The post Scales & Soccer appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    The decline in numbers of young musicians opting to play the horn in band can be countered by returning to the use of single horns for beginning-level students. As advancing students switch to double Bb/F horns, method books and teachers should provide clear instruction on all aspects of how to use the double horn to maximize the benefits of the instrument. 

The post On the Dilemma of Horns appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

    Focus on fundamentals, especially during the warmup. The warm-up period is the time to develop individual performance ability in addition to fine tuning ensemble skills. Get creative designing exercises that focus on such aspects of playing as tone quality, technical facility, and listening skills. Few students have a private teacher to guide them in building technical development on their instrument, so it is up to the director to teach them. As students grow in their ability to perform on their instrument, the repertoire available to them as soloists and ensemble members grows with it, including access to the masterworks.
    In addition to addressing and developing fundamentals during the warm-up, directors should review these fundamentals during rehearsal. For example, poor tone is never acceptable and students should be reminded about the air support and embouchure required for characteristic sounds as often as necessary. Directors should be relentless on developing proper fundamentals, especially related to tone. Rehearsals should always be about making beautiful sounds. In addition, ensemble sounds that are unblended or out of balance need immediate correction. A primary goal is to create good performance habits, which happens through repetition. If you want your students to have good habits, you have to address them frequently and consistently.

    Sing. One of my favorite rehearsal strategies is singing. It is true that students are generally hesitant and insecure about singing at first, but the best ways to move them through this stage are to be committed to singing every day and to be encouraging as they make good sounds and improve. For singing to be effective, it has to become a regular part of the rehearsal culture.
    Singing helps students focus on the music without the physical distractions and complications of their instrument. If a difficult technical passage is being rehearsed, students can sing through it while they finger along to establish the muscle memory necessary to perform the passage correctly.
    In addition, students often rely exclusively on the mechanics of their instruments to produce the pitch, thinking that if they push the correct buttons, then the right note comes out. However, they must hear the note in their mind ahead of time to perform it with accurate pitch, tone, and tuning. Singing a passage requires students to hear and slot each note accurately in their mind and voice. It also allows the director to assess which students struggle to sing note changes accurately. 
    Another major benefit of singing is that it helps build tone. To achieve a beautiful sound with the voice, students should stay relaxed and open in the chest and throat and must project a resonant sound forward. Producing a good sound on an instrument requires the same principles, but it might be easier to understand and develop these principles using the voice first.
    Singing also helps develop balance and blend, as it requires students to listen to themselves and those around them differently than they might if everyone was playing an instrument. I frequently use a Bach Chorale as the final part of a warmup. Whenever the ensemble starts to sound too bright or unblended, we sing a phrase of the chorale. This always helps students listen and blend better. The same is true when we are rehearsing the repertoire.
    Perhaps the best benefit of singing, however, is the ease with which students can produce beautiful phrasing. Again, without the mechanical complications of playing an instrument, students can focus on the musical direction of a phrase and the pacing to achieve and move away from the high and low points of the phrase. This is true for music of any style at any tempo. One of the best ways to identify the musical direction is to sing it and then transfer what was sung to an instrument. 

    Focus on one musical element at a time, and add or change one musical element at a time. Many times in rehearsal directors are busy trying to cover as much material as possible and work on multiple concepts simultaneously. However, students need focus and repetition to master a concept or musical passage. Playing an instrument, and everything that comes with it, is complex, and teachers need rehearsal strategies that simplify and allow students to narrow their focus.
    For example, a musical passage may contain rhythmic, articulation, and dynamic challenges. Instead of rehearsing all of these elements simultaneously, focus on one single element such as rhythm by using neutral dynamics and articulations. Let the students succeed at playing the correct rhythms by using a slower tempo, and focus on rhythmic accuracy with multiple correct repetitions. Following each repetition, focus your feedback on the element (rhythm) being rehearsed and avoid commenting on other elements, even if they are problematic. Those will be addressed next. This approach provides clarity and focus for the students as they know exactly what the focus and goal is for each repetition along with their progress toward it. 
    Once the rhythms are accurate add another element, such as articulation, to the focus. Again, use a slow tempo and rehearse with attention to the notated articulations of the example. Once articulations are in place, add the dynamics and rehearse with multiple correct repetitions. Continue resisting the temptation to comment on other elements until improvement is made on the element you are rehearsing. Keep the tempo slow enough to achieve accuracy on all elements before increasing speed. Add in balance, blend, phrasing, and expression. Once the technical aspects are there, the musical nuances are easier to produce. When too many problems are addressed simultaneously, the results come much slower and with more frustration.

