WHAT IS THIS ACTIVITY?
In 2021 INERTIA were commissioned to develop an aural learning activity that could be accessed by students of the Progressive Methods in Music Education course at The University of Western Ontario. It is inspired by the 2010 'Hear Listen Play' resource published by Lucy Green. It allows musicians to hear the individual parts of a rock-based song, as well as play along to tracks with their part omitted. It is designed to develop aural learning skills and the use of DAW softwares. The University of Western Ontario have kindly agreed to make this resource freely available for all teachers and learners.
The track 'Skimming' is by the Australian rock band 'Apex Bloom' all of whom learned music using informal pedagogies within their classroom. Students can listen to the whole track and attempt to aurally learn each instrument part. To make each part easier to hear, we have used the software LaLaL.AI to isolate each. You can also listen to the track with each instrument removed, to practice/train your ear to hear individual parts.
Once you feel you can recreate each part using an instrument you have access to, your voice or a MIDI instrument, record each part in BandLab as seperate tracks. Then, see if you can align them to recreate the song!