We examined the whacky world of ‘remixes and mashups’ as a genre, looking at artists like Girltalk and Kutiman. It is definitely a scourge to all traditionalists who do not consider it music, but I’ve always been a fan of Grandmaster Flash so it didn’t seem like a strange concept to me. Here I am getting ready to show off my mad DJ skillz.
There was discussion about electronic music history and how the drum machine came about to cut out the need to pay a drummer. The only problem is that its tone was not suited for acoustic music backup so it slowly morphed into a staple of hip hop and techno/dance music. There was talk of the ‘experiential learning’ possibilities with step sequencers such as the io-808, DM1 app and Groove Pizza. The interesting thing about Groove Pizza (bottom picture) is that it is a circular step sequencer. As uni students the way we defined the roles of different parts of all these step sequencers varied, so it would be interesting to see how a novice high school student interpreted what was going on as they used them.
Here’s a slice of Groove Pizza that I made https://drive.google.com/open?id=1290fwbxyhCw9s4ypgE40adtpD5KwgzyT.
JohnMuTech 