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Understanding Rhythm, BPM and Beatmatching
How to make a Podcast

Understanding Rhythm, BPM & Beatmatching

This Lesson is for students who are interested in music production, but maybe don’t know where to begin. This will take them through the steps of understanding drum patterns and will give students a good introduction into beat structures and beat mixing.

By the end of this tutorial students will have covered:

  • Understanding Beats Per Minute, Beat-matching and its importance
  • Different Genres and Related BPMs
  • Drum Tempo & counting beats
  • Basic audio editing

Students will begin to discuss and understand the basics of BPM and tempo. Using this new information, they will begin to edit and mix audio within trakAxPC, paying particular attention drum beats, tempo, BPM, etc.

What you’ll need

  • Audio tracks (CD / MP3) or royalty-free loops & beats from trakAx.com
  • trakAxPC Pro

Lesson Structure

Class Activity 1 –- Research and Learning

Teacher explains and gives examples of Tempo / BPM, Beatmatching, Rhythm & Different genres of music. (Teacher could play different tempos and genres of music, and students could guess what genre it is, its BPM range, count the drum patterns etc.)

Using any available percussion songs / loops and beats, teachers should lead students in exploring different rhythms (teacher / students can also play drum loops / songs in trakAxPC). Play different pieces of music and discuss the different rhythms and tempos of each piece. Discuss the mood and emotions felt as a result of listening to the different rhythms and tempos.

Teacher explains drum tempo and drum patterns e.g. Four-to-the-floor musical rhythm pattern: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four-on-the-floor_(dance) (Teacher could play songs with different tempos and student(s) could count the beat as it plays.)

Teacher could incorporate quizes around the area of rhythm and tempo (e.g. Where can we find rhythm in everyday life? What everyday products / instruments can create rhythm? How many beats are normally found in a measure of music? and so on.)

Class Activity 2 – Production

Students watch tutorials on “Understanding & Changing BPM”, “Unlocking BPM from Global Tempo” and “Adjusting Global Tempo with Video”.

Students individually or in groups can then import their songs / loops into TrakAxPC, discover the BPM of each song / loop, count the drums / beat in their songs or loops and then create, edit and mix a song using their loops.

Students mix songs with similar BPMs to create a DJ style mix (use trakAxPC to crossfade and beatmatch songs).

Students should discuss the importance of beatmatching, understand why certain songs will beatmatch (e.g. Timestretching a track to match its tempo to that of the currently playing track i.e. the kicks and snares in two songs hit at the same time when both tracks are played simultaneously) and why some songs will not beatmatch (different genre of music, tempo’s too far apart, etc.). In trakAxPC, when Students are creating a mix they should pay particular attention to the stretching engine in the BPM Parameters of a Channel.

See link below for more information:
http://www.trakax.com/software/wiki/Category:Mixing_Window::Track_Name_&_Properties::BPM_Parameters_Icon/

Class Activity 2 – Post-Production

Each group of students presents their song / mix and critique the various decisions behind the project – genre chosen, tempo used, editing decisions etc.

Students can submit a short written piece on what they have learned about Tempo and BPM, the process of creating song / mix, the relevance of rhythm, tempo in music etc.

Fair Use of Copyrighted Material

If students are using they favourite songs, they most likely will want to use music tracks that are copyrighted. However, if the distribution is purely within the classroom and will not be distributed outside the classroom, then the content may be covered by the Fair Use Guidelines of Copyright.

Fair use is a doctrine in United States copyright law that allows limited use of copyrighted material without requiring permission from the rights holders, such as for commentary, criticism, news reporting, research, teaching or scholarship. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use for more information.

trakAxPC Tutorials

If students are completely new to trakAxPC, we suggest watching the tutorials first:

Creating a Music Mix in trakAxPC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHraMqRpZxE

Creating a DJ Mix Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjxXnhKIxZg

Creating a DJ Mix Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iITZ-PSTgNI

BPM (Part 1) - Changing the BPM using the Beats Parameter Icon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO8iNxbjrvc

BPM Part 2 - Unlocking an Audio File from the Global BPM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE0A-eZBhfU

BPM Play-Rate (Part 3) Adjusting the Global Tempo with Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxwpD8ymhCQ

Saving a Mix in trakAxPC for future editing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCnCqqCHvec

Exporting a Mix in trakAxPC to MP3/ AAC/ M4A / MPEG-4 etc.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx1QioSUUQs

 

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