The ‘Aspire Young Producers’ project at St Andrews International School is supported by Musical Futures International and Roland. Read more about the Primary School Young Producers Programme here.
Introduction
As music educators, we often face the challenge of maintaining student engagement and encouraging skill development when using music technology for learning. In my Year 6 Young Producers class, I observed an interesting pattern: after observing an initial period of play-based exploration with Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and hardware like the Roland T8 and J6, my students tend to abandon projects and start a new one rather than reflect, refine, accept feedback and finish them. This is despite one aim of the project to be grounded in student choice, with me as the teacher offering personalised and tailored feedback and support. These observations led to the addition of the Recreate Challenge to our Year 6 Young Producers curriculum, a project designed to encourage persistence, identify learning gaps, and gather student reflections on their learning to date.
Aims of the Recreate Challenge
I developed the Recreate Challenge with several objectives in mind:
- Encourage students to see a project through to completion
- Identify gaps in their technical knowledge and skills
- Gather reflections on their creative process
- Provide a structured yet creative task with a clear goal
Implementation and Overview
The challenge was structured in three distinct parts:
Part 1: Choose and Recreate a Song
Using the Musical Futures Recreate Resources, students were asked to:
- Choose a tool from Soundtrap, GarageBand, or Roland T8s/J6s (based on what we have available)
- Select a song from a provided list
- Complete a recreation of the chosen song using their selected tool
This part of the challenge allowed students to apply their skills in a focused, goal-oriented task while working with familiar tools and resources.
Part 2: Reflection
After completing their recreation, students were given a reflection sheet. This encouraged them to think critically about their experience, considering questions such as:
- What aspects of the recreation did they find most challenging?
- Which skills did they feel improved during the process?
- How did this structured task differ from their previous exploratory work?
- What new insights did they gain about music production?
This reflective component was crucial in helping students articulate their learning and in providing me with valuable insights into their progress and needs.
Part 3: Design a Medal
As a final, creative touch to the challenge, students were asked to design a medal that would recognize the completion of all three tasks. This aspect of the challenge served multiple purposes:
- It provided a tangible goal for students to work towards
- It allowed for creative expression beyond music production
- It reinforced the sense of achievement in completing the challenge
Implementation
Students were given clear guidelines for each part of the challenge, including:
- A specific timeframe for completion
- Prompts for the reflection sheet
- Template for the medal design
To motivate participation, the completed medal designs were printed and stuck onto medals we had left over from an instrumental competition (that the producers hadn’t really engaged with given its traditional focus on singing and instruments rather than music production)
Outcomes and Observations:
NB many of my learners have English as a second language so I have left their words unedited, as they wrote them to me.
The Recreate Challenge yielded several positive outcomes:
1. Increased Persistence: Students showed greater commitment to completing their projects even though they would tell me several times that they were finding it hard. The clear structure around the task and being able to refer them back to the tutorial videos, encouraging them to start again if needed helped me to focus my support on keeping them motivated and encouraging them to problem solve for themselves rather than rely on me to do it for them
- Things I found hard – the complicated video and buttons ( tried more than 5 times)
- Recreating songs is hard work
2. Skill Identification: Both students and I could clearly see which areas of music production need more focus in the next stage of teaching and this came out in the reflections. I was also encouraged by the learning they identified as having taken place
- Piano Roll is INSANELY DIFFICULT , I don’t know why but it’s absolutely a nightmare to do it.
- The piano roll is complicated
- I found the Lead , Pad and Bass very difficult because of the complicated controls of the piano roll and the insane zoom in and zoom outs and gaps.
- I learnt how to use the patterns beatmaker which was something that I didn’t even know it existed
- I learnt how to add new tracks with instruments
- I learnt how to use the Piano Roll
- The zoom feature is especially useful , the zoom in and zoom outs help a lot with small details
- There are lots of different sounds to select from in the DJ Controls , my favourite being Sunset City
- The piano roll, because it is hard to place the notes, and the bass because it is hard to look for the style
3. Problem-Solving:It was interesting to watch the students discover that they needed to think for themselves as well as follow the videos. I was also really interested to observe that having mostly chosen chosen Soundtrap as their preferred platform, perceiving the J6 and T8 devices as ‘too hard’, some changed their minds, discovering that they had not even scratched the surface of what the DAW could do in their play-based work to date and that actually it was more challenging than they first thought.
- It really hard to make beats with instruments
- Lyric are hard to add
- It hard to recreate to song perfectly
- Platform I chose – J-6, Why I chose it – The computer was too hard
4. Peer Learning: Sharing their processes led to valuable peer-to-peer knowledge exchange. In some cases, children started to work in pairs to trouble-shoot together and I actually joined a group to learn alongside them in one case when they were on the verge of giving up completely, only to step back when they got going again.
- Adding things on the piano roll was hard because I never used it and I didn’t know how to make it 16 bars like in the video but I found out in the end
- I didn’t make any large changes to my choices but at first , we were going to do Save Your Tears by The Weeknd since we thought it sounded best but me and and my friend decided that Birds Of A Feather sounded better
5. Reflection Skills: Students improved their ability to articulate their creative decisions and challenges.
- At First, I chose GarageBand because I wanted to try new things but changed from GarageBand to Soundtrap because GarageBand was a bit difficult for me as I have never used it to make music.
- I chose this song because this song my childhood classic so I know how the song goes so I’m really used to it and I love it (but) I actually changed the blinding lights to save your tears and it was really hard to make the beat because it has a low high low high pitch which will make it extremely hard.
Many students reported a sense of accomplishment in completing the challenge. Common reflections included:
- I found it easy when I concentrate and understand I’m able to do it and when I do it many time because I did lots of mistakes it make me use to it more
- (I learned) how to react (and) to use new things
- Aira is cool
- I like succeeding
Conclusion
Based on the outcomes of the Recreate Challenge, I identified several areas for future focus in our scheme of work, which I will refine as a result of this project since this is the first year we have run it alongside our Y5 and 6 intrumental programme.
The Recreate Challenge proved to be an effective way to encourage persistence, identify learning needs, and foster reflection among young music producers. By providing a structured yet creative task, students were able to deepen their skills and gain valuable insights into the music production process. This approach not only enhanced their technical abilities but also developed important soft skills like problem-solving and self-reflection.
As we move forward, the insights gained from this challenge will inform our curriculum, ensuring that we continue to engage and challenge our young producers in meaningful ways.
Anna Gower 