New Pop & Contemporary Theory Course Added to the MusicFirst Classroom

We are thrilled to announce the addition of another amazing resource to the MusicFirst Classroom - specifically as a part of our brand new Modern Band offering. Written by the amazing Dr. Ethan Hein, our new Pop & Contemporary Theory Course is a brilliant addition to any music curriculum that incorporates popular and contemporary music. This course has 38 complete lesson plans - each one focusing on not only a music theory concept, but also techniques of popular music production, suggestions of musical works that both utilize and demonstrate each theory concept, links to pop music resources, and really well written lessons and tasks that have students demonstrate their understanding of the theory concepts. In short, this is a full year’s worth of high quality content and it is now INCLUDED with every MusicFirst Classroom subscription! You can find it in the Modern Band section of the MusicFirst Classroom Content Library. What follows is a preview of just one of those lessons.

When you click on the Content tab in the MusicFirst Classroom, and then the Modern Band category, you will see this new course on the first page. It looks like this:

Once you click on it, you’ll see the Course Overview with 5 major Units: Critical Listening, Rhythm. Melody & Harmony, Chord Progression & Keys, and Going Further. I’m going to focus in on Samples & Loops which is Lesson 1.4 in the Critical Listening unit.

Objectives

SWBAT:

Understand the practice of sampling, its technical and legal basis, and the difference between copyrighted and royalty-free loops.

Experiment in a DAW and create a project using samples along with clips form the loop library.

Materials:

DAW of your choice such as Soundrap, OGenPlus, YuStudio, Garageband, etc.

Sampling Rubric

References

https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2020/is-it-okay-to-post-tracks-with-unlicensed-samples/

https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2023/the-beastie-boys-james-newton-and-phonographic-orality/

https://www.ethanhein.com/wp/2023/can-i-kick-it/

Teacher Procedure

Activities:

• Listen to a sample-based rap, dance or pop track and its source material. WhoSampled.com is an excellent resource.

• Compare sampling to interpolation/quotation.

• Discuss the two copyrights that apply to any commercial recording: the recording itself, generally owned by the record label, and the underlying composition, generally owned by the songwriter(s). Ask the class: Why is it a common practice for producers to have studio musicians replay samples rather than simply using the original audio recording?

Project

Using WhoSampled or other resources, choose a sample-based song and identify its source material.

This is what your students will see when they open up this lesson in the MusicFirst Classroom:

Students are then asked to do 3 tasks related to this topic. The first task has them watch a video that explains sampling (see below), review some web links from Ethan’s blog, and answer 3 related questions.

Next the students use their knowledge to complete two more tasks, included a Sampling Project with these criteria:

Your teacher will tell you which DAW software to use for this project--Soundtrap, YuStudio, etc.

You may need your teacher to approve your song sample also :)

In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a sound recording in a different song or piece.

• Find a song by (band/musician) to use as a "sample" in your new song.

• Drag or “import” the song that you wish to sample into your DAW software.

• Locate a short section to use as your sample. Use the editing tools to isolate just that part.

• On a separate audio channel, paste in the sample "clip" you just isolated.

• Play around with looping or periodically displacing your clip.

• Explore periodically inserting the clip throughout your own 'original' song.

• If your sampled clip is shorter than 5 seconds, add it to your loop library.

• Keep the original imported track, and remember to 'mute' it so only your work can be heard.

• Add tracks with loops or original music

Have fun and be creative with your selection of a sample!

We are SO happy to add this amazing resource to the massive content library in the MusicFirst Classroom, and we think your students will LOVE it. A huge thank you to both Ethan AND the MusicFirst Content team for getting this resource out into the universe!

If you would like to check out this new resource, as well as ALL of the other software and platforms that MusicFirst has carefully crafted for you, sign up for a FREE 30-day trial. Enjoy!!