Creating a Soundtrack

For the beginner musician, the music they hear and experience when watching films can be truly formative. In this project, students learn about soundtracks and compose their own using the included cinematic samples and instruments.

Project Overview

  • Level: Beginner
  • Learning: Listening | Sound design | Collaboration | Composition 
  • What’s needed: MIDI keyboard | Push (optional)
  • Prerequisite knowledge: Navigating MIDI tracks | Arrange view recording | Exporting audio
  • What’s included: Videos | Live Set | Audio | Student Guides | Rubric | Questions

Lesson 1: Explore and Combine Cinematic Sounds (50-90min)

In this lesson, students examine and dissect the sounds and music of film trailers. They explore and layer the supplied cinematic samples and share musical ideas with peers.

Lesson 2: Use Images as Inspiration for Composition (50-90min)

This lesson aims at getting students to identify the extensive role that music has in shaping the tone and mood of a film. Students then use imagery as a stimulus to compose and record short musical ideas using the included Live Set. 

Lesson 3: Compose, Perform and Record a Soundtrack (90-120min)

In this lesson, students collaborate in small groups to develop musical arrangements in response to film or imagery. Using the provided Live Set, they compose, perform and record their musical compositions. 

How to get access

Before making the projects available to everyone, we’d first like to invite you to be part of a smaller group of educators to try our Classroom Projects with your students and tell us how you got on. We’ll then use this feedback to continue improving the projects as we expand the collection.

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