Musical Elements and Ideas

7/28/2019 Musical Elements and Ideas

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

This lesson introduces some basic elements that are found in most pieces of music rhythm, melody, harmony, timbre, texture and formal structure. Students will explore andevaluate sounds and create a simple sequenced arrangement using some pre-recorded mu-sical ideas.

If your students have already worked with another sequencing program, the techniques in-volved in this lesson will be quite familiar. If not, the How to student guide explains howto perform the required functions.

Lesson preparation - What you need to know

Before starting your preparation for each class, you may find it helpful to first read the Stu-

dent Worksheet. This gives an immediate overview of what is to be achieved during the les-son. The background reading material and your provided teaching plan should then answerany questions you may have about the lesson tasks.

Teaching this lesson requires some familiarity with sequencer playback parameters, loadingsounds into devices and arranging material using basic drag and copy techniques. If you arenew to Reason, you can prepare for the lesson by reading the following pages, A teacherguide to the Reason sequencer and sound devices, and exploring the provided song files.

About the lesson song files

The song file Lesson 1a is intended for use in Task 1, which involves listening and explor-ing sounds. You can also use this file in the introductory Guided Tour activity. This material

is based on the music producers original file Opener. You can find this in the folder calledMusic Producers Originals.

The song file Lesson 1b is intended for use in Task 2. There are several tracks, each con-taining short phrases and ideas that students can use to create a first arrangement. This ma-terial is taken from the music producers original file Lagoon. Students might find itinteresting to compare this version with their own arrangements.

About the Guided Tour script

In the lesson introduction, you have an option of briefly showing the Reason Adapted rackand devices to your students. You may prefer to create your own short demonstration, but ifnot, a script is provided that might be helpful - especially if you have not worked with theprogram before.

! In this particular lesson you will notice that, in addition to the main How to pages, some extratips have been provided. Although not specifically required in the main lesson tasks, they mayhelp your students to work more efficiently. These t ips can be introduced as required, or kept inmind for future lessons.

! Check out the StudentWorksheet for animmediate overview of

the lesson tasks.

! Important: Please referto the information inIntroduction toTeaching Music withReason, which makessuggestions aboutloading and savingsong files.

! It is suggested thatyou do not work withthis script until youhave completed thebackground readingand are familiar withthe sequencer andsound devices.


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22 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson preparation and background reading

Lesson preparation and backgroundreading

A teacher guide to the Reason sequencer and sounddevices

The sequencer is where musical ideas are recorded, arranged and edited. Recorded mate-rial is displayed on the individual tracks and can include note pitch and velocity information,pattern change and controller data. An arrangement is built up by recording patterns andphrases on different tracks, moving, copying and editing these, either in the Arrange viewshown here, or in the Edit view for more detailed work.

The sequencer normally resides at the bottom of the rack. However when working, you mayfind it useful to detach the sequencer, giving more space.

D To do this, click the button with the arrow at the top right corner of the rack (1), or selectDetach Sequencer Window from the Windows menu.

D To return the sequencer to the rack, click on the icon at the top right of the window - justabove the magnification icons (2).

D You can further expand or shrink the sequencer view by clicking on the + or magnify-ing glass icons at the bottom and sides of the window, or dragging the slider with themouse (3).

Playback

Playback is controlled from the Transport Panel. In this lesson, you will use the followingfunctions: Set tempo (1), Stop (2) and Play (3).

2

3

1

! If you want to listen to a particular song section over and over, you may also find it useful to loopseveral bars. Click the Loop button (4) on the Transport Panel - when its lit, looping is enabled.Then set the start and end points of your looped section by typing bar and beat numbers in theboxes underneath, or clicking the up/down arrows.

1 2 3 4


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson preparation and background reading

Along the top of the sequencer window is a bar and beat display.

D To start playback from a particular point in a song, simply drag the Song Position marker(5) to the required place.If you prefer, you can use the Left and Right Locators (L and R markers - 6) to set thestart and end points of a loop. Simply drag the markers to the desired positions with the

mouse.

At times, you may want to hear a track by itself, or perhaps listen to your song without drumsfor example.

D You can mute a track by clicking in the M column (7) of the selected track. A red crossin the column indicates that the track is muted.

D To cancel the mute, simply click on the red cross.

