I ❤ Sounds

I am privileged to go to a school that I love, where the barriers between the learning environment and nature are zero to none. Aesthetically, Green School’s architecture please the eye, and its beautiful surroundings compliment it majestically. As a tourist, stepping foot into such an environment can leave you in awe, as it did to me the first time I stepped foot into the place I now call my school. But, as a student, I’ve noticed that we rely heavily on what can be seen visually; a simple walk around the school led me to realize that our eyes can phase out our other senses, particularly our hearing. We tend to underestimate the power of sounds, but sounds are important — this is why car companies spend a tremendous amount of time and money to alter the sounds of their engines and why the lone blind samurai master can fight using solely his sense of hearing — . This isn’t as much a problem as it is a simple remark, but redirecting my attention to the sounds that green school has to offer became the capital peak for what I wanted to do with a music production class in Green School.

Green school has a lot offer, students know that, teachers know it, parents know it, and I’d like to think that most tourists know it too. What particularly intrigues me is the vast collection of sounds it has to offer. As Green School students, we have the privilege of being surrounded by sounds that some people on the other end of the world may never hear in their entire lifetime. With that realization, I began to collect the sounds of Green School and use them as a sonic pallet that would be recognizable among the Green School community. And with that pallet of sounds, I began to implement them into my music, perhaps not necessarily with my more “generic” music, but more so as a tool to experiment.

Not so long after I began to experiment with my “green school sample collection”, my math teacher Pak Baptiste suggested making a music production class. It was something I had experience with doing in the past and I knew that sharing something with students that I consider my passion would be a fulfilling endeavor. So, I jumped on board and began to sketch certain ideas. I knew that I didn’t just want to do a simple music production course. I personally learnt my way around the software individually, so I knew that just going around the software wouldn’t be enough. I wanted to go one step deeper into Ableton leaving much more of the familiarization with the software to individual experimentation (learning from mistakes). So Baptiste and I pitched certain ideas to each other leading to an almost fully planned course with blank spaces left for improvisation. Fast forward a few months and we now have a music production course to offer at Green School. Thanks to Pak Baptiste, we received generous donations from Ableton (the software I use). We received enough software for a full class and 10 controllers that can be used in conjunction with the software. We are coming towards the end of the course and I’m thrilled to hear the final products.

Throughout the course, we’ve gone over a few different concepts including sampling from live sounds. One day, the students were told to take their phones with them, go out and record 3 sounds in 15 minutes. While Pak Baptiste instructed the students, I recorded his voice, without his knowledge, and while the students went off to record sounds, I made a track using Pak Baptiste’s voice. In roughly 20 minutes, I had a rough typical trap track. I presented it to the class and seeing their reactions was a moment to remember. Suddenly, showing how I made a trap track using the teachers voice, sparked a small movement of micro sampling from various sources, particularly memes from the Internet, which is definitely a favorite among many of the students. Seeing how they quickly grasped the concept of manipulating sounds, even randomly, was inspiring. Hearing the sounds they had input and how they fluctuated the output was beautiful to watch, to say the least. In fact, I loved the sounds so much that I wanted to make music with them, so the cycle came right back at me. They hear what they like and make music with it, I hear what they do with it and now I want to do what they’re doing.

It’s funny to see the table turn; I’m now the teacher getting slightly frustrated at the students, but it is a grounding and fruitful learning experience, to say the least, even when I’m the one that’s supposed to be teaching. I can honestly say that I am a lazy unmotivated student; I’m usually the student waiting for the teacher to assist me only to answer every question with an “I don’t get it”. And now the tables have turned and I’m supposed to be assisting the students. In one way or another, I can certainly understand some of the students that fall off track because I face the same challenges. And when it comes down to it, I sometimes have a couple tricks under my sleeve to motivate them, to make them go “omg that’s cool, how’d you do that”. So now as we reach the end of the course, I feel fulfilled with the experience that I hope is just as meaningful to the students as it is for me.