Change is the nature of electronic music. The successful electronic music composer must adapt and consistently keep pace with the most current music software, emerging styles, and techniques available. Ableton Live—a software music sequencer and DAW—is one of the most progressive applications available to musicians for composition, songwriting, recording, production, beatmaking, remixing and live performance.

With Berkleemusic’s three-course Specialist Certificate in Electronic Music with Ableton Live, you’ll not only develop the technical skills to compose, record, remix, improvise, edit, and more using Ableton Live, but you’ll also gain a thorough understanding of many aspects of contemporary electronic music, by analyzing and composing in a number of electronic music styles.

The first course in this program, Producing Music with Ableton Live provides the overview creative and technical skills necessary to work with this unique sequencing tool. You’ll learn Live’s interface, work within its various views to record and edit audio and MIDI, and explore its unique real-time recording and mixing capabilities. By the end of the course, you'll know how to compile live sets from audio and MIDI clips, loops, or samples in real time, and create songs in any number of contemporary styles.

The second course in this program is Advanced Music Production with Ableton Live. This higher-level course offers a forward-thinking approach to recording, editing, mixing and mastering using Ableton Live. You’ll get in-depth training on Live's components, such as Operator, Sampler, Analog, Tension, and Electric, and master tools for live performance such as on-the-fly beat creation, and real-time time-stretching and warping of sound files for DJing and instant remixing. Additionally, you’ll delve into effects processing with compression, gate, chorus, flanging, and other delay lines, and learn how to use Racks to combine them to create original and dynamic textures. The course culminates with a final project in which students create a full-length song or a live performance tool.

The program finishes up with Composing and Producing Electronic Music, which teaches the necessary tools and techniques to create contemporary electronic music in a variety of styles, including drum and bass, trance, glitch, dub, electro, minimal, downtempo, house, and techno. You will learn the history of electronic music with listening examples that highlight the important people, technology, and techniques associated with each style. By analyzing and composing in a variety of electronic music styles, you will gain a deep understanding of many aspects of contemporary electronic music, including beats, harmony, bass lines, groove, melodies, synthesis, audio/MIDI editing, effects processing, sound design, form, performance, and mixing.

By the end of the Specialist Certificate in Electronic Music with Ableton Live, you’ll have gained a strong background and technical skills in Ableton Live, and you’ll have the chops to bring to life your most creative musical ideas, both in the studio and on stage.