ACID Session 11/22

Today I didn't really do much formal teaching; Pacal did most of the talking and went over some of the effects in ACID that can be used, and what they do, and how they can be applied, etc. He also talked about the Auto Tune effect that T. Pain and a lot of other artist are starting to use more and more, this got the students attention and focus on effects because of how popular the Auto Tune effect is. After he went over effects, the students had work time of about an hour and a half to work on their projects. And although Pacal told them that the projects need to be finished by the next session, some students, like Jasmine and Lakoye, stil seemed a bit confused as to how they wanted to make their beat or what they could add to it. But becasue I'd been working wth ACID a lot more on my own time, I've gotten a lot more familiar with a lot of its features and effects so I felt I was really able to help them with any questions they had or just as far as what all they could do additionally to their songs. But I think Lakoye was maybe the most frustrated this session because of what she was trying to do with her project. She had the acapella version of some ew R&B song that she liked but she kept feeling like no matter what beat she put to it, it never sounded right with the acapella track. But when I first walked over there and listened to what she had before she decided to start over, she had a reggaeton sample playing with the vocals and even though I thought it sounded nice, she disagreed. I think the main reason why she was so unsettled on a beat to go with the acapella track is becasue she was so stuck on what the original beat that goes with the vocals sounds like and so she was getting to caught up with trying to kind of mimic that in a way which was hindering the creative process of putting together her projet. And when I told her that she wasn't really trying to hear me and kept insisting that she find some sounds similiar to the original beat. Along with that she kept asking, what I thought were very little basic things that she should already know by now, about like dragging a track on to the grid; but I tried to help her any ways. But it ind of seemed like she was just testing me or messing with me as a new instructor because after a while of me trying to help her with somne of the most basic ACID functions her friend Mariah had been looking at her and finally said with a little smile "Lakoye stop it." After that, Lakoye started to chuckle and smile a little bit and leaned back in her chair, so it kind of seemed like she was acting like she didn't know how to do anything on purpose to mess with me since I'm the new instructor and all but I don't know. But yeah, other than that little confusing attempt to help someone, the session went pretty smoothly and everyone retook their permit tests at the end of the session, which Pacal said a lot of them did better than before, even though they all passed the first time.

ACID Session 11/8

Today went pretty smoothly. At the beginning of the class we went over the areas where the students had most difficulty with on their permit tests: track properties and track type, the chopper, grid snapping, clipping, and the EQ. The EQ seemed to be the term that some of them found more difficult to understand, so we had to spend a little bit more time on it than the other areas and just break it down further for them, but we were able to cover everything. After the mini review, Pacal went over their test results with them and told them that everybody passed, but that everyone will have another chance to retake the permit test in order to get passing score closer to 90. the majority of the time after that was spent on the students working on their BTW projects. Some of them seemed to really be involved and motivated; however, others seemed to be a bit lost as to the diretion they wanted to go in making their beats. So to help wih that, in addition to us walking aroud the room and seeing who needs help and answering wuestions and giving feedback, Pacal recommended a bunch of websites for the students to go to in order to get some inspiraton of motivation for their projects. These sites had like little competitions to remix songs and offered prizes for the winners. By the end of the session i think everbody had somewhat of an idea as to what they wanted to do with their projects. The last thing we did today was a little learn at UW quiz.