Audacity Lesson Plan!

Well here it is my epic Audacity Lesson Plan! It was fun starting to think like a teacher. I thought about activities that would be challenging for the students but not hard enough that they would become discouraged. It was fun being able to mess around with a new program. This is definitely a program I see myself using in my years of a dancer and a teacher! I am grateful i was able to figure out the basics to this program and I am sure as I get more into my teaching career I will look into different music editing programs to help me with my future dances.Well hopefully my lesson plan meets the qualifications of what we were supposed to do.

Audacity Lesson Plan

Introduction: Since this is a dance class music is a big part of what we do. Often times money does not permit for professional editing of music. The purpose of learning about this program Audacity is to learn the basic skills of editing music. We will learn concepts of fade in and outs, cutting a song to be shorter, slowing down or speeding up the tempo of a song and then the combination of two songs. We are going to learn the basic skills that you can use later in your dancing career. The benefit of learning how to edit your own music is you start to gain a better understanding of the mechanic of music which in the bigger picture can actually help gain a better understand of chorography and performance quality.

Assignment 1: The Basics
- Import a song onto Audacity
- Work with different effects - add 4 different effects to your song. (they don’t have to all fit together. ) This is just getting use to the program and exploring what different effects can be added to a song.

Assignment 2: Cutting a song
- Import another song to Audacity
- Cut a verse and a chorus out of your song (so it becomes a verse, bridge, chorus)
- This time it is required to make your song “fit” The song needs to flow together and sound as if you did not cut the music. (for some song it is impossible to make it sound totally perfect due to lyrics or instrumental qualities, but try your best to trial and error different cuts to make your song sound good!)
- Add effects such as fade in/out to make your song sound like it finishes

Assignment 3: Putting 2 and 2 together
- Get into groups of 2 or 3
- Import both edited songs into one Audacity project. (if in a group of 3 choose two songs to import. You do not need to do all three.)
- Take your two edited songs and find a way to mix the two songs together. (You don’t have to use the full length of both songs. Just find a way to mix the two songs to start forming a medley.)
- Once the songs are mixed together pick a section to change the tempo. (speed it up or slow it down)
- Choose one other effect that you want to add into the song
- The use your fades to make the song sound finished.

Assignment 4: Application!
- This is the most fun part of all!!
- Take your personal edited song and choreograph a small solo
- This is your opportunity to shine! The solos will be performed in class!

*This unit is estimated to take about 3 weeks, so don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed out. We will have enough time to get everything done. Have fun and let your imagination roll!!!