How a 23-Year Veteran Gets Middle Schoolers Begging for More Music Class

The classroom problem to solve

Musick teaches general music curriculum for grades 6-8 – not performance ensembles, but foundational music education for all students. That means working with learners who may have zero formal training alongside those with years of private lessons.

“I have a typical class of 33 students and a wide range of learners,” she explains. The tool she needed had to scale from complete beginners to advanced students without leaving anyone behind or holding anyone back.

Before discovering Soundtrap, Musick relied heavily on GarageBand for digital projects. When the pandemic forced her school remote in March 2020 – just two weeks into her first year at Columbia Secondary – she knew she needed something more flexible. Students would be on Chromebooks, iPads, PCs, whatever devices their families had at home. A platform-agnostic solution became essential overnight.

A first project that builds quick wins

Musick’s entry point for sixth graders is deceptively simple: build a rhythm section. The lesson plans for teachers she adapted from her initial Soundtrap training walks students through the difference between beat and rhythm using the Pattern Beat Maker.

“What’s a rhythm section? What are the components of the rhythm section? Okay, build your rhythm section,” she recalls explaining to students on day one. “They were finding their drum patterns, adding a bass, and then they could add keyboard or guitar on top of that.”

The project teaches foundational concepts – steady beat versus rhythmic patterns, tempo, layering – while giving students an immediate win. They’re making music that sounds good within the first class period, even if they’ve never touched an instrument.

That early success matters. “Not every kid wants to play an instrument,” Musick points out. “Soundtrap helps them feel comfortable” by offering loops and pre-built elements that lower the technical barrier to entry.

Mapping Soundtrap to the elements of music

From that rhythm-section foundation, Musick built an entire year-long curriculum around the eleven elements of music she teaches. Her sequence moves systematically: beat, rhythm, and tempo first, then melody and harmony, followed by timbre, texture, and dynamics, and finally musical form.

Each unit pairs hands-on work with acoustic instruments alongside a corresponding Soundtrap project. Students might clap rhythms with a metronome in one class, then recreate those same patterns in the Pattern Beat Maker the next. They explore keyboard basics in the lab, then arrange more complex harmonic progressions using Soundtrap’s loops and virtual instruments.

“I have 11 elements of music that I developed lessons around using Soundtrap,” Musick says. The Musical Form mini-lesson is one example of how she reinforces vocabulary – intro, outro, A section, B section – through hands-on creation rather than worksheets or passive listening.

Scaffolds that respect different learners

When Musick assigns an open-ended project, she doesn’t just hand students a blank screen and walk away. She provides a light structure that gives direction without constraining creativity.

For her signature “Perfect Saturday” soundscape project, she asks students to think about their day in three sections: morning, midday, and evening. Some students sketch it out with drawings. Others write word lists. Some prefer to just dive in.

“There’s other students who don’t want any scaffolding. They love the blank screen,” Musick notes. For students who need more support, she asks guiding questions: When you wake up, what do you do first? You eat cereal – how might that sound? You have a pet – where does that fit?

This approach aligns with research-backed frameworks like the CAST UDL Guidelines, which emphasize multiple means of engagement and expression. Students access the same project through different entry points based on their confidence and working style.

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Engagement and ownership rise

Before Soundtrap, Musick ran many full-class lessons where all 33 students tried to make music together. Now she designs around smaller collaborations – usually duets or trios – where students can go deeper.

The shift shows up in how students talk about their work. “I hear ‘A section,’ ‘intro,’ ‘outro,’ ‘polyrhythms,'” Musick says. “They got there faster because of Soundtrap.” Students aren’t just completing assignments; they’re thinking like composers.

That ownership extends to how they approach assessment rubrics. Musick structures her rubrics with a baseline “good job” tier and additional elements for “outstanding” work. “Many more students are always trying to do the more outstanding and adding the extra components to their projects because they love Soundtrap.”

This aligns with CASEL’s guidance on elevating student voice, which connects agency and ownership to deeper learning outcomes.

Assessment gets easier and more useful

Soundtrap’s organizational structure – each student or small group working in their own project space – transforms how Musick monitors progress. Instead of circulating through 33 students creating simultaneous cacophony, she can check in on projects individually, leave feedback, or even drop in elements to help students who are stuck.

“It makes assessment a lot easier because it’s so organized,” she says. “Students have their own musical space.”

The share-out sessions at the end of each project reveal another shift: students actively volunteer to present first. “I wanna go first, I wanna go first, me me me,” Musick says, describing the typical response. She’s resorted to using a random spinner because so many students compete to share their work.

Before Soundtrap? “Crickets,” she admits. Getting volunteers meant cajoling or randomly selecting groups who hadn’t raised their hands.

