By Sophie Parenteau, communications manager at Station Clip
Fall 2021 marked the beginning of a collaboration between Station Clip, a school that offers training in music production, and Collège Regina Assumpta, a high school in Montreal that offers a major in music. This allowed students to create with professional software used by musicians around the world.
At the very beginning of the project, two music teachers from the College Regina Assumpta received a training course developed by Louis-Philippe Quesnel (teacher certified by Ableton) in order to master the basics of the software and to be able to teach it. Following this training, which took place over two days in the Clip StationThe two teachers quickly decided to share their new knowledge with their students.
Music production courses integrated into the school year curriculum
A total of ten music classes from the regular curriculum for each grade were replaced to make room for music creation workshops using Ableton Live software, a software used by music professionals around the world. A different theme was assigned according to their grade and the final objective was the same for all: to present an original composition at the tenth class! For example, the first year high school students were given the mission to pick an emotion at the beginning of the session and to let their musical creativity flow according to it.
Thus, Louis-Philippe Quesnel has had the pleasure of leading more than fifty workshops at all levels during the 2021-2022 school year.
Finally, to allow the students to take full advantage of the possibilities offered by the Ableton universe, the school has purchased ten Push2 (an electronic instrument designed by Ableton that allows for a hands-on, expressive, and integrated music-making experience with Live) for the classroom, as well as two complete and permanent stations installed in a music wing.
The creation of an after-school music component for all
Following the success of this project, an extracurricular component for all students at the school, including those not in the music program, was developed by the teachers themselves. In addition, a portion of the end-of-year show was devoted to the presentation of selected projects and some live performances.
Station Clip's primary objective in collaborating with Regina Assumpta College was to democratize music production: "It is imperative that as many young people as possible have the opportunity to experience something like this," say the members of the music production school.
