In 2021, Cory published a comprehensive Masters Thesis in Recording Arts Education at the University of Colorado Denver. Nationally recognized as one of the country’s oldest, biggest, and best programs focusing on recording arts and audio production, it’s the most acclaimed school of its type in the Rocky Mountain region… and driving distance from Cory’s home and studio. For those keeping score… yes, Cory was both a Masters student and a professor at CU Denver at the same time. He wanted to teach and conduct research that interested him, simultaneously. He’s crazy that way.
Here’s the Abstract concisely summarizing his Thesis:
“In our modern internet-attention-span culture, we need the arts more than ever to build our kids’ minds, souls and confidence to prepare them for creative solutions with positive energy. As this Thesis Portfolio will show, the Recording Arts can help build those traits — often in remarkably fast and intensely memorable experiences — in elementary age children, yet are hardly utilized at that age group at all. I developed asynchronous recording arts content for elementary age kids and the infrastructure to make it accessible, in particular to kids in a pandemic, including an entirely new album and curricula for each production. I’ve also developed educational live content in the form of shows and workshops, both of which utilize and demonstrate inspiring audience-interactive recording arts, for young kids. To do so, I had to develop an ideal Mobile Music Production Rig, described in detail in this Thesis Portfolio. Finally, I did extensive testing of both my asynchronous and live learning content, arriving at recommendations and conclusions I hope will serve two simultaneous goals: to make my work teaching recording arts to kids better, and inspire others to start teaching the recording arts to younger children as well in their own creative ways. Those kids will, in turn, become the next Recording Arts students at institutions like CU Denver, and culture-shapers — from local recording artists in an accessible age of recording technology to Grammy winners.”
— Cory Cullinan, Asynchronous & Live Recording Arts Education for Elementary School Age Children
Explore Cory’s full 179-page master’s thesis below. Yes, it’s the length of a doctoral thesis. He’s a nut. Then please help share the message that we need to utilize technology to make young people engaged creatives, not passive recipients.