As an electronic music and theory teacher on the secondary level, the use of technology has been an invaluable tool in creating a "hands-on" learning environment. Students love to listen to music, and many are always walking around with headphones listening to their favorite grooves. The concept of recreating that music has always been a mere fantasy for them, until the classroom sequencer arrived. With the aid of a multi-track sequencer the students can now emulate their "musical fantasies," and bring home a recording to proudly play for friends and family.

One project (one-two week assignment) that usually yields great results is the creation of a "rhythm section." Most of the music of today is based on some type of rhythm section. In studying the rhythm section of pop music, students discover that they can build a groove from the bottom up - that is to say that the use of only drums/percussion and a bass line will yield a strong foundation for a rhythm section project.

The goal for this project can be simply stated as thus: compose and record a chosen dance beat for drums/percussion with a bass part and at least one other instrument of choice, creating a rhythm section.

To get this project off to a quick start, the educator could supply examples or choices of short sequences of dance beats for drums/percussion. These "packets" should contain various beats such as rock, funk, disco, reggae, Latin, etc. The drum music should contain from three to four parts, and a lesson on reading drum notation is a good place to start.

The goal of this project is the interaction of the bass the line with the percussion, not composing the drum parts.

It is understood at this point that students can operate a sequencing program or music workstation and have some background in discrimination of timbre for instrument selection.

A good way to start procedures on this project is to listen to examples of rhythm sections and make comparisons. You can look for comparisons between pop recordings such as Will Smith or James Brown and The Dave Brubeck Quartet. Student analysis can focus on repetition, similar instruments, rhythms, etc.

The next step would be to choose a style from the drum packet and record it on the sequencer using separate tracks for each part. The separation allows for individual track mixing later. A total length of 45 seconds to a minute would be achieved by having students make use of copy measure features. These parts are either played live or step recorded. Care must be taken to set the quantization (resolution) to the smallest note value if students play live.

The next phase is to choose a bass patch (sound/timbre), set the quantization and start recording. Students may use their theory knowledge of scales, modes, etc. to compose a bass line, or simply to choose a "set" or notes (1 - 4 is suggested) to improvise on. Some of the funkiest bass lines our students come up with utilize only one note!

To complete and add color to our rhythm section, we had students choose from guitar, keyboard or pitched percussion and add the last part. If students had chosen a scale or mode as their pitch inventory, then this last part should be composed from the same materials. If students used a "set" of notes for the bass part, this should also be used on this last part. This allows students with very limited theory knowledge to be "in the right key." To make it sound like a rhythm section, stress "no melody."

The project can be wrapped up by mixing (panning, volumes, etc.) and adding an ending and a title to their work. We used our in house sound system and compared projects by discussing musical qualities, and tried projects at various tempos, making note of different moods controlled by tempo.

This project is "expandable" on many levels - future work could include adding melody (study of melodic materials), expanding length and sections (study of form), adding chords (study of harmony) or maybe changing timbres (patches).

When this project was introduced students mysteriously started giving up lunch periods or staying after school to work on their grooves. One of the major goals of music education is to increase student awareness and interest in music, and this project is a proven winner!