D To hear a track by itself, you can solo it by pressing the computers Alt/Option key,then clicking in the M column. This mutes all the other tracks.

D To cancel the solo, hold down the Alt/Option key and click again in the M column ofthe soloed track.

Sequencer tracks and sounds

The sounds themselves do not come directly from the sequencer, but are produced by dif-ferent sound devices in the rack. Each sequencer track is hard-wired to a particular device.

To find out which device is playing which track:

D Select a sequencer track by clicking on the track name. The device playing the actualsounds will jump into view in the rack immediately above the sequencer. You will noticethat it has the same name as the sequencer track.For this, make sure that the sequencer is residing in the rack, and not detached.

You may want to give your sequencer tracks new names to fit the type of music you are cre-ating.

D Double-click with the mouse on the track name - a box will appear.

D Press the Backspace key to delete the track name, and type in a name of your own.Press Return.

The Song Position marker (5) moves asthe song plays.5 6

7

8

! Clicking to the left ofthe track name willmake a MIDI symbolappear in the In

column (8). If you havea MIDI keyboardcontroller connected

to the computer, thisindicates that you canrecord onto that trackusing your keyboard a kind of virtualconnection! (This iscovered in a laterlesson.)

! When you change thename of a sequencertrack, the name on thedevice playing thetrack automaticallychanges as well.


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24 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson preparation and background reading

Loading different sounds for playback

During the lesson, students have an opportunity to explore different sounds - patches,samples and loops - from the various sound devices. The terms will be explained more fullyin later lessons. These are all found in the Reason Factory Sound Bank, a large package ofcomponents known as a ReFill.

1 To load or change sounds, click the folder button (1) on the front panel of the appropri-

ate device.

2 In the Patch Browser that appears, click the Find All ReFills icon (2).

This will display the Reason Factory Sound Bank.

3 Open the Sound Bank and select the folder containing sounds for your chosen device.

4 This folder contains several more folders of patches, samples or loops (3). Select one of

these folders and open it.

5 Select the individual sound you require.

6 Double-click on the sound or click Open.

! You can click the up and down arrow buttons on the device panel to move betweensounds in the same folder, without going back into the Patch Browser.

Arranging material

In the song file Lesson 1b, some musical ideas have already been recorded onto se-quencer tracks. The material appears as blocks that can be moved around and copied tobuild up an arrangement.

Material can be dragged from one position to another on a track.

D Click on the material to select it, hold down the mouse button and drag to the requiredposition. Release the mouse button.

D To make a copy of some material, select and hold down the mouse button as before.This time, press the computers Ctrl key (Windows) / Option (Alt) key (Mac) while drag-ging the mouse and you will find that a copy of the material is being moved.

Snap values

The minimum distance you can move or copy material depends on the snap value set in thedrop-down menu.

Here it is set to Bar which means that you can only move material in one-bar steps.

The Snap to Grid button activates the Snap function. This needs to be enabled for the snap settingto take effect.

1

2

3

! In some cases you canpreview the soundsbefore actually loadingthem into the device.

! In the song fileLesson 1b, the Snapdrop-down menu isset to Bar, and theSnap to Grid buttonenabled, so thatstudents will easily beable to move and copymaterial from one barto another.


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson preparation and background reading

Tools

The Tools allow you to add material manually to the sequencer and to perform edits.

You may want to use the eraser to delete material while arranging.

1 Select it by clicking the eraser icon. Then click on the material you want to erase.

2 After using the eraser, click on the arrow tool to continue working as normal.

Material can be sometimes be moved or deleted by mistake! Reason has an Undo/Redofunction, which is accessed from the Edit menu, or by using Ctrl-Z (Windows) or Command-Z (Mac). This allows you to undo numerous actions, so there is no need for panic!

The sequencers Edit view

Although your students will not be working in the sequencers Edit view until Lesson 3, youmay want to have a quick look at this area. This is where detailed editing of note pitches, ve-locities, drum patterns and other information is done. It is also where material can be added

manually, using the pencil tool, instead of being recorded in real time using a MIDI keyboard.D Select a track to view in detail, then click on the button in the top left corner of the se-

quencer.

You will now see different lanes that display note pitches, REX loop slices, drum sounds,patterns and controller data belonging to your selected track.

D Click on the icons to select the particular lanes you want to view.

