Ableton Move: Transforming Music-Making

The Digital Innovation in Music Education (DIME) Alliance champions digital technology in music education. Bringing together schools, music hubs, industry & charities. The alliance engages with new products, innovative processes, the continued evolution of current practices, cross-sector opportunities and emerging business models. DIME member Michelle Green from Thames Park Secondary School reached out to James Tuck (Ableton Certified Trainer and Head of Music at Mayflower High School) to discuss how Ableton products have enhanced his teaching and how others can do the same in their classroom.

James Tuck: Ableton Certified Trainer & Head of Music, Mayflower High School

In my day-to-day work, I am extremely fortunate to have a balance between working in school and working with industry. In the Summer of 2024, I was sent a new piece of music hardware from Ableton and asked to have a play with it and provide feedback to the team on how I felt about it as an educator. Even though I’m a total Ableton fanboy/nerd, I wasn’t overly excited about the new hardware specs, especially as the market for portable grooveboxes was already busy.

When I received Move, I wasn’t given a manual as the product hadn’t been released yet, but I was assured that it was really intuitive, so I wouldn’t need one. Within a few moments of exploring Move, I realised that I was doing something that I hadn’t done in quite a while – I was having fun making music! When I realised I should probably start feeding back to the team, I realised that Move had a lot of features that make it ideal for education.

• There is a built-in speaker so you can hear it without headphones – ideal for collaborative work
• There is a built-in microphone so you can sample directly to the device – insanely handy for found sound projects or when you’re feeling experimental/inspired
• There is a built-in rechargeable battery so you don’t have to worry about where power sources are in the room that you’re teaching in
• It automatically loads in four sounds (drums, bass, pads & lead) that actually sound good, so you can avoid the initial option paralysis
• There is a tiny screen that only shows the vital things you need, allowing you to just concentrate on the music and therefore limiting screen time
• It had a dedicated button for Ableton’s ‘MIDI Capture’, which is a god-tier function that listens to what you’ve recently been playing and then ‘captures’ it as a recording, even knowing the tempo you have been playing.
• If you have Ableton Live you can use Move as a MIDI controller, so you can take your knowledge from the hardware device and start to use it with the software
• If you want to develop your work further, or require a visual version (e.g. to create a graphic based score for GCSE Music) you can open your project in Ableton Live.

I was then asked to create some specific learning resources and to see how well it worked in a real school environment. I thought it would be unfair if I was the person delivering the content so I asked one of the team in my music department to teach it to his classes, without any prior training. The response from his groups was extremely interesting, especially when it came down to being able to explain the musical concepts they were learning. In comparison to working on a DAW, the musicians in his classes couldn’t just point to a screen to highlight the music they were making – they really needed to know what it was that they were playing and verbalise it.

I really wanted to explore how Move could be used for ensemble based music work and I had a lot of fun putting this performance of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’ together with some musicians from a Year 10 GCSE class. I think it is vital that we see digital instruments as something far more than just an experience that one has with a pair of headphones.

I also wanted to see how well Move could be used within a Primary setting, because if they’re not being exposed/inspired at this age by music making (whether that is digital or ‘traditional’ instruments) to pursue it further, it’s often too late by the time they reach secondary. I think it’s safe to say that they really enjoyed the experience.

I am currently finalising resources for educators to help them start using Move in their settings. It’s not ground breaking, but I’m hoping that the structure of it will help.

Play | Sequence | Adapt.

When you consider how one makes music using Move, compared to for example learning the violin, the challenge of this instrument is that you automatically have to start to think about how multiple instrumental sounds need to work together to create a piece of music that is pleasing to listen to. When you take a step back and consider that, it is extremely deep.

Therefore I am suggesting that learning a piece of hardware such as Move is best approached through:

Play: The first experience of using this hardware is making music with others without headphones, by learning how to play a piece of music on Move by experiencing all of the instrumental parts (drums, bass, chords, melody) and performing it as part of an ensemble. The nature of this starts with a tacit understanding of how the different parts are working together, creating links to musical empathy.

Sequence: Now you know how to play the different parts, you explore the different ways they can be recorded into the device – recording in real time vs step sequencing.

Adapt: This really plays into the hands of the type of musician you’re working with and what your learning objectives are, but how do you now make the piece of music your own? What about replacing some of the sounds through sampling using the built-in microphone? Can I use a different chord sequence with the melody? Can I compose a different melody with the existing chord sequence? If I change the tempo and sound set does it change the style of the music?

In my travels supporting music hubs that are embedding the use of Move it has been lovely to see how this work flow is resonating with other educators and that they share my sentiment that digital music making is part of music making in general, not just music tech in its own tick-box.

Could you do all of this using a computer and a DAW? Of course you can. But do I always want to make music where I have to do my admin/homework?

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