Dr. REX_pt. 4

Discussion

Today we’re going to talk a little about rhythm. Almost all music has two main elements: melody and rhythm. Basically…

• Melody is the part of the song that you can sing or whistle to.
• Rhythm is the heartbeat of the song – the part that makes you move, dance or nod your head.

The main kinds of instruments that make the rhythm are drums, percussion and bass – the instruments we’ve already been working with!

In popular types of music, like hip hop and rock, you can break it down even further and say that the most important parts of the rhythm are the bass drum and the snare/clap.

Today you're going work on your sense of rhythm by playing a drum beat live using the Dr. REX. This is sort of complicated to explain, so we're going to work in a couple of steps.

Please do the following:

Part 1

1. Get an Oxygen 8 keyboard and connect it to your computer with a USB cable.
2. Open Reason and start a new file.
3. Create a Redrum Drum Machine
4. Quickly (5 min.), make a SIMPLE 32-step drum beat using only a bass and a snare/clap. Remember…clap on 5 and 13, bass on 1.

Part 2

1. Create a Dr. REX Loop Player.
2. Find a drum loop that has some sounds you like and load it into the Dr. REX (Reason Factory Sound Bank>Dr Rex Drum Loops).
3. Now find the keys on your keyboard that play the kick and snare from this loop.
4. Hit Play and listen to your Redrum beat.
5. Practice playing the kick and snare from the Dr. REX along with the Redrum. The idea here is to play your drums at the same time as the ones in the Redrum.
6. When you've got it down, hit Record and play along. Do this as many times as you need to get a good performance.
7. MUTE the Redrum by clicking on the little M button in the Sequencer track. You should only hear the Dr. REX playing now.
8. Use OPTION-drag to Copy the Dr. REX beat so that it ends on Bar 5.
9. Move the R marker so that it is on Bar 5.
10. Save this as: (your name)_KeyboardREX2.rns

Part 3

If you have time, add more to your beat…

1. Create another Dr. REX and load an Instrument Loop.
2. Come up with an original melody by playing the loop with your keyboard.
3. Hit Record and record your performance.
4. If you want, you can also go back and add more to your drum beat.