New kind of beat makin’

Ready to make some music? Beat Making Lab provides students with the basic tools to begin making music by using a laptop, a mic and music production software. It doesn’t require students to read standard music or play a traditional instrument. Instead they learn composition, sampling and songwriting on laptops, and are encouraged to sample the sounds of their own neighborhoods and to use these sounds in their productions.

Beat Making Lab started as an innovative course at UNC-Chapel Hill, founded by producer/DJ Stephen Levitin (aka Apple Juice Kid) and Dr. Mark Katz (author of “Groove Music: The Art and Culture of the Hip Hop DJ”). Professor and emcee Pierce Freelon joined Apple Juice Kid to co-teach the popular music class in 2012, and was instrumental in transforming the curriculum to a community setting format used across the globe. The project’s success led to collaboration with PBS Digital Studios.

In addition, North Carolina’s statewide public television network, UNC-TV, collaborated with PBS and Beat Making Lab to create the first U.S.-based edition of the web series. The three-part episode, focusing on Chapel Hill, Durham and Raleigh, premiered online last year. Its three videos can be seen here: unctv.org/content/beatmaking. Additional Beat Making Lab episodes from other locations are at youtube.com/user/beatmakinglab.

Parties are developing open source, beat making software.