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 and evaluate sounds and create a simple sequenced arrangement using some pre-recorded musical ideas. If your students have already worked with another sequencing program, the techniques involved in this lesson will be quite familiar. If not, the How to student guide explains how to perform the required functions.

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

Lesson preparation - What you need to know

Before starting your preparation for each class, you may find it helpful to first read the Student Worksheet. This gives an immediate overview of what is to be achieved during the lesson. The background reading material and your provided teaching plan should then answer any questions you may have about the lesson tasks. Teaching this lesson requires some familiarity with sequencer playback parameters, loading sounds into devices and arranging material using basic drag and copy techniques. If you are new to Reason, you can prepare for the lesson by reading the following pages, A teacher guide to the Reason sequencer and sound devices, and exploring the provided song files.

! Check out the Student

Worksheet for an immediate overview of the lesson tasks.

About the lesson song files

The song file Lesson 1a is intended for use in Task 1, which involves listening and exploring 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 called Music Producers Originals. The song file Lesson 1b is intended for use in Task 2. There are several tracks, each containing short phrases and ideas that students can use to create a first arrangement. This material is taken from the music producers original file Lagoon. Students might find it interesting to compare this version with their own arrangements.

! Important: Please refer

to the information in Introduction to Teaching Music with Reason, which makes suggestions about loading and saving song files.

About the Guided Tour script

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

! It is suggested that
you do not work with this script until you have completed the background reading and are familiar with the sequencer and sound devices.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

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Lesson preparation and background reading
A teacher guide to the Reason sequencer and sound devices
The sequencer is where musical ideas are recorded, arranged and edited. Recorded material 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 and phrases on different tracks, moving, copying and editing these, either in the Arrange view shown here, or in the Edit view for more detailed work. The sequencer normally resides at the bottom of the rack. However when working, you may find 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 select Detach Sequencer Window from the Windows menu.

1 2

D To return the sequencer to the rack, click on the icon at the top right of the window - just above the magnification icons (2). D You can further expand or shrink the sequencer view by clicking on the + or magnifying glass icons at the bottom and sides of the window, or dragging the slider with the mouse (3).

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

! If you want to listen to a particular song section over and over, you may also find it useful to loop
several 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 the boxes underneath, or clicking the up/down arrows.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson preparation and background reading

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

The Song Position marker (5) moves as the song plays.

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 the start 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 drums for example. D You can mute a track by clicking in the M column (7) of the selected track. A red cross in the column indicates that the track is muted. D To cancel the mute, simply click on the red cross.

! Clicking to the left of

the track name will make a MIDI symbol appear in the In column (8). If you have a MIDI keyboard controller connected to the computer, this indicates that you can record onto that track using your keyboard a kind of virtual connection! (This is covered in a later lesson.)

7 8
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 of the soloed track.

Sequencer tracks and sounds

The sounds themselves do not come directly from the sequencer, but are produced by different 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 actual sounds will jump into view in the rack immediately above the sequencer. You will notice that 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 creating. 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.

! When you change the

name of a sequencer track, the name on the device playing the track automatically changes as well.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson preparation and background reading

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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 fully in later lessons. These are all found in the Reason Factory Sound Bank, a large package of components known as a ReFill.

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

! In some cases you can

preview the sounds before actually loading them into the device.

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 between
sounds 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 sequencer tracks. The material appears as blocks that can be moved around and copied to build 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 required position. 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 dragging the mouse and you will find that a copy of the material is being moved.

! In the song file

Lesson 1b, the Snap drop-down menu is set to Bar, and the Snap to Grid button enabled, so that students will easily be able to move and copy material from one bar to another.

Snap values
The minimum distance you can move or copy material depends on the snap value set in the drop-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 setting to take effect.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson 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/Redo function, which is accessed from the Edit menu, or by using Ctrl-Z (Windows) or CommandZ (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, you may want to have a quick look at this area. This is where detailed editing of note pitches, velocities, 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 sequencer.

