Lesson 6: 5: Introduction to BandLab
Duration of Days: 2
Lesson Objective
Students will create an original digital composition using multiple instruments, textures, and loops.
What is a Digital Audio Workstation?
How can musicians use existing audio samples to create original compositions?
Samples, Bars, Arrangement, Texture, Tracks
MU:Cr1.1.H.5a
Musicians playing a variety of instruments can all benefit from common music technology to create digital, recorded, and mixed compositions. By the end of the course, students will be expected to create original compositions that involve recording themselves on the guitar as a track, accompanied by other instruments and sounds. This is an introductory lesson that encourages students to learn the basic functions of the free DAW BandLab through composition without the pressure of recording anything yet.
Much of the music that students listen to in their day-to-day is not fully acoustic music - much of today's pop, rap, and hip-hop sound is structured through loops of recorded samples that serve as a background for a voice or lead instrument. Students will begin to discover that they can recreate familiar musical structures through the provided samples in BandLab.
Students will create a 1-minute long digital composition using loop samples. It will include multiple instruments (guitar, piano, bass, and percussion) and have structure (AABA 32-bar form).