Week 9

The course that I’m developing is a digital music production class intended on familiarizing aspiring musicians with the latest technology available for digital music composition. The class will focus on musical theory, song structure, software features and functionality, best practices and current trends in the music industry. The software applications featured in the course are Propellerhead’s Reason 5.0 and Record 1.5. These are expansive music productions tools with user-friendly interfaces that make the creative workflow fast and efficient. The class will be broken down to 10 weekly modules, each of which will focus on a separate aspect of music production. Through streaming video demonstrations, interactive exercises, and mixing and production coursework, students’ will learn to use Reason’s virtual instruments to create professional-sounding recordings and at the same time get a complete beginning-to-end overview of how music is written, recorded, mixed, and mastered. The goal is that by the end of the 10-week course each student will have mixed and mastered their own original project.

The expected students for this course will vary in many ways, but will hopefully share an affinity for music. There is no grade or age range designated, however all potential students will be expected to have some experience in digital audio sequencing, a basic knowledge of musical composition and moderate to advanced level of computer proficiency. There will be some advanced concepts and procedures covered so I have additional resources and instructional support in place to guide the lesser-experienced students. There will also be constant interaction between the instructor and students to ensure that everyone is on the same page throughout the course.

I am the instructor for the course and this will be the first complete course that I have developed. I have some experience in using course management systems to organize and deliver content, but this is my first experience in developing a complete course from scratch. For this reason I am relying on my online learning experiences as a student to develop this course. Naturally, working in the technology field, I have a tendency to want to incorporate the latest and greatest technology available. At the same time, I will be presenting this technology under the assumption that it is the first experience for all users and will employ a simple and concise format that will remain consistent from module to module.

The content will be structured in a way that allows the student an opportunity to explore their own creative abilities and develop an approach that best suites their style for each lesson. There will be analysis and discussion on components of current musical pieces that were created using a similar process. Next the student will be presented with the tools and procedures to create these components on their own followed by an exercise to familiarize the student with the process. A task will be assigned along with the guidelines/criteria required to create and record a musical component that will be part of complete composition project. The media used to deliver the content will come in the form of streaming video tutorials, step-by-step PDF guides, mp3 audio samples, and audio project files. These files will be embedded within the supporting text content within Moodle. There will also be a separate downloadable all-inclusive PDF version available. Student support will be available through discussion forums, instructor email, virtual office hours and a constantly evolving resource database based on student feedback.

The course material has been developed based on my personal experiences in the music industry and with the featured software. A majority of my knowledge in this area was self-obtained throughout ten plus years of independent music production. I also completed formal training online with Berklee College of Music and have chosen a course layout comparable to those that are currently available here. The material is a combination of best practices that I’ve observed within the industry and my personal understanding of the subject matter. I have developed a systematic approach for composing and recording music that optimizes my workflow as a producer. My plan is to share my experiences with those who have a similar passion and help them develop an approach that compliments them as an artist. There is a wealth of resources available for technology in music production and I hope to consolidate these into a 10-week course and present a complete package that will guide students/musicians through the complete digital music production process.