Beatmaking 101
Each pad links to that week’s recap.
Class description
Grades: 7th - 12th
Aspiring music producers will turn ideas into original tracks while exploring the fundamentals of beatmaking and digital music production in Ableton. Students will create beats, shape sounds, and experiment with sampling, arranging, mixing, and mastering as they discover how music is built from the ground up. Along the way, producers will explore the science of sound, collaborate with peers, and develop their own unique style in a creative, hands-on studio environment.
Resources
Ableton has an extensive catalog of resources about music theory and production techniques. Some of the most applicable for this class are given below.
Music theory
These free, browser-based resources are the best places to start learning about music theory in a production context:
- Learning Music (Ableton): interactive lessons on beats, notes, scales, chords, basslines, and song structure. The closest match to what we do in class, and a great place to review each week.
- Learning Synths (Ableton): a hands-on introduction to how synthesizers work: oscillators, filters, envelopes, and LFOs.
- Making Music (Ableton): short, practical essays on creative problems, like getting unstuck and finishing tracks.
Videos
The official Ableton YouTube channel has many helpful videos on the software and on music-making in general. Two playlists fit this class especially well:
- Start Learning Ableton Live: an 8-part series of short videos in which a producer walks through the basics of beatmaking in Live.
- Live Tips: clips under 90 seconds each, meant to spark ideas or quickly show off a useful feature.
Keyboard shortcuts
The biggest skill in electronic beatmaking is capturing the sounds in your head quickly and getting them into the software. The key to working fast is knowing the keyboard shortcuts. Here is the complete list of Ableton keyboard shortcuts. Start with these:
- Cmd/Ctrl + T
- Insert audio track
- Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + T
- Insert MIDI track
- Cmd/Ctrl + D
- Duplicate
- Tab
- Switch between Session and Arrangement View
- M
- Turn your computer keyboard into a piano
- B
- Draw mode
Curriculum
Each week lists what we covered, key terms, the song we listened to, and something to try at home. New weeks are added as the class goes.
Week 1: Welcome to Ableton
- What we covered
- Introductions, a tour of Ableton Live, and the difference between MIDI and audio. We programmed a basic drum pattern and wrote notes in the piano roll, then closed with a listening exercise to break a song down into its parts.
- Key terms
- DAW, MIDI, audio, clip, track, piano roll, BPM
- Listening
- [NOBLE - F3miii]
- Try at home
- Keep listening to music! Check out BandLab, a free DAW you can use on your phone.
Week 2: Sorry I missed you!
- What we covered
- Began working through the Learning Music module created by Ableton
- Key terms
- Beats, kick, clap, snare, open/closed hat, acoustic, electronic
- Try at home
- Keep listening to music and working through the Learning Music module, if interested!
Week 3: Beats!
- What we covered
- Reviewed the beats module in the Learning Music module. We experimented with different drum patterns in Ableton, and listened to various songs for their drum content.
- Key terms
- Beats, kick, clap, snare, open/closed hat, MIDI
- Listening
- [aruarian dance - Nujabes]
- Try at home
- Keep working through Learning Music module!