First day of music tech class

I recently began my second semester of teaching Music Technology 101 at Montclair State University. In a perfect world, I’d follow Mike Medvinsky’s lead and dive straight into creative music-making on day one. However, there are logistical reasons to save that for day two. Instead, I started the class with a listening party, a kind of electronic popular music tasting menu. I kicked things off with “Umbrella” by Rihanna.

I chose this song because of its main drum loop, which is a factory sound that comes with GarageBand called Vintage Funk Kit 03–slow it down to 90 bpm and you’ll hear it. The first several class projects use GarageBand, and I like the students to feel like they’re being empowered to create real music in the class, not just performing academic exercises.

After we get past the beat, I ask the students to describe the rest of the “Umbrella” soundscape. They figure out quickly that Jay-Z’s opening rap includes some samples (or maybe the whole thing is samples.) Then we get to Rihanna’s voice. We talk about the collection of effects you need to make someone sound like her: compression, EQ, delay, reverb, and, of course, Auto-Tune. It’s a truism among “legit” musicians that Auto-Tune is a crutch for bad singers, so I like to play them an example of a virtuoso using it. Jace Clayton hipped me to an amazing Berber tune called “Lkit Li Nebghih” by Cheba Djenet.

Berber musicians love Auto-Tune because of the way it accentuates melisma, giving it rhythmic corners. I’m sure they get some pleasure from its posthuman quality as well. For a truly posthuman vocal, I then play “Cliffs” by Aphex Twin.

When I ask the class to name the style of the music, no one knows the term “ambient,” though one student ventures that it sounds “kind of new age-y.” It’s interesting to contemplate how close ambient and new age music are, given that your yoga studio would go out of business immediately if you played stuff like “Cliffs.” I have the kids guess whether the voices were generated by software somehow, or whether they’re heavily processed humans (maybe Aphex Twin himself?) I myself don’t know the answer to this question, since the man plays it close to the vest on his production techniques.

To continue the theme of unearthly vocals, and to introduce the complex issue of sampling, I play “Little Fluffy Clouds” by The Orb.

I step through the track, asking the class to guess what each sound source is. We talk about the sound of the 303 synth, and how its user interface affordances encourage the acid house style. The modern classical and jazz kids are both delighted to find out about the sample of Pat Metheny playing Steve Reich. We talk about the limits of the definition of music. Is the sound collage that begins the track music? What about Rickie Lee Jones’ speech? I feel the “chorus” of the song to be the part when they stutter the syllables in the word “little” over and over, and ask the class if they agree with me. Some of them hear the whole thing as a song, while others consider it to be more of a groovy piece of sound art.

The Orb’s samples are deliberately obscure. To bring the authorship issues into sharper relief, I use an example where the sample sources are meant to be identifiable, “Eye Know” by De La Soul.

Many people in class catch the Steely Dan sample. I also point out the drums from Sly and the Family Stone, and the whistle from Otis Redding. Then I ask how everyone would feel if De La Soul used one of their songs this way. Reactions run the gamut from kids who think it would be awesome, to those who would grudgingly tolerate it if they were paid and credited, to those who would refuse permission under any circumstances. All of it is rich source material for future class discussions, especially when the kids start working with samples themselves.