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.
Drum Lane Drum Sounds Key Lane Note Pitches Controller Lane Controllers

Rex Lane Rex Slices

Velocity Lane Note velocities

Pattern Lane Patterns

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson preparation and background reading

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Teaching Plan Lesson 1
! Lesson Aims:
Introducing some basic musical elements; rhythm, melody, harmony, tempo, timbre, texture 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 copy techniques. 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.

! Student Skills:

Introduction: Basic musical elements

In any kind of music production, its important to understand how different musical elements fit together. Most pieces of music contain the basic elements of rhythm, melody and harmony. A piece of music will also have some kind of framework, or formal structure in which the 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 build by using dynamics, or different combinations of sounds (timbres). Depending on the type of music, some of these elements may be more noticeable than others. 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, with some focus on sounds, textures and harmonies.

Introductory activity
Depending on the age and musical experience of your students, select the activity you consider most appropriate as a way of introducing the main lesson tasks. Both of these are intended as whole class activities. D Either: Using the Guided Tour script, (or material of your own), briefly demonstrate the Reason 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 emphasis on different musical elements. Briefly identify these and talk about how they are used. Your notes:

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Teaching Plan Lesson 1

Task 1: Listening and exploring sounds

Students can now explore sequencer playback in the following listening exercise. You can decide whether answers should be written down, or discussed. Introduce this task by briefly looking at the Student Worksheet with the class, and explaining how 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.

! see Student
Worksheet

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 A or 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 these sections do you prefer and why? Which track do you think is the melody or lead line? Which track contains some chords (or harmonies)? 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:

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Teaching Plan Lesson 1

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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 are to 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 with regard to formal structure, texture etc.

! see Student
Worksheet

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 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.

Additional lesson notes and comments:

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Teaching Plan Lesson 1

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 the hardware you might find in a recording studio. However, you can produce an entire arrangement just using your computer! Today, were going to quickly look at whats in the rack!
D Open the song file Lesson 1a.

The Sequencer - Playback

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

5 1 6

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 song
tempo. 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.

D Mute either the Subtractor 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.

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

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Teachers script for the Guided Tour

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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 generate 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 different devices.

D Select a track, locate the device and load in a new sound.

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 tracks using the mixer. This is found towards the top of the rack.
D Drag the scroll bar on the right of the rack to view the mixer.

1 2
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 you to experiment with some music production, using the sequencer and sound devices.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Teachers script for the Guided Tour

Student Worksheet Lesson 1

In 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.

! Use your How to

guide to help you play and arrange your music.

Task 1: Listening and exploring sounds

Open the song file Lesson 1a and find the sequencer.
Check out: How to play your song. How to play from a particular song position.

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 A or 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 these sections do you prefer and why? Which track do you think is the melody or lead line? Which track contains some chords (or harmonies)? 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.

Check out: How to change tempo.

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

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.

Check out: How to find out which device is playing your sequencer track. How to load different sounds.

Task 2: Arranging
Open 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:
Check out: How to move or copy material. How to erase/delete material.

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.

! Save your work

regularly!

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Student Worksheet Lesson 1

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Lesson 1 How to student guide
How to play your song ! Tip: To quickly
alternate between Play and Stop you can also press the computers spacebar. If your computer has a numerical keypad, you can also press [0] for stop and [Enter] for play.

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 red cross 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 column of the track you want to hear by itself. All the other tracks will be muted. To cancel the solo, hold down the Alt/Option key and click again in the M column of the soloed track.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson 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.

! In some cases you can

preview the sounds before actually loading them into the device.

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 computers Ctrl Key (Windows) / Option (Alt) key (Mac). Drag the mouse and you will find that a copy of the material is being moved.

3 When you have reached the required start position for the new or moved material, release 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 the Edit menu.

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson 1 How to student guide

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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 corner of the rack. (You can also do this by selecting Detach Sequencer Window from the Windows menu.) To attach the sequencer window again, click on the icon at the top right of the window, (just above 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 glass icons 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 creating.

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

! When you change the

name of a sequencer track, the name on the device playing the track automatically changes as well.

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

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Lesson 1: Musical elements and ideas

Lesson 1 How to student guide