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Looper's Delight
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Forgot to include this - several months ago I started making a list of all the decent instrumental hip hop albums I could find on emusic. The "Play" button gives you an mp3 playlist of 30 second samples. http://www.emusic.com/lists/showlist.html?lid=22148529&nickname=MDavignon&cs=1 They're not all great, but I'd say more than half have a lot of cool stuff in 'em. My favorite is "Oxstrumentals" by El-P. Matt On Mon, Aug 18, 2008 at 5:29 PM, Matt Davignon <mattdavignon@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Margaret, > > Hmmm, since you're working with 10th graders, why not apply these > ideas to instrumental hip hop? It's very loop-oriented, has a "use > what's available to you" aesthetic, and there's a good chance more of > your students will be into it. > > The musicians would engage in building phrases that repeat over the > course of a song, are musically understandable, but require careful > listening. > > It'd definitely be useful to get some sort of looping mechanism. It > sounds like an Ableton Live setup would be ideal, especially if you > have computers available to you. Then for the rest of the stuff, go > back to the roots - a cheap old turntable & cd player, various drums & > resonant objects, guitars with things to 'prepare' them, is there a > piano in the room? > > You can start off by using things they're used to - lay down a simple > pulse and have them add things to it. Some other ideas: > -Having each class member add 1 sound or modification to the loop > -teaching them how to layer rhythms (for example, in many rap songs, > the 'snare' sound is a complex layering of several different sounds > -teach them how to modify sounds once they're already in > -borrow a drum kit or two for a class and hand a different element to > each student for a session. > -adding non-musical elements (like environmental recordings) and > seeing how they become musical with repetition > -show 'em some different techniques for playing found objects (the > rubber ball on a stick for making groaning sounds, suspending > silverware between styrofoam pieces, etc) > > Listening exercises > - how do they make that sound? > - How do the musical phrases change over the course of a song? > - paying attention to when certain instruments are *not* playing > - Dynamics! (I attended a great class one time that involved listening > closely to the dynamic changes of "You lost that lovin' feeling".) > > Then, you can start bringing in the Steve Reich/Terry Riley ideas, and > they'll probably think it's cool rather than old. > > Matt Davignon > www.ribosomemusic.com >