Key Lane -Note Pitches

Drum Lane Drum Sounds

Controller Lane Controllers

Rex Lane Rex Slices Velocity Lane Note velocities Pattern Lane Patterns


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26 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasTeaching Plan Lesson 1

Teaching Plan Lesson 1

Introduction: Basic musical elements

In any kind of music production, its important to understand how different musical elementsfit together. Most pieces of music contain the basic elements of rhythm, melody and har-mony. A piece of music will also have some kind of framework, or formal structure in whichthe different ideas are arranged, for example a song with verses, chorus and middle 8.

Some types of music will have contrasting loud and soft passages, or passages that buildby using dynamics, or different combinations of sounds (timbres).

Depending on the type of music, some of these elements may be more noticeable than oth-ers. One song might have a melody, or hook thats easy to sing. Another might have a

powerful, fast-moving dance rhythm. Music designed for relaxation is often slower, withsome focus on sounds, textures and harmonies.

Introductory activity

Depending on the age and musical experience of your students, select the activity you con-sider most appropriate as a way of introducing the main lesson tasks. Both of these are in-tended as whole class activities.

D Either: Using the Guided Tour script, (or material of your own), briefly demonstrate theReason rack to your class. The song file Lesson 1a can be used for this purpose.

D Or: Listen to one or two short examples from CDs of your own choice, which place em-phasis on different musical elements. Briefly identify these and talk about how they areused.

Introducing some basic musical elements; rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, timbre, tex-ture and form.

Introducing basic sequencer playback parameters. Exploring and evaluating timbres and textures.

Creating a simple arrangement from pre-recorded musical ideas, using drag and copytechniques.

Understanding and identifying some basic musical elements; rhythm, melody, harmony,tempo, timbre, texture and form.

Using and understanding basic sequencer playback parameters. Loading sounds into selected devices and evaluating their effectiveness in the overall

musical texture. Using drag and copy techniques to create a simple arrangement, showing some basic

awareness of formal structure.

Your notes:

! Lesson Aims:

! Student Skills:


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasTeaching Plan Lesson 1

Task 1: Listening and exploring sounds

Students can now explore sequencer playback in the following listening exercise. You candecide whether answers should be written down, or discussed.

Introduce this task by briefly looking at the Student Worksheet with the class, and explaininghow to check out the different functions using the How to guide.

Student practical work

Students open the song file Lesson 1a and work as follows.

a. Start the sequencer, listen to the music and think about the following:

How would you describe the structure or form of this music? (You could use letters such as Aor B to note when a section repeats or when there is a contrasting section.) Is there an intro?How does the song end?

What happens to the music if you change the tempo? Which tempo do you prefer and why?

Find two sections where contrasting sounds and textures have been used. Which of thesesections do you prefer and why?

Which track do you think is the melody or lead line? Which track contains some chords (orharmonies)?

Do any sounds seem to change position during the song? How would you describe the

change(s)? Do you think this song was difficult or easy to create? Say why you think this is.

b. Select the sequencer track that you think is the melody, or lead line. Find the device that

plays the actual sound.

c. On that device, select a different sound to play the melody. Which sound do you prefer

and why?

d. Select a different sequencer track and explore some alternative sounds for this.

Your notes:

! see StudentWorksheet


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28 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasTeaching Plan Lesson 1

Task 2: Arranging

Students can now experiment with some basic arranging.

Briefly introduce this task as follows:

D Open the song file Lesson 1b, play the given musical ideas and explain how these areto be arranged into a short piece of music.

D Show how to move, copy and erase material to build up the arrangement.

D Refer to the guidelines below, and specify any particular requirements you may have withregard to formal structure, texture etc.

Student practical work

Students open the song file Lesson 1b and create their arrangements.

Guidelines:

a. Listen to all the tracks together, then listen to each track separately to explore the mate-

rial.

b. Try out different tempo settings until you find one that you think fits the style of the music.

c. What material could you use to make an intro?

d. If you repeat the first or second ideas, try to vary the repeats by using different sound

combinations.

e. Think about how you can make an ending.

Additional lesson notes and comments:

! see StudentWorksheet


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasTeachers script for the Guided Tour

Teachers script for the Guided Tour

Imagine having your own complete music studio, with lots of professional sounds, a mixer,effects and somewhere to record, arrange and edit your ideas!