    Use a fast rehearsal pace that gets them playing sooner and more often. Teachers love to talk. It feels good to talk because we think we are helping students learn, but too much talking actually slows down learning. Robert Duke from the University of Texas says, “Students do not learn because of what teachers say; students learn because of what teachers have students do.” Develop the habit of getting at least some students playing in fewer than 10 seconds. This requires simple, direct, and concrete feedback or instructions. It makes me cringe to watch directors spend a full minute talking about an articulation problem when all they really needed to say was, “That was too long. Play it shorter.” Even better, incorporate modeling into your teaching as a primary means of feedback and instruction. Band is a musical art, and musicians deal in sound. Whenever we can teach using sounds, the results are faster, better, and lasting.
    “Say it and play it” is one of my favorite rehearsal maxims. One of the pitfalls of talking too much is the tendency to address too many problems in one stop, even if they are all true, and then go far back to a previous rehearsal letter and play a large section of music trying to catch all of the problems in a single playing. Instead, focus your comments on one problem and then immediately rehearse where it occurs specifically in the music.
    For example, consider a section of music that is being rehearsed from letter B-D. At the end of the phrase in the measure before D the trumpets are struggling with a fp crescendo. Once you stop the band at letter D, avoid reading a long laundry list of problems and then going back to letter B and playing it again. Instead, model the fp crescendo for the trumpets, then immediately rehearse that measure. Once they are getting it, then go back to letter B and put it in a bigger context. Then move on to the next rehearsal problem. In short, whatever you say to the band, they should immediately play.

    Avoid mindless repetition and drill shed rehearsals. Repetition is a key to learning, but mindless repetition is an enemy to learning. The challenge is to design rehearsals in which every repetition is purposeful and works to develop students’ technique or musicianship. Specific and clear feedback should be given before and after each repetition. I often see directors stop and work on a section of music in which it takes several repetitions before they tell the students what the problems are. A better approach is to tell them what needs work as soon as you stop to rehearse it. This focuses attention on a specific musical element and gives students a goal rather than leaving them wondering what you want.
    As the section is rehearsed, the director should give specific feedback  after each repetition. Too often I see teachers offering minimal or generic feedback, such as, “That was good,” which is neither specific nor helpful. It is far more effective to say something like, “Now we are moving more evenly through the measure, but some players are still rushing the eighth notes on beat 3.” Thoughtful repetition should be the goal of every rehearsal moment.
    Next, avoid drill shed rehearsals. A drill shed rehearsal is when the director spends significant rehearsal time working on nothing but technical problems in one musical passage. Often, this happens with a particular section of the band while everyone else waits and has to endure the time and frustration of the director practicing their part with and for them. There are multiple problems with this approach. First, drill shed rehearsals are anti-musical. When students have parts drilled in to them the focus is almost always on technique and usually comes with a level of frustration from the director because sufficient practice has not happened. As a result, musical and expressive aspects are lost, and tensions are high. This is discouraging for students and leads to motivation and discipline problems. 
    In addition, once students learn that the director will practice their parts for them during rehearsal, they will see no need to practice on their own. Rehearsals then become reduced to group practice sessions that never get past technical demands and into musical depth and enjoyment. Moreover, they know that the majority of rehearsal time in a concert cycle will be about learning the notes and rhythms, and musical details only happen immediately before the concert. 
    The cause of drill shed rehearsals is almost always music that is too difficult for your ensemble. A good rule for programming is that 80% of the music should be sightreadable by the majority of the ensemble. This creates an environment where musical nuance and detail can be addressed almost immediately. It also means that because students are not chasing notes that rehearsals can move faster and involve larger sections of music at a time. Rehearsals should move quickly and include playing large sections and whole pieces of music as often as possible. This can only happen when the students have the technique to grasp most of the music on the page.
    Imagine having rehearsals in which your feedback centered more on varying the nuance of articulation to create a particular style, or pacing the end of a phrase for greater musical effect, or achieving greater tension and release to maximize a musical moment. These are the factors that motivate and engage students and should be our daily goals. If your rehearsals rarely engage the artistic elements of music consider lowering the technical level of the pieces you are rehearsing. If you want to increase the level of technical demand of the repertoire then let the students know that rehearsal time will not be spent drilling their parts. Our job is to program at an appropriate level for their stage of musical development. Meanwhile you can focus on building their technique during the warmups. Over time their skills will improve, and as they do, the level of music will grow along with them.

Conclusion
    Rehearsals should be times of musical excitement and growth with our students, but it is easy for rehearsals to slide into a rut and become mundane. When this happens it is time to take an honest evaluation of your rehearsal climate and strategies, and then find better ways or new ideas. We all desire to have the most musical experiences possible with our students. The time with them goes by quickly, so it is important for us to work hard to create rehearsals that are efficient, effective, and musical, giving our students the best experience in music we can provide. 

