Digital Audio Project #2: Transforming A Song

The majority of students who want to work with digital audio workstations are interested in creating their own music. This may come in the form of recreating their favorite song or composing their own original music. This project scaffolds students through higher order thinking skills of analysis, evaluation, & creation within Bloom’s Taxonomy by transforming an existing piece of music from one setting to another. The primary objective for this assignment is to foster fluency in music recreation and transformation with digital audio workstations.

Since learners may have varied experiences & interests, this project is built around their taking a piece of music of their choice that they will recreate in a digital audio workstation. That can be something simple and mostly step-wise motion like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy, or it could contain more leaps, like Macklemore’s Thrift Shop:

Macklemore, Thrift Shop:

If someonIf a learner was more interested in something more rhythmic, there is no shortage of options. Some examples include Kendrick Lamar’s Humble, or Future’s Mask Off, to name a few. Examples of those being performed on GarageBand can be found in these instructional videos:

Kendrick Lamar, Humble:

Future, Mask off:

Project Description

The Transformation Project consists of two parts. Part 1 is to recreate a piece of your choice on a digital audio workstation that is between 30 and 60 seconds in length. The first part should be your best attempt to recreate as much of the piece as it sounds on the radio. After using a Backwards Design approach in the first portion of the project, Part 2 consists of transforming the same piece to become your own version of it. Learners may alter the melody and harmony, add counter lines, and change rhythmic structures. The end result should be a unique interpretation of the work between 60 and 90 seconds in length. By learning to recreate a piece of music, you should gain the fundamental skills to scaffold you into transforming. By the end of this project, you should have all of the skills to be creating original music in the next project.