The target group of the performance and workshop would be children of primary school age, approximately ranging from the ages of 5 to 11. These children are defined as having limitless energy, curiosity, and as being sensitive to touch, sight, and other forms of sensory experience.
The environment would be a school hall during assembly or a classroom where the children are gathered on the carpet. These are social spaces, not specifically acoustically tailored spaces, thus the presentation would have to be highly visual and engaging.
When it comes to delivering a live electronic music workshop to this particular age group, there are some logistical and behavioral factors to consider. Children in the primary school age range have much shorter attention spans than their teenage counterparts, so lengthy technical explanations or musical builds will result in fidgeting and inattention. The pace must therefore be frenetic, interactive, and ever-changing. Also, considering the children will be seated on the floor and looking up, the laptop and grid controller will need to be positioned so that the colorful LED pads can be seen from a lower perspective. The demonstration will also need to be loud and clear enough to overcome the excited chatter and cheering, without being too loud for children’s developing ears. Lastly, considering the high levels of tactility and exploratory behavior of children in the primary school age range, the physical setup will need to be streamlined and safe, with cables taped down or hidden to prevent tripping.
In order to engage this demographic, the presentation and performance of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” will be streamlined and focus on immediate gratification and joy. The complex sampling history of Daft Punk will likely go over their heads, but the idea of a ‘robot voice’ will be universally appealing. The music will be heavily focused on these vocal chops, playing words out of order to create funny, rhythmic sentences that will immediately engage their interest. Ableton’s Session View will be used to create a hyper-condensed arrangement, skipping the need to create three-minute linear songs and instead using 20-30 second bursts of high-energy music, broken up with questions or single-button interactions. The visual style of the Launchpad or Push will be used as a teaching tool; by color-coding the drum rack, for instance, by making all the drum pads bright red and the ‘robot voice’ pads bright blue, the children will be able to easily follow what you’re doing. This will turn a complex music process into a simple, visually-oriented game, allowing for easy call-and-response interactions, playing a rhythmic pattern on the pads and asking the children to clap along.