The post Five Strategies for More Effective Rehearsals appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

Jazz and Classical Bass: Similarities and Differences
Names of the Instrument
    Some of the most common names used when referring to the double bass are bass, contrabass, upright bass, acoustic bass, bass violin, stand-up bass, bull fiddle. They all refer to the same instrument and should be thought of as interchangeable. Electric bass has fewer names, although it is also called bass guitar and Fender bass in jazz band charts.

Technical Similarities and Differences
    Although they might seem quite different upon first glance, jazz and classical bass actually share a lot in common. Left-hand technique is identical for both jazz and classical bass playing. Both jazz and classical bassists use the bow for practicing and performing, even though most actual jazz bass playing tends to be pizzicato. Also, jazz and classical bassists typically start out learning through the same method books. Though bass players often specialize in either jazz or classical playing later in life, most bassists have some familiarity with both jazz and classical playing. 
    The pizzicato approach used by jazz bassists is quite different than that used by classical bassists. In classical bass playing, the finger typically approaches the string at a 90-degree angle, and the tip of the finger is used to pluck the string away from the fingerboard. This results in a dry, focused sound with a quick decay.
    Jazz bassists typically go for more of a sustained pizzicato sound. There is a great deal of variety in jazz bassists’ approach to the right hand (only index finger, only ring finger, index and ring finger together, alternating index and ring finger, using index, middle, and ring in alternating fashion), jazz players approach the string from a different angle. Also, jazz bassists pull the string across the fingerboard, landing against the adjacent string. This results in a woody, sustained sound with a good articulation. Jazz bassists refer to the sustain as growl, and having a good growl to the sound is one of the hallmarks of a distinctive jazz bass sound. Bassists in a jazz setting tend to use little or no vibrato in their playing, which is quite a contrast from the vibrato-heavy traditions of standard classical playing.

Setup Similarities and Differences
    Although a few setup details vary between a bass set up predominantly for jazz playing versus a bass set up predominantly for classical playing, in general a good setup is a good setup, regardless of the intended style of playing.
    Typically, jazz players prefer a flatter action than classical players. The need for sufficient clearance for the bow on each string and enough verticality in the setup to provide for forte bow strokes is much less of a concern for jazz bassists, who don’t use the bow as often. 
    Jazz players also want their strings to ring out and sustain more than classical players. Strings made primarily for bowed playing contain damping agents. These agents make it easier to switch directions with bowing, allowing for faster playing. They also keep the strings from ringing as long. Jazz players typically use strings with less damping, allowing for a rich, full, ringing sound.

Using Electric Bass in Jazz Band
    There is also the option of using electric bass in jazz band. In fact, most rock and funk tunes require the use of electric bass. Double bass players usually pick up the electric bass without too much difficulty. The tuning and fingerboard layout are identical, and double bassists can use their standard 1-2-4 left hand fingering technique on the electric bass easily.
    It is more of a challenge for electric bassists to learn the double bass. Electric bassists usually use a one finger per fret approach to their instrument, and this technique transfers poorly to the double bass. Without proper instruction, electric bassists often try to stretch out their left hand to reach the notes like they do on electric bass, which can lead to injury.
    It is possible to use electric bass in all jazz settings, including swing tunes. Although many jazz band directors prefer the sound of the upright bass in their ensemble, electric bassists can adapt their right hand technique and slightly mute the strings for a more upright-like sound.

Developing Jazz Bass Fingerboard Knowledge
    Bass is a challenging instrument in terms of fingerboard map development because players can only reach a whole step on a single string without having to shift. There are two approaches commonly used in contemporary bass pedagogy, and jazz bassists can benefit from the study of both of them.

Simandl Approach
    The New Method for String Bass by Franz Simandl has been a standard text for bass players for over a century. The Simandl system groups three half-steps into a single position, with the first, second, and fourth fingers landing on each half step. The Simandl Method progressively climbs up the fingerboard half step by half step, with exercises in each of these half-step positions. This approach is similar to a guitar player taking a pattern and working it sequentially up each fret and results in over a dozen positions up and down the bass neck.
    There are many benefits to studying the Simandl Method. It is great for developing music reading skills. From the beginning, the Simandl Method presents players with flats, sharps, and even double flats and double sharps. While this may seem daunting to beginning bassists, it is actually a great way to get the player accustomed to reading music and knowing exactly where each note is on the bass. It is also a great method for developing a solid 1-2-4 hand position and a strong sense of intonation.
    There are several drawbacks with focusing exclusively on this method. First of all, it is not possible to play diatonic scales and patterns across the string without shifting. This can lead to a somewhat fragmented or stilted understanding of patterns across the fingerboard. It also seems to limit a player’s imagination when it comes to inventing new fingerings. Because this approach requires a shift every few notes, a portion of the player’s attention is devoted to thinking about the next shift, which can make it challenging to zoom out and think about the broader picture.

