Music Production

Every time we hear recorded sound, we hear music production at work. Music production skills allow creators to record live sounds, create new digital sounds, manipulate sounds, and share them with the world. In the VHS Learning Music Production course, students work with the tools and practice the skills that will empower them to imagine sounds and music and bring it to life through digital audio.

Students will use BandLab to create audio as they apply what they learn about music production. Students will have the opportunity to create digital audio, record live audio, emulate music they love, and share new musical ideas. Students do not need to read music or have prior music experience to succeed in this course, though experienced musicians will also thrive in this creative class. The course is aligned with the National Core Arts Standards for music theory and composition.

Each week, students will analyze music they love to understand how music production creates the engaging sounds of pop, rock, rap, country, electronic, and other modern musical genres. They will apply what they learn to create new works of their own, experimenting with diverse music production techniques. In an extended project, students will collaborate to develop complex works leading to a releasable single.

In this Standard-level course, students are expected to invest approximately 6 hours per week on their course work.

Acknowledgements

This course contains an end-of-course proctored exam. Instructions for students to identify an appropriate adult proctor are included in the course lessons.

Course Objectives

Course Essential Questions:

How do musicians generate creative ideas and make creative decisions?
How do musicians improve their work and decide it is ready to share?
How does understanding the structure and context of music inform a response?
How do the other arts, other disciplines, contexts, and daily life inform creating, performing, and responding to music?

Course Learning Objectives:

Analyze diverse music, observing musical qualities that inspire personal growth as a composer, performer, and listener.
Use technology to assemble and organize sounds, expressing new creative ideas.
Design music for specific contexts, demonstrating how the elements of music express their intent.
Engage in a personal creative process, using critique to refine the technical and expressive aspects of their music.
Develop interpretations of diverse music, considering the elements of music and the context of style and genre.

Additional Requirements

Students must use Google Chrome on a Mac or PC computer to use BandLab for Education.
Students must create a BandLab for Education account and will be guided to do so during Week 1 of the course.
Accessibility Note: Although every effort has been made to make this course accessible to all students, some resources or activities in this course, such as audio files, images of visual art pieces, or hands-on activities, may present accessibility challenges.