Play With Your Music

Module One: Critical Listening

Choose a song to analyze

• Identify instruments and timbres
• Place sounds in spatial field (left-right, front-back)
• Describe timbral qualities
• Repetition: listen to song in Infinite Jukebox
• Video lecture and Q&A: On Space and Timbre as Creative Dimensions of Music

Module Two: Recording Analysis

Analyze for Musical Structure

• Listen for form along timeline
• Label sections
• Count beats and measures
• Separate musical layers
• Identify when timbres enter and exit within the mix
• Annotate interesting aspects of the recording
• Video lecture and Q&A: On Musical Structure in Songwriting

Module Three: Deconstructing and Reconstructing a Mix

Work with #PWYM Mix tool

• Reconstruct a mix from the stereo recording
• Manipulate balance, pan, mute and solo
• Share convergent mix with your learning ensemble
• Create a creative mix, and share with your learning ensemble
• video lecture and Q&A: On the Multitrack Production Process

Module Four: Creative Audio Effects in the DAW

Add effects to a dry mix in Soundation

• Overview of common audio effects
• Basics of reverb, delay, EQ, & compression
• Dragging and dropping clips
• Copy and paste
• Looping
• Sample-based production, hip-hop and dance music
• Copyright and ownership
• Exporting and sharing your mixes to Soundcloud
• Video lecture and Q&A: On the Musical Uses of Effects in Recorded Music

Module Five: Remixing with MIDI in the DAW

What is MIDI?

• Compare and contrast audio and MIDI
• Compare and contrast music notation and MIDI
• The piano roll: working with MIDI

Editing MIDI

• Drawing and deleting notes
• Copy and paste within the piano roll
• Copy and paste in the multitrack view
• Remix techniques
• Video lecture and Q&A: On Creative Approaches to Computer and Electronic Music

Module Six: Remixing it All Together

Remixing in the DAW

• Take given multitrack (audio and MIDI) and create a new version
• Share on SoundCloud
• Peer critique
• Iterate and refine the mix, re-upload
• Vote on best mixes

Bouncing and sharing your mix: audio formats and fidelity

• Mono vs stereo
• Sampling rate and bit depth; the CD red book standard
• Data compression: Why is it necessary? MP3 (128K vs 320K), AAC, streaming
• Video lecture and Q&A: DIY Home Recording Strategies on a Budget/i>

Reflection and documentation

• What went right with your remix?
• What do you want to improve?
• What still doesn’t make sense?

Where to from here?

• Free software: Audacity, Garageband
• Non-free software: Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, Reason
• Basics of audio recording: mics, preamps and interfaces
• Learning resources