Grade 7 four-on-the-floor dance beat programmed in GarageBand's Beat Sequencer

Grade 7 (Year 8, age 12 to 13) · 45 min · 1 iPad per student plus headphones

The department used to teach this lesson in a browser step sequencer and now uses GarageBand's Beat Sequencer on the class iPads. The teacher shows the target pattern on the board: kick on steps 1, 5, 9 and 13 for a four-on-the-floor pulse, snare on steps 5 and 13 for the backbeat, and closed hi-hat on every other step. Each student programs that pattern, makes it their own by adding one extra kick and choosing where the hi-hat is accented, and writes a one-bar fill to end a four-bar phrase. They save the pattern and mark the steps they changed on a printed 16-box grid, which the teacher uses to check they can read the pattern as well as hear it.

Why this is Creative Replace

Students write their own drum pattern and fill, so they produce an original piece of music. GarageBand's Beat Sequencer does the same job as the browser sequencer this lesson used before, with the same grid and the same looping playback, so the task and its feedback are unchanged.

Compared with

Last year's version of this lesson: the same 16-step beat programmed in a browser step sequencer.

Watch out

If the realistic starting point is pupils playing the rhythm grid on classroom percussion, the sequencer's looping playback and step editing are additions and the lesson becomes Creative Amplify.

Tools: GarageBand Nine ideas for your own version in Generate

This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.

Grade 7 four-on-the-floor dance beat programmed in GarageBand's Beat Sequencer.

Nine ideas for your own version.

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Nine ideas for your own version.