All the equipment you need is built into one rack. Some of this equipment is similar to thehardware you might find in a recording studio. However, you can produce an entire arrange-

ment just using your computer!Today, were going to quickly look at whats in the rack!

The Sequencer - Playback

At the bottom of the rack is the sequencer. This is where you record and arrange your musi-cal ideas. You can either play and record them using a MIDI keyboard, or use the mouse toenter notes and create patterns.

1 Each track (1) is used to record a different element of your song, for example melody,

drums or bass.

2 The Transport Panel contains some familiar controls for playing and recording (2). Here

you can start the sequencer and stop playing.

3 Heres the Tempo box (3). Clicking on the up and down arrows lets you change the songtempo.

What do you think will happen if we change the number in the box to a higher value?

4 Along the top of the sequencer is a ruler showing musical bars and beats (4). This will

help you see where different song sections, e.g. verses and choruses begin and end.

5 This P marker (5) is the Song Position marker. This moves as the music plays, so you

can always see exactly where you are in the song.

6 Sometimes you might want to hear what a song sounds like with no bass, or melody for

example. You can do this by muting the track (6).

A red cross shows that the track is muted.

7 You might also want to listen to a track by itself. This is called soloing a track.

D Open the song file

Lesson 1a.

1

223

45

6

D Mute either the Sub-

tractor 1 or Subtractor

2 tracks.

D Click on the red cross

in the M column to

cancel the mute.

D Solo the Redrum track

to listen to drums by

themselves.


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30 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasTeachers script for the Guided Tour

The sound devices

Where do you think the actual sounds are coming from?

If you look above the sequencer, you can see all sorts of other devices, some of which gen-erate sounds.

Each sequencer track is invisibly connected to one of the sound devices.How do you think we can work out which device is playing which sequencer track?

D Lets click on the sequencer track called Redrum. Look how a device with the same

name on the left side jumps into view, right above the sequencer.This is the Redrum drum computer (1) and you can use this for creating drum patterns.

In addition to the drum computer, there are:

2 synthesizers (2), 2 devices for playing loops (3) and 2 sample players (4).

Lets click on some of the other tracks and see which devices are playing which sounds.

Stored on the computers hard disk are lots of exciting sounds that you can load into the dif-ferent devices.

Lets change the sound on one of the tracks.

The mixer and effects units

When youve finished recording your arrangement, you can balance and adjust the tracksusing the mixer. This is found towards the top of the rack.

The mixer (1) looks exactly the same as any mixer you might find in a recording studio!

Underneath the mixer you can see some smaller devices (2). These are effects units.

Well work a little bit with the mixer and some effects in the next lesson. Now its time for youto experiment with some music production, using the sequencer and sound devices.

1

2

3

4

D

Select a track, locatethe device and load in

a new sound.

D Drag the scroll bar on

the right of the rack to

view the mixer.1

2


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasStudent Worksheet Lesson 1

Student Worksheet Lesson 1In this lesson you are going to explore some of the elements that make up a piece of music,and create an arrangement using some pre-recorded ideas.

Task 1: Listening and exploring sounds

Open the song file Lesson 1a and find the sequencer.

a. Start the sequencer, listen to the music and think about the following:

How would you describe the structure or form of this music? (You could use letters such as Aor B to note when a section repeats or when there is a contrasting section.) Is there an intro?How does the song end?

What happens to the music if you change the tempo?Which tempo do you prefer and why?

Find two sections where contrasting sounds and textures have been used. Which of thesesections do you prefer and why?

Which track do you think is the melody or lead line? Which track contains some chords (orharmonies)?

Do any sounds seem to change position during the song? How would you describe thechange(s)?

Do you think this song was difficult or easy to create? Say why you think this is.

b. Select the sequencer track that you think is the melody, or lead line. Find the device that

plays the actual sound.

c. On that device, select a different sound to play the melody.

Which sound do you prefer and why?

d. Select a different sequencer track and explore some alternative sounds for this.

Task 2: ArrangingOpen the song file Lesson 1b and find the sequencer.

You are going to create a song arrangement by moving and copying the provided material.Try to include an intro, a main idea, some variation on the main idea and an ending.

