Music Careers

Summary

Mix and match activities to create a fun lesson about modern careers in music. Integrate Solfeg.io in teaching about such jobs as a singer, instrumentalist, songwriter, music producer, playlist creator, video game composer and mixing engineer.

🎲 What’s included in the activities:

• Discussing the role of music in daily life, different music careers and ways of making music
• Understanding what singer's, instrumentalist's, songwriter's, music producer's, playlist creator's, video game composer's, mixing engineer's jobs entail
• Reflecting
• Ideas for homework & further lessons (Beyond the lesson)

💻 Materials:

• Solfeg.io web app best used with Chrome browser
• Projector or computer and access to Wi-Fi

Warm-up

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Discuss the role of music in daily life;
• Reflect on different music careers and ways of making music.

🎲 Activity:

• Create a brainstorm with your students: Where do you hear music in your life?
• Write down the answers that students tell you and encourage them to start small. Think about where they hear it:

at their house,

at school,

in the community,

online, etc.

• Once you feel like they have provided enough answers, go back with a different colour marker and post the questions:

Where does that music come from?

Who makes the music that you hear?

What is the job title of the person who made that music?

Singer

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand singer's job entails.

🎶 Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Listen to one of the suggested songs with students.
• Ask students:

Who is the person singing this song?

What is their job?

What do you think they have to do to prepare for their job?

What do you think a day looks like for their job?

• Then, ask your students to do their job. Use the features on Solfeg.io to mute the vocals so that only the instruments are playing. Ask students to see if they can keep up and sing along with the song.

Instrumentalist

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand instrumentalist's job entails.

🎶 Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Play the same song from the previous activity again, using the features of Solfeg.io and this time only play the vocals of the song.
• Ask students:

What’s missing?

What do we need to add to the song?

• Explain to students the role of the instrumentalists in music and continue to ask them some of the questions:

What instruments do you hear in this song?

Who is the person playing this song?

What is their job?

What do you think they have to do to prepare for their job?

What do you think a day looks like for their job?

• Play the song again but this time mute the instruments and have students act as the instrumentalists.

Songwriter

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what the songwriter's job entails;
• Write lyrics to an existing instrumental track.

🎶 Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Play one of the suggested songs and have the lyrics pulled up on the screen for students to see.
• Ask students:

What is this song about?

How do you know?

Who do you think wrote this?

What is their job title?

• As a class, take the chorus of the song and work with students to write their own chorus about the topic of their choice. Then using Solfeg.io features, mute the vocals and have students sing and play their new chorus!

Music producer

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what music producer's job entails;
• Understand what sampling is;
• Compare different popular songs.

🎶 Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Explain that a music producer is a person who is responsible for the way all instruments and beats sound together in a song.
• Music producers often have to know how to play multiple instruments to be able to record all the instruments in a song. Nowadays, a single laptop can be the only instrument needed- all the sound samples for song-making are already incorporated in there.
• A popular technique in music producing is sampling - taking a part of another song and using it to produce a new song. A producer takes only a part of the song and adds new sound effects so that the song feels completely fresh.
• All the suggested songs feature samples from different songs. Choose a song, listen to it and try to guess which part is from a different song. Do you know the original song? Find it online and compare both songs!

The banjo part of “Old Town Road” is sampled from Nine Inch Nails' 2008 track “34 Ghosts IV”.

“Bad Liar” borrows its bass line from Talking Heads' 1977 track “Psycho Killer”.

The hook of “Death Bed” samples “Coffee”, a 2017 track by singer-songwriter beabadoobee.

“Feel It Still” uses the vocal melody of the Marvelettes' 1961 hit “Please Mr. Postman”.

• Ask the class if they know any other songs where samples are used?

To explore other techniques music producers use, assign the quiz “Modern Careers I” to students.

Playlist creator

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what the playlist creator's job entails;
• Identify the genre of a song.

🎶 Songs:

‍

🎲 Activity:

• Ask students if they use music streaming apps like Spotify and Apple Music.

Do they tend to listen to separate songs, albums, pre-made playlists or create playlists on their own?

• Tell students what is a playlist and why they are so popular.

A playlist is a list of songs that is made to be played sequentially or in a shuffle order.

When you see millions of songs available to listen to, making the final decision can be hard.

It is much easier to choose a certain style or mood than to choose a specific song.

• Playlist creators categorize songs into suitable playlists like “Happy summer songs” or “80s rock hits”. To become a playlist creator, the ability to recognize and differentiate between various music genres and musical artists is very important.
• Open a song from the suggested list and play a part of it.

What's the genre of the song?

Who is the original artist of the song?

If you were to include this song in a playlist, what other songs would you add?

What would be the name of the playlist?

• Play a part from another song. Ask the same questions as previously, as well as:

What's the difference between both songs you just heard?

Would you put them both in one playlist?

• To further explore the playlist creator's job, assign the quiz “Modern Careers II” to students.

Video game composer

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what the video game composer's job entails.

🎲 Activity:

• Ask students if they like to play video games.

Which one is their favorite?

Can you imagine how a video game would sound without any special sound effects?

• The main role of a video game composer is writing a soundtrack that builds a suitable atmosphere as well as creating sound effects that correctly portray what the character is doing.
• To check how well students can distinguish between different sound effects, assign the quiz “Modern Careers III” to them.

Mixing engineer

🕐 Time: 15 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Understand what the mixing engineer's job entails.

🎲 Activity:

• Shortly explain what are the tasks of a mixing engineer.

When different instruments are recorded separately, they need to be mixed together so that the song sounds cohesive when you listen to it;

Mixing engineers make the song sound more like a live concert than a robotic mashup of instruments. Sometimes one instrument might feel more prominent in your left ear than in your right ear, while another instrument might have the opposite feel.

To become a mixing engineer, you should be passionate about both music and physics, as well as have good hearing - engineers concentrate on details rather than the big picture.

• To learn more about different effects mixing engineers use, take the quiz “Modern Careers IV”.‍

Reflection

🕐 Time: 5 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Consolidate the knowledge on the modern careers in music.

🎲 Activity:

• Select students to answer the following questions:

What did you learn about careers in music?

Are careers in music important to your life?

Would you consider a career in music yourself?

Is sampling stealing? Why/why not?

Quiz

🕐 Time: 10 min

🎯 Objectives:

• Test students' knowledge on a specific career;
• Recap the topics, as needed for each individual student.

🎲 Activity:

• Give the quizzes “Modern Careers I”, “Modern Careers II”, “Moder Careers III” and “Modern Careers IV” to students as an individual activity at the end of the lesson or as homework.