Shed Studio
Play The Songs They Love
Help Them Write Their Own
A flexible music curriculum for playing covers and creating original music. Shed Studio starts with the music students know and the skills they bring. Students play, write, and record together from the beginning, building their musicianship through cycles of creative projects.
Get the first cycle free
How the cycles work
Students don’t have to master every part of a song before they start making one. Each cycle introduces manageable amounts of drums, bass, chords, melody, lyrics, and song structure, then puts those skills to work in a project.
The next cycle builds on what they’ve learned, giving students more musical choices and more responsibility for their work. They gain experience writing, arranging, recording, and revising while figuring out how they like to create.
Shed Studio’s custom-built instruments make it easier to get started. Chord and bass instruments, drum pads, and sample pads let students develop ideas by playing them. They can jam with classmates, perform covers, and write and record original music without needing years of instrumental experience first.
Collaboration is part of the course, not just a final group project. Students practice listening to each other, sharing ideas, making decisions, and playing together throughout the cycles.
Shed Studio Producer
The production sequence moves through four cycles and a final choose-your-own project, with Career Connections projects introduced along the way.
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Cycle 1: Start creating
Lyric Remix, Type Beat, My First Beat, and My First Song. Students go from rewriting lyrics to a familiar song to building an original backing track and writing and recording their own chorus.
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Cycle 2: Play together
Play Your First Groove and Jam Session. Students develop their timing by performing drum patterns with a click, then put those skills to work jamming with a partner.
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Cycle 3: Develop the song
Students write drum patterns and chord progressions, explore harmonic rhythm and rhythmic variation, and layer instruments to give verses and choruses different sounds. They bring it together in a full verse/chorus pop song.
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Cycle 4: Start with a sample
Students chop drum breaks and found sounds into patterns they can play, work with pitched and chopped samples for boom bap, and explore 808 bass and halftime drums for trap. They finish by writing and recording a hook/verse hip-hop track.
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Choose Your Own: Find your process
Students choose where to start: a lyric, groove, progression, melody, sound, or sample. They draw on the approaches they’ve practiced to decide what comes next and develop a creative workflow of their own. The project can be repeated with a different starting point each time.
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Career Connections
Students apply their skills to CTE alligned fields in video game audio, music for film, podcasting, and radio spots. These projects run alongside the cycles, with some introduced after Cycle 2 and others after Cycle 3.
The full Shed Studio Producer sequence is scheduled for January 2027. All updates are included with a subscription to the current Production Through Performance curriculum.
Get the first cycle freeFlexible for everyone.
Follow the production sequence, choose individual projects, or combine tools and lessons around what you’re teaching. Cover-song activities sit alongside the production sequence, giving students another way to explore the music they enjoy.
For modern band, students can use the built-in instruments to start playing together. Optional modules for bass, guitar, piano, and drums help them bring those skills to rhythm-section instruments and perform covers and originals as a band.
Shed Studio’s browser-based tools can be used on Chromebooks, laptops, and iPads. Students can play with MIDI controllers, typing keyboards, or on-screen controls, depending on their setup.
Use the tools on their own, or follow guided modules for Soundtrap, BandLab, GarageBand, and Logic.
Shed Studio is the new Production Through Performance from Shedthemusic. The other Shedthemusic curricula remain available.