Rabbath Approach
    Francois Rabbath revolutionized the double bass world in the 1960s with his self-taught and head-turning approach to the double bass. Over time, Rabbath’s concept of double bass technique, once considered radical, has been adopted as mainstream double bass pedagogy.
    The Rabbath approach divides the entire fingerboard into six positions, each one based around the first, second, and third harmonic partials. The positions, as shown on the G string, are:

    •  First position: open G to C (third harmonic partial)
    •  Second position: C to D (third to second harmonic partial)
    •  Third position: D to G (second to first harmonic partial)
    •  Fourth position: G to D (first to second harmonic partial)
    •  Fifth position: D to G (second to third harmonic partial)
    •  Sixth position: above G (everything above third harmonic partial)

    This system makes it possible to play diatonic scales across the string in any of these positions using a left hand pivot All major and minor keys fit comfortably within these positions, and this approach develops a deep knowledge of the fingerboard that is tremendously helpful for the jazz bassist. Basing the positions on the natural harmonics of the instrument opens up many creative possibilities as well. This encourages a more macroscopic approach, and it simplifies the transfer of ideas from one string or position to another.
    While there are numerous benefits to the Rabbath approach, transferring it over to an ensemble can be a challenge for beginning students. Most ensemble music is fingered with Simandl positions, and incorporating the Rabbath positions in ensemble music can take extra work from the teacher or a proactive approach from the student. Also, unless pivoting is taught correctly, the Rabbath approach can introduce intonation problems. It’s important to have a solid 1-2-4 hand position before introducing pivoting.

Combining Rabbath and Simandl Approaches
    Bassists switch fluidly between both systems as warranted by the technical demands of the music. In my experience, the Simandl ap­proach is helpful for developing reading ability, and the Rabbath approach is helpful for developing a deeper conception of the fingerboard.

Practicing with the Bow
    Although jazz bassists spend the majority of their time playing pizzicato, most jazz bassists practice regularly with the bow. The bow acts as an intonation magnifying glass, making any pitch problems more obvious. Also, having a solid bow technique opens the door to bowed bass solos, which can be a great way to change up the tonal palette on a gig. Bassists have been taking bowed bass solos since the early days of jazz, and it is a great way to play more singing and connected lines and cut through the band. Finally, good bow technique opens up the player to a broader range of gigs, including symphonic work, recording sessions, and theatrical work. Landing a gig playing a musical can be a great source of steady income for a jazz bassist, and having this as an option greatly enhances employability.

Walking a Bass Line
    Learning to walk a bass line is one of the most fundamental skills for jazz bassists In a big band, many bass parts have a walking line written out for the player. However, most combo settings and quite a few big band charts only have chord changes, with no written bass part. Knowing how to construct a bass line is key for all developing jazz bassists.
    For walking bass beginners, playing nothing but roots is a good start. This gives the student an outline of the basic harmonic structure of the tune and practice locating all the chord roots on the bass. A good next step in developing a walking bass line is to have the student play the root, third, and fifth of each chord. This is more difficult than it seems.
    At the bottom of this page is an example beginner walking bass line over the jazz classic All of Me by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons. This demonstrates a good way to approach a beginning walking bass line. Each chord change alternates root-third-fifth-third for full bars of the same chord. Half bars only use the root and third.

All of Me by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons

Exercises for Developing Jazz Facility
    There are countless resources available to the developing jazz bassist. I have found the following exercises to be most beneficial in developing the skills to navigate the fingerboard as a jazz bassist.

Diatonic Seventh Chords
    Practicing diatonic sevenths chords is a great way to get acquainted with the language of jazz bass. The following exercise in F can be transposed into any key and is an excellent way to begin visualizing chord structures on the bass.

Lower Position Chromatic Scale
    Chromatic scales go hand in hand with diatonic seventh chords in the language of jazz bass playing. It is generally more advantageous to shift on the first finger when ascending in pitch and on the 4th finger when descending. The following exercise is a great exercise for developing this technique.

Ascending G String Chromatic Scale
    Ascending the G string chromatically with a 1-2-4 finger pattern is a great way to learn how to navigate into the upper positions. The pattern below should be practiced with a long, ringing tone for each note and smooth shifts.

Resources for Jazz Bassists
    Jazz pedagogy has come a long way in the past several decades, but it is still young compared to the pedagogy of many classical instruments, some of which stretch back hundreds of years. Bass pedagogy is also in a state of genesis. The bass teaching world has changed radically in the past 20 years. Fortunately, there are numerous re­sources for jazz bassists available. Here are some popular options from a wide array of sources. Links to all of these can be found at .

Books for Developing Walking Bass Lines
    The Low Down: A Guide to Creating Supportive Jazz Bass Lines by Danny Ziemann.
    The Low Down Book 2: A Supplemental Resource of Jazz Bass Lines by Danny Ziemann.
    Killer Walking Bass: Melodic Lines for the Advanced Jazz Bassist by Teