For some Canadian students, music class also means turntables and MIDI controllers [Video]

A class of university students listens with rapt attention as Shadrach Kabango, better known as the award-winning rapper Shad, shares his thought processes when feeling stuck while creating a new track. 

Maybe it needs to breathe, or a part of it can be dropped, he suggests. Perhaps he might sharpen a lyric, inject some noise or introduce a call-and-response element to get some audience participation.

Not long after, a smiling Shad is nodding along as his students try beat-making for themselves. It’s a hands-on opportunity to apply what they’re learning from his lessons, steeped in “a very hip-hop kind of mentality.”

Step into a music class today and you might find laptops, turntables and MIDI controllers joining the expected clarinets, recorders and violins. From elementary through post-secondary schooling, some teachers are expanding music education and encouraging more students to try more contemporary forms of music-making.

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