Operation makey music!
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Make Music!
Operation Makey Music! was a free opportunity for young people living in four areas of Shetland to attend workshops to learn about and explore making music using small, portable synthesisers, drum machines and samplers to make electronic music.
The equipment used in the sessions included Teenage Engineering's Pocket Operators, Korg Volcas and Makey Makey. These workshops were a lot of fun and the participants were very creative with the music tech.
WHAT WE CREATED
The young people first learned how to programme the devices, to create beats and melodies and how song structures work to create pieces of music.
The last session brought all these skills together to create and record sounds and beats, contributing towards a piece of music for each of the four project locations.
Listen to the finished tracks below to hear the huge range of sounds, beats and textures that the participants created.
THE PROJECT TECH
Pocket Operators let you make beats, melodies and musical patterns using portable micro synthesisers and rhythm machines that fit in your pocket!
This range of cool musical tools all share a similar look but have really different sounds and functionality. They can be hooked up together to create a huge sound.
Makey Makey
An extremely fun device allowing you to hook up wires to almost anything to invent new instruments and ways to trigger music and sound!
Korg Volcas are a brilliant range of micro devices which include analog synthesisers and drum machines with a small keyboard or keypad and lots of knobs allowing for brilliant expressive performance control. They can sync together and are great fun for live jamming.
Project Lead - David Boyter
I am a Shetland based musician and educator with two decades of experience working in music education. I have worked extensively with people of all ages, helping individuals and groups to learn to play and create with instruments, and to understand and use music technology.
Operation Makey Music! was part of the Creative Islands Network, a Culture Collective programme funded by Creative Scotland and run by An Lanntair, Pier Arts Centre, Shetland Arts and Taigh Chearsabhagh.
Header photo by Anton Shuvalov