Thank you, Moby. Free Access to 500 Instrumental Tracks

If you’ve been looking for a way to give your students access to professional-grade instrumental tracks for free, stop scrolling. One of the most interesting—and generous—resources available to music educators right now is MobyGratis. Created by the legendary electronic musician Moby, this platform gives filmmakers, students, and educators access to a vast library of instrumental music at absolutely no cost—provided it’s used for non-commercial purposes. Yes, you read that right. Free. Professional. Music. While Moby originally launched this platform 20 years ago (and I wrote about it back then), this relaunch brings over 300 NEW tracks, as well as multitrack audio so your students can download the individual stems making the music MUCH easier to work with - especially when it comes to remixing.

Put simply, MobyGratis is a curated collection of more than 500 instrumental tracks that Moby composed over the years, ranging from cinematic soundscapes to minimalist electronic pieces, ambient tracks, downtempo beats, and more. The music was originally released under a Creative Commons license and is now housed in an easy-to-navigate platform where educators can download audio in multiple formats—including stereo MP3s, WAVs, and even multitrack stems for deeper editing and exploration. For music educators working in a secondary or collegiate setting, this is the kind of gift that can completely change the way we approach creativity, composition, media integration, and music technology in the classroom.

First of all, accessibility is everything. Very few teachers want to worry about navigating copyright law just to help their students make something cool. Kids LOVE using music that they know in their projects, but you might be worried about whether or not its a Fair Use. With MobyGratis, you can eliminate that stress entirely. As long as your students are using the music for non-commercial educational projects—film scoring, student presentations, classroom arrangements, or even dance collaborations—it’s all fair game.

This is a real opportunity to bring professional music into the classroom and use it in pedagogically meaningful ways. Here are some ways that I would use this resource if I was still teaching my middle school general music classes:

Music Analysis and Genre Study
Many of the tracks on MobyGratis are great examples of ambient, electronic, minimalist, and cinematic music. Teachers can use these recordings to explore form, texture, instrumentation, and style. You might ask your students to analyze the harmonic structure of a track, identify how Moby uses repetition and contrast, or simply reflect on the emotional impact of a piece. It’s a fresh way to introduce listening activities that go beyond the classical canon.

Film Scoring and Multimedia Projects
MobyGratis tracks provide a perfect resource for student film scoring projects. Have your students create short films or slideshows and challenge them to choose music from the MobyGratis library that enhances the visuals. Better yet, ask them to explain their choices in writing or a presentation. You’ll be amazed at how seriously students engage when music and storytelling collide.

Remixing
If you’re lucky enough to have a lab equipped with Soundtrap, Logic, Ableton, or any DAW, the multitrack downloads on MobyGratis open a whole new door. Students can isolate and manipulate parts, remix them, add their own layers, or even build new compositions based on Moby’s ideas. It’s like giving them a set of Legos—but made out of high-quality musical ideas. Because all of the tracks include BPM, your students will have an easier time of choosing tracks that they might layer together.

Conversations About Music Rights and Ethics
Moby’s decision to make this library available only for non-commercial use leads naturally into discussions about copyright, licensing, and the ethics of music distribution. Why did he do it? What values does that reflect? These are essential questions for today’s students, who are growing up in a world where streaming, sampling, and AI-generated music are rewriting the rules.

What MobyGratis does so well is combine access with inspiration. It’s not just a stock music library. It’s a creative playground that encourages young musicians to listen differently, compose courageously, and think more deeply about the role music plays in media and culture. Best of all, it reflects the kind of ethos we want to pass on to our students: that music is meant to be shared, explored, and used to make the world a little more interesting. If you haven’t already, visit mobygratis.com and start exploring. You’ll find that it’s not just a resource—it’s an invitation to rethink how we teach music in the 21st century. Thank you, Moby!