For more ideas on leveraging this kind of engagement, explore these classroom assessment ideas that center student voice and authentic demonstration of learning.

Students speak the language of music

Walking around the room during work time, Musick hears students using formal music terminology naturally. They debate whether a section should be an intro or an outro. They discuss adding polyrhythmic layers. They critique each other’s arrangements using vocabulary like timbre, texture, and dynamics.

This kind of peer-to-peer musical conversation used to take much longer to develop. Soundtrap accelerates it by giving students a shared creative space where abstract concepts become concrete, manipulable elements. The NAfME Music Standards for PK–8 General Music emphasize exactly this kind of applied musical understanding across creating, performing, and responding.

The “Perfect Saturday” soundscape project

Musick’s favorite assignment runs each February, strategically timed to combat the midwinter slump. Students create audio portraits of their ideal Saturday using any combination of loops, virtual instruments, and recordings they capture themselves.

“We do soundscapes of their Perfect Saturday,” she explains. “I get a lot of pets, I get a lot of siblings, I get a lot of cacophony of the city around them.”

Students pull in recordings from their lives: video games, movies, TikTok audio, the sounds of their neighborhoods. It’s personal, relevant, and gives Musick insight into students’ worlds outside school. “It’s also a great way for me to connect – what are kids doing on their weekends?”

The project exemplifies high-quality project-based learning as defined by PBLWorks’ Gold Standard: it’s student-driven, connected to students’ lives, and requires sustained inquiry and revision.

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A path for non-performers

Core music programs serve every student, not just those who gravitate toward traditional performance. Musick’s emphasis on creation through Soundtrap opens doors for students who might otherwise disengage.

“Not every kid wants to play an instrument, not every kid wants to stand up in front of a group and perform with their voice, especially during their adolescent years,” she points out. Middle schoolers navigating self-consciousness and identity formation often resist public performance, but they’ll eagerly create and share audio projects where they control every element.

Soundtrap’s toolkit – loops, effects, virtual instruments – provides scaffolding that helps all students produce professional-sounding work regardless of technical skill. This inclusive approach to music technology ensures that students develop musical literacy and creative confidence even if they never pick up a clarinet or join choir.

For inspiration from other educators using similar strategies, browse more success stories across grade levels and subjects.

One word that sums it up

Asked to describe what Soundtrap has given her students in a single word, Musick doesn’t hesitate: “Joy.”

“The excitement the kids have when I’m giving a new project, they’re almost at the edge of their seats. They can’t wait to actually get to it. They’re like, ‘Are we done yet? Stop talking.’ And I’m like, ‘I actually have to give you the project first.'”

That joy extends to how students handle failure and iteration. “Not every project works,” Musick acknowledges. Her husband, an artist, made her a poster that reads: “It’s not about the mistake, it’s about the recovery.”

Students apply that mindset to their Soundtrap work. They experiment, revise, and improve without the fear that often accompanies traditional performance assessment. Musick has them revisit their first projects later in the year, and students can hear their own growth. “For some of them they’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, what was I thinking?'”

That reflective practice – recognizing progress, embracing mistakes as part of the process – builds the kind of resilience and growth mindset that extends far beyond music class.

Advice to teachers just starting out

For educators curious but hesitant about Soundtrap, Musick offers straightforward guidance: “Grab a training. Check it out yourself. If you have a lesson in mind, actually do the lesson yourself.”

She’s completed multiple Soundtrap professional development sessions and consistently praises the quality: “The trainings that I’ve gone through have been fantastic. The videos are awesome, they’re very easy to follow.”

To teachers worried about their own technology skills, Musick is direct: “Just take some time to familiarize yourself with it and be confident that the kids are gonna really respond to it.” Students won’t share the same hesitations adults might have. They’ll embrace the tool immediately.

In fact, Musick admits she can’t keep up with every Soundtrap update. “Students might actually find something really cool that you haven’t had a chance to find, and that’s okay.” She encourages teachers to stay open to learning from their students – a stance that can feel vulnerable but ultimately enriches the classroom dynamic.

Her recommended starting sequence: begin with the rhythm-section lesson, move to a soundscape project, provide clear rubrics, and let students work in small groups. From there, the curriculum builds naturally as both teacher and students gain confidence with the digital studio.

If you’re ready to explore how Soundtrap might work for your program, check out pricing and plan guidance to find the right fit for your school or district.

Amy Musick has been teaching middle school music in New York City public schools for 23 years. At Columbia Secondary School, she’s built a general music program where all students – regardless of prior experience – create, collaborate, and develop musical voice through digital tools and acoustic instruments. Her curriculum maps directly to the NAfME Standards, emphasizing creation, performance, and response across all grade levels.

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