Ableton CEO Gerhard Behles (seen mean-mugging above with a very young Lawrence Grey) visited a Young Producers Group class in 2015. YPG wasn’t even a proper company yet, but Gerhard was intrigued when he heard that high-schoolers were using Ableton Live. From his vantage point in Berlin, only 18+ folks were using the software. The high-schoolers all went under the radar because they were pirating his software!
A year later, Ableton announced the Push Trade-In Initiative with the rollout of Push 2. People could send in a Push 1 for a discount on a Push 2. Ableton then refurbished the old Push and sent it to a school for free. Unlike the beautiful new Push 3, a Push 1 isn’t a standalone device. It needs to be plugged into a computer running Ableton Live. So, they started making Ableton Live Intro available for free to participating schools.
Ableton then created interactive, web-based tools tackling challenging concepts like music theory and synthesis. They also started producing more video content designed to both entertain and educate.
Today, Ableton has solidified all of these incredible tools and offerings into the revolutionary Ableton for the Classroom Initiative. Any school can just fill out a form on their website and receive up to 60 seats of Ableton Live Intro for free, no questions asked! Push units are available for free or heavily discounted, depending on a school’s resources.
The sections below include key Ableton for the Classroom resources that teachers can use right away!
Learning Music
A few key facts from Ableton on learningmusic.ableton.com:
Learning Music is an interactive website that helps you learn the basics of music making – beats, melodies, basslines, chords, and song structure – right in your browser.
It’s available in English, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Dutch and Italian.
Learning Music is free, there’s nothing to install, it works on any internet-connected device, and you’ll be creating your own musical ideas right away.
You can even export the music you make on the web as an Ableton Live Set, so you can take your music further.
There are links to the Learning Music modules throughout the Music Production 2 Curriculum. They are a great way to reinforce and scaffold music theory concepts. The good folks at Ableton created YouTube overlays to help students engage with form, in-browser, simplified sequencers to tackle scales, chords, and rhythm, and they created a “playground” where students can put these concepts all together.
Young Producers Group instructors have made extensive use of these resources in our classrooms and we encourage you to do the same!
Learning Synths
Synthesizers are an alien world for the uninitiated. Learningsynths.ableton.com offers a perfect compliment to our videos in the synthesizer project!
Ableton’s YouTube Channel
Ableton Explainers and Tutorials: There are dozens of videos covering all aspects of Ableton Live and Push. |
A peek into the processes of artists as they make and perform their music with Ableton Live and Push. |
Artists share one thing that keeps their creativity flowing. |
100+ videos of talks, performances, and clinics from Ableton’s Loop conference. |
→ Go to Ableton’s YouTube channel for more!