Sonic Pi Composition Lesson Plan #4: Synthesisers and effects

“If you talk to any director, they’ll say music is fifty percent of the movie.” –Hans Zimmer

Lesson Overview:

The aim of this lesson is to: (1) understand how computers use data and represent audio, (2) get students to create their own synthesiser sounds from fundamental waveforms, (3) use basic audio effects, and (4) work on both group and individual project.

Contents:

Introduction: What did we cover in the last lesson?

5 minutes

Activity 1: Data representation of audio

30 minutes

Activity 2: New Sonic Pi commands (additive and subtractive synthesis with sine, sawtooth, triangle waves)

30 minutes

Activity 3: Reflection of progress so far and class discussion of selected listening examples

10 minutes

Activity 4: Student time for group projects

20 minutes

Wrap-up Activity: Quiz and reflection

15 minutes

Learning Outcomes:

Key concepts

Sonic Pi syntax to be taught this lesson

Learning Outcomes

Music:

-reverb, delay, distortion

-attack, release sustain, decay

-sine, sawtooth, triangle waves

Programming:

-decomposition (making synthesisers)

-abstraction

-bits to audio (data representation)

-methods

Activity #1

(none)

Activity #2

with_fx:

-reverb

-echo

synth: (sine, square, saw, tri)

-attack -release -sustain -decay

Activity #3 and #4

(none)

Music:

-All students will create their own unique sounds using additive and subtractive synthesis

-All students will use basic effects e.g. reverb, delay, cutoff

Programming:

-All students will create and use their own personalised synthesiser

-All students will explore attack, release and sustain of synthesising a unique and personalised electronic instrument

Introduction: What did we cover in the last lesson (5 minutes)

Activity Overview: Every lesson in this unit of work starts with refreshing knowledge and identifying gaps in understanding from the previous lesson.

Student Activity:

  1. For three minutes, students are to reflect on the code they saved at the end of the previous lesson

Activity 1: Data representation of audio (10 minutes)

Activity Overview: Introduction to data representation of audio in computers.

Suggested links and resources to facilitate activities:



Student Activity (10 minutes):

  1. Class discussion prompt: How do computers store and play audio?

Activity 2: New Sonic Pi commands (additive and subtractive synthesis with sine, sawtooth, triangle waves and audio effects) (30 minutes)

Activity Overview: Students are to create their own synthesiser sounds from fundamental waveforms and use basic audio effects (reverb, echo etc.).

New Sonic Pi syntax to introduce in this activity (click for example code):

synth: (sine, square, saw, tri) attack release sustain decay. E.g. synth :sine, note: :c4, attack: 2, release: 1, sustain: 2, decay: 2

with_fx :reverb do

play 60

sleep 1

end

Suggested links and resources to facilitate activities:

Student Activity (20 minutes):

  1. Students experiment making their own synthesizer individually separate from their own projects
  2. Students integrate experiments into their own composition
  3. Students experiment with audio effects in their individual project

Activity 3: Reflection of progress so far and class discussion of selected listening examples (10 minutes)

Activity Overview: Standups as per lesson #2 and #3. Students also get a chance to demonstrate their composition to class (only volunteers) listen to each other’s work and give constructive feedback.

Student Activity (15 minutes):

  1. [Standups] Students have 2 minutes to think of what to say and who is going to go first
  2. Students have 5 minutes to listen to each other’s work and give each other constructive feedback
  3. Anyone who would like to play their composition so far to the class (only willing volunteers)

Activity 4: Student time for group projects (20 minutes)

Activity Overview: (none)

Activity (20 minutes):

Student instruction similar to Activity #2 to group projects

  1. Students experiment making their own synthesizer separate from their own projects in their groups
  2. Students integrate experiments into their group composition
  3. Students experiment with audio effects in their group project

Wrap-up activity: Quiz and reflection (15 minutes)

Activity Overview: All students to complete a quiz containing 10 questions on music and programming -  as well as a few reflective questions on this lesson (all students will complete this each lesson).

Student Activity (10 minutes):

  • Students individually complete the quiz and reflection on the key concepts in this lesson within 10 minutes linked here.

Administrative Details

Contact info

petriechris@gmail.com 

Credits

Developed by Chris Petrie.

Last updated on

27/06/2018

Copyright info

The content of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, and code samples are licensed under the Apache 2.0 License.