I recently worked with several groups of students at a summer music camp in Miami. My partner and I were slated to teach Music Technology to students younger than we had ever taught technology and coming in a week late, with half the time to prepare for an end of camp concert. With limited time and resources, we were able to create music with our students that they understood and felt ownership through the use of vocal samples. By recording our students with microphones and manipulating the sounds we found ourselves able to teach aspects of composition and elements of music technology in a way that kept students engaged and facilitated understanding.
Deciding where to begin when teaching digital music and music technology can be a daunting task. The history of electronic music is heavily rooted in electrical engineering, abstract concepts and experimental compositions. While many institutions have methods for teaching concepts such as synthesis (Berklee College of Music here, here and here) very little of it fits into teaching elementary students with one laptop. Using a student’s voice to approximate the sounds now familiar to them from popular music is an excellent way to embody parts elements of sound synthesis and processing. Your mouth is one of the best filters available, and beatboxing has long been an alternative to expensive equipment and audio sample libraries. Having students act out processes of pitch shifting and filtering becomes much more informative and immediate.
Moreover, having used vocal samples and approximation of sounds (drums, bass, vocal effects) means that students have a connection with the music being produced. In my desire to have music at the end of the week that students identified as music, I manipulated many sounds beyond recognition. However, I was stunned to see the connection and ownership my students felt to their individual samples and the piece as a whole because it started with their input. This left me free to demonstrate how even a tiny sample of their recordings could be pitch shifted, chopped up and repeated (Ableton Simpler/Sampler), thereby introducing small aspects of digital music practice and theory. Having more recognizable musical instruments allowed us to talk about standard elements of song composition (e.g. melody, harmony and rhythm). In all, we were able to take what would have been achievable in performance, composition and theory in a normal semester and squeeze it into four contact hours.
There are distinct technical advantages to this approach as well. Firstly, all the instruments used are based on samples in class, meaning there was no need for bundles, packs and libraries typically associated with digital music creation. Second, the voice provides a rich musical spectrum for us to use. Producers and mixing engineers often spend lots of time ensuring that instruments or tracks do not conflict with each other in the harmonic spectrum–hi-hats are filtered for treble, kicks for bass and vocals fit in-between. I have often fought trying to fit Ableton supplied instruments with each other and keep them competing for sonic space. Vocal samples however can easily be filtered to fit a place and often are rich enough that they can be used for a variety of instruments and effects.
The use of vocal samples in creating interactive instruments and student based compositions has provided me a wealth of benefits in settings beyond this one. For instructors beginning with music technology or advanced practitioners looking for a new paradigm, this method provides many advantages and opportunities both in and outside the classroom. A video of the final performance can be found on Facebook. Ableton Live included all effects and processors used and the live performance was with grid-based controllers (Ableton Push, Novation Launchpad Pro, AKAI MPD 218 and DJTechTools MidiFighter).
Nicolas Coffman is a PhD student in Music Education at the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami. His research is based in interactive music technologies and musical data analysis. His website and links to social media can be found at www.nicolascoffman.com.