Embedded Files
Ableton Tutorials
Ableton Tutorials
Beats
Beats
Making Music
Making Music
Check out the boxes on this page. Each one contains a small piece of music. Click a box to turn it on or off.
After playing with these boxes for a while, you'll discover certain combinations that you like. Many types of music are created in exactly this way — by mixing and matching small musical ideas to make interesting combinations, and then changing those combinations over time.
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Making Beats
Making Beats
This grid shows the "inside" of a musical pattern.
You can click in the grid boxes to make your own version by creating or deleting notes.
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Acoustic Vs Electronic Instruments
Acoustic Vs Electronic Instruments
Kick Drum
Kick Drum
Also called a bass drum, an acoustic kick is struck by a pedal with a beater attached, and is played by the drummer's foot. Electronic versions of this sound are sometimes made to sustain much longer than the relatively short sound produced by a physical drum.
Click HERE to compare an electronic kick drum with an acoustic kick drum
Clap
Clap
This is the sound of one or more people clapping their hands. Today, electronic, stylized versions of this sound (like the one used here) are much more common than actual recordings of handclaps.
Snare
Snare
A snare drum is struck with a drum stick, and produces a short, bright sound. A set of wires (called snares) is stretched across a drum head at the bottom of the drum. The vibration of the bottom drum head against the snares produces the drum's characteristic "cracking" tone.
Claps, snares, and other "sharp" or "bright" sounds are often used in similar ways in drum patterns.
Click HERE to compare an electronic clap and an acoustic snare sound
Closed & Open Hi-Hat
Closed & Open Hi-Hat
These are two different sounds created by an instrument called the hihat. Hihats are a pair of small cymbals mounted on a stand. The top cymbal is attached to a rod that is raised and lowered with a foot pedal. Hihats are "closed" when the drummer's foot is down, which presses the cymbals together. They are "open" when the drummer's foot is raised and the cymbals are not touching. On an acoustic drumset, there is a huge range of states in between the open and closed position, and each state creates a different type of sound.
If you play a closed hihat while an open hihat sound is still being heard, the closed sound will "win," and stop the open sound immediately. This matches the way hihats behave in the real world; the hihat can't be open and closed at the same time.
Click HERE to compare electronic and acoustic closed and open hi-hats
What's a Beat?
What's a Beat?
People commonly use the word "beat" to mean "a pattern (or rhythm) played by drums." The thing you're making when you create and play patterns in these lessons is "a beat."
But, confusingly, there's another use of the word "beat," which means "a regular, repeating pulse that underlies a musical pattern." People tap their foot along with "the beat" in this context.
What's Tempo?
What's Tempo?
The speed at which your patterns play back is called the tempo. Tempo is measured in beats per minute or BPM. So if we talk about a piece of music being "at 120 BPM," we mean that there are 120 beats (pulses) every minute.
Some types of musical patterns have a very clear underlying beat, while others have a more subtle or implied one. To hear a steady beat, add notes on the Kick line at the positions labeled 1, 5, 9, and 13.
This pattern is so common that it even has its own name: "four on the floor." The steady pattern in the Kick line makes it really hard to lose the sense of clear pulse.
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Tempo & Genre
Tempo & Genre
The style (or genre) of a piece of music is determined by a number of factors, including the types of sounds and patterns used, and also the tempo.
You probably have some idea about the genre of a song when you hear it, just based on your experiences as a music listener. Here are "typical" tempo ranges for a number of common genres:
Dub: 60-90 bpm
Hip-hop: 60-100 bpm
House: 115-130 bpm
Techno/trance: 120-140 bpm
Dubstep: 135-145 bpm
Drum and bass: 160-180 bpm
Try adjusting the tempo while this beat plays and listen to how it changes character, even if the pattern stays exactly the same.
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Backbeats
Backbeats
Many styles of music that are "in four" feature a clap or snare on the second and fourth beat, a pattern known as a backbeat.
In the empty grid below, do the following:
Create the "four on the floor" pattern in the Kick row again.
Add notes in the Clap row at the positions labeled 5 and 13.
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Bars
Bars
So far, all of the drum patterns you've looked at loop back to the beginning after four beats. This grouping of four beats is called a bar or measure.
Songs are made by putting multiple bars of music together to form larger sections, and then putting these larger sections together.
Click the picture to hear a drum pattern that's two bars long:
Beat Examples
Beat Examples
Click the picture to access a simple grid where you can experiment with a huge range of classic beats in a variety of styles.
Notice that the house and rock beats are extremely similar. Besides their different tempos and minor differences in the hihat and kick drum lines, these patterns are the same. You'll find certain drum patterns reused in many styles.
We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You
The drum sounds in the original song are made entirely with body percussion. The "kick drum" line is foot stomps on a wooden floor, while the hand clap sounds are real hand claps.
Single Ladies
Single Ladies
In the previous beat examples, you may have noticed that the hihats usually play steady repeating patterns, often every half beat. But in this example, the sounds are used in somewhat unconventional ways. Here, there's still a steady pattern every half beat, but it's played by a clap sound, and there are no hihats at all.
The snare is played only once in the pattern. See if you can fill in this single hit.
Play with Beats
Play with Beats
This beat grid works just like the one you've been using, but you can also record into it as you play. When you're recording, you'll hear a click on each beat, so that it's easier to play at the right tempo.
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