study trip on the line. The price varies somewhat between the lines.
Semi-Annual Spring 2026 kr. 73,821, -*
Full Year 2026-27 DKK 154.322, -*
Semi-Annual Fall 2026 kr.75,211-
Half-year spring 2027 kr. 84,511, -*
* Including line trip and possible participation in tour rings. Subject to changes.
Miscellaneous additions:
- Those living in the new boarding schools will pay 5000, - more in subsistence allowance
- Special diet calculated on the basis of basic benefits
- Equipment insurance
- Some electives and volunteer tours
The Loan Box have good scholarship schemes and loan opportunities. If you leave school during the school year, you must pay tuition for 6 weeks from the end date. This also applies if you were to be expelled for violating school rules.
We don't have too many criteria for who can apply, but you have to be 18 years or become so during the first semester. You can apply from 1 October to next year's courses and we are admitting students on an ongoing basis from November 15. Then you will receive an email from us with a response to the application. We will continue to admit students until the seats are filled. In some cases, the composition on the line will determine whether you get a seat or have to be put on a waiting list. For example, the composition of instruments may have something to say. If there are more applicants for a line than there is room for, your applicant number will be able to determine whether or not you can fit. In some cases, gender balance will have an impact.
Line teachers usually most often contact those who apply. Then you can get to know each other a little better and find out if you have found the line that suits you best. Maybe you have some questions, are unsure or have something you want to tell about yourself.
The line trip goes to...
JAPAN OG BERLIN
Hvert år reiser vi på studietur for å utvide horisonten vår.
Berlin: Musikk, teknologi og historie i Europas kreative smeltedigel
Berlin er en by som aldri står stille – et av Europas viktigste sentre for musikk, teknologi og kreativ nyvinning. På studieturen får du oppleve et unikt møte mellom faglig påfyll og byens pulserende kulturliv.
Gjennom vårt samarbeid med Ableton, er vi selvfølgelig hjertelig velkommen til hovedkontoret. Her får vi en eksklusiv omvisning og innsikt i hvordan programvaren som har revolusjonert moderne musikkproduksjon utvikles. Bekjentskapene vi stifter her, er et nettverk du kan yte godt av fremover i karrieren din.
På Schneidersladen Har vi workshops i modulær og analog synthesis – en opplevelse som gir praktisk erfaring og inspirasjon til egne produksjoner og musikk. I tillegg drar vi på konserter og klubbkvelder, fra techno og elektronika til indieband og klassiske ensembler – alt som gjør Berlin til en verdensmetropol for musikk. Noen ganger hender det at vi har masterclasses med forskjellige artister og produsenter også.
For å forstå hvorfor Berlin er blitt et flaggskip for kreativ teknologi, er det viktig at vi også forstår historien. Gjennom guidet sykkeltur, museumsbesøk og byvandringer får vi oppleve byens dramatiske og mangfoldige historie på nært hold.
Samlet gir dette en studietur som både styrker den faglige utviklingen og gir en dypere forståelse for hvordan kultur, historie og teknologi former musikken vi lager i dag.
Japan: et dypdykk i kultur, kreativitet og personlig utvikling.
Der Berlin gir oss puls, teknologi, storbyliv og faglig inspirasjon - ønsker vi å skape en kontrast med reisen vår til Japan.
Dette er et land som inviterer oss til å roe ned tempoet og utforske personlig utvikling, en sjanse til å senke skuldrene i mange kulturelle møter og minnerike opplevelser.
Japan gir oss en unik kombinasjon av kultur, natur og tradisjon. Velger vi å reise til Kyoto, får vi oppleve zen-hager, eldgamle templer og tradisjonelle kunstformer i et rolig og historisk miljø. Reiser vi til Okinawa, møter vi tropiske øyer, et helt eget levesett og karate som både kulturarv og livsfilosofi. Uansett reisemål blir vi invitert inn i en kultur som setter balanse, disiplin og tilstedeværelse i sentrum.
Gjennom opplevelser som mindfulness, meditasjon, kampsport, kunst, tradisjonell musikk og kulinariske møter får du som elev sjansen til å utforske ikke bare nye omgivelser – men også deg selv.
Her handler det om å åpne opp kreativiteten, finne ro, og la deg inspirere av en kultur som i hundrevis av år har kombinert det estetiske med det spirituelle.
Japan blir et høydepunkt på skoleåret, og en opplevelse du vil ta med deg videre – både som menneske og som kreativ utøver.
On the line you will get to know better:
Lasse Weeden
Bransjelære
Øystein Herkedal Hegvik
Songwriting
Apply to Vefsn Folkehøgskole
Line teacher
Alf Marius Valan
Teacher Music Production, Music Business and Performing Musician
Alf Marius is a trained musician at the Tromsø Conservatory, where he studied performing music. Elbass is the main instrument, but he also handles piano, drums and guitar well. Alf Marius has many releases over several projects and aliases. At work, he is energetic, bubbly and motivating. On the home front, he is a dedicated family man with a keen interest in MMA, mindfullness and gaming.