Composing and Producing Electronic Music

Change is the nature of electronic music—to keep pace, the composer must adapt. Composing and Producing Electronic Music is a completely current approach to teaching students 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 the style. The lessons will feature a series of videos describing musical, DAW, and synthesis techniques appropriate to the style. For each style, there will also be a research and analysis component, in which students learn to listen critically and adapt to changes in technology and public musical taste. Students are then responsible for creating a complete piece of music for that style. Work can be done in any major DAW that supports AU, RTAS, or VST instruments, including Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase, or Live.

The course teaches musical topics like rhythm and harmony within the framework of a DAW, starting in the first week with an introduction to common scales and rhythms. As the course progresses, the musical examples become more complex as a harmonic language appropriate to the styles is developed. The course takes a similar approach with synthesis, covering the basic concepts of syntheses using a custom-built synthesizer. Quickly, the course moves into Native Instruments’ Massive synthesizer in order to develop patches appropriate to each style. With a thorough understanding of these patches, you can then apply the same concepts to another synth.

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.

Berkleemusic and Native Instruments have come together to offer an educational discount on Massive software. Once you enroll in the course, you will be able to purchase the software at the discounted price through the Required Course Materials link on your My Home page.

By the end of the course, you will be able to:

• compose and produce in various styles of electronic music, including jungle/drum&bass, trance, glitch, dub, electro, minimal, downtempo, house, and techno
• analyze electronic music to keep up on current trends
• synthesize the major components of electronic music
• understand the main aspects of groove
• build complex and layered drum grooves
• utilize complex signal flow for creative purposes
• layer acoustic and electronic elements
• use automation effectively
• compose with harmony appropriate to electronic music
• utilize reverb and delay in multiple contexts
• create exciting builds and breaks
• compose and synthesize powerful hooks
• utilize compressors, gates, and filters with and without sidechain inputs
• use your sequencer to create complex edits
• synthesize complex and evolving basses, pads, and leads
• use distortion in a musical and appropriate way
• create a variety of interesting synth gestures
• add a sampled-from-vinyl flavor to any loop
• use advanced quantization functions to add human feel
• compose and sequence keyboard parts
• use delays to create evolving soundscapes
• mix, remix, and master your projects
• understand electronic music performance techniques

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