Here are some ideas for getting started:

a. Listen to all the tracks together, then listen to each track separately to explore the

material.

b. Try out different tempo settings until you find one that you think fits the style of the music.

c. What material could you use to make an intro?

d. If you repeat the first or second ideas, try to vary the repeats by using different sound

combinations.

e. Think about how you can make an ending.

! Use your How toguide to help you playand arrange yourmusic.

Check out: How to play your

song. How to play from a

particular song posi-tion.

Check out: How to change tempo.

Check out: How to mute a track. How to solo a track.

Check out: How to find out which

device is playing yoursequencer track.

How to load differentsounds.

Check out: How to move or copy

material. How to erase/delete

material.

! Save your workregularly!


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32 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson 1 How to student guide

Lesson 1 How to student guide

How to play your song

D Click the PLAY button (1) on the Transport Panel.To stop playback, click the STOP button (2) on the Transport Panel.

How to play from a particular song position

D Drag the Song Position (P marker) with the mouse to the required position.

How to change tempo

D Click on the up/down arrows to the right of the Tempo box (1) on the Transport Panel.

(Holding down the mouse button makes the values change faster.)

How to mute a track

D Click in the M column (1) of the track you want to mute. This silences the track. A redcross shows that the track is muted. To cancel the mute, click on the red cross.

How to solo a track

D Hold down the Alt key (Windows) or the Alt/Option key (Mac), then click in the M col-umn of the track you want to hear by itself. All the other tracks will be muted. To cancelthe solo, hold down the Alt/Option key and click again in the M column of the soloedtrack.

12! Tip: To quickly

alternate betweenPlay and Stop you

can also press thecomputers spacebar.If your computer hasa numerical keypad,you can also press [0]for stop and [Enter]for play.

1

1


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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson 1 How to student guide

How to load different sounds

1 Click the folder button on the front panel of the device whose sounds you want to

change.

2 In the Patch Browser that appears, click the Find All ReFills icon.

This will display the Reason Factory Sound Bank.

3 Open the Sound Bank and select the folder containing sounds for your chosen device.

4 This folder contains several more folders of patches, samples or loops. Select one of

these folders and open it.

5 Select the individual sound you require.

6 Double-click on the sound to load it, or click Open.D After loading a sound, you can click the up and down arrow buttons on the device panel

to move between sounds in the same folder, without going back into the Patch Browser.

How to move or copy material

1 Select the material you want to move by clicking on it with the mouse.

2 Hold down the mouse button and drag to the required position.

D To copy material hold down the mouse button and at the same time, press the com-puters Ctrl Key (Windows) / Option (Alt) key (Mac). Drag the mouse and you will findthat a copy of the material is being moved.

3 When you have reached the required start position for the new or moved material, re-

lease the mouse button.

How to erase/delete material

1 Click on the eraser icon at the top of the sequencer window. Your mouse pointer turns

into an eraser.

2 Click on the material you want to delete. When youve finished, click on the arrow tool to

cancel the eraser.

D If you delete something by mistake, you can Undo it by selecting Undo Delete from theEdit menu.

! In some cases you canpreview the soundsbefore actually loadingthem into the device.


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34 Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideasLesson 1 How to student guide

Additional How to tips

Here are some extra tips to help you work more easily over the coming weeks:

How to detach the sequencer window

To detach the sequencer from the rack, click the button with the arrow at the top right cor-ner of the rack. (You can also do this by selecting Detach Sequencer Window from theWindows menu.)

To attach the sequencer window again, click on the icon at the top right of the window, (justabove the magnifying glass icons).

How to loop a section

This is handy if you want to hear a few bars over and over while working.

1 Click the Loop button on the Transport Panel.

2 Click on the L and R flags (called Left and Right Locators) at the top of the sequencer

window, hold down the mouse button and drag these to the positions in the song where

you want your loop to start and end.

How to expand your sequencer view

You can expand or shrink the sequencer view by clicking on the + or magnifying glassicons at the bottom and sides of the window, or dragging the slider with the mouse.

How to change the name of a sequencer track

You may want to give your sequencer tracks new names to fit the type of music you are cre-ating.

1 Double-click with the mouse on the name of the track - a box will appear.

2 Press the Backspace key to delete the track name and type in a name of your own. Press

Return.

! When you change the

name of a sequencertrack, the name on thedevice playing thetrack automaticallychanges as well.

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Musical Elements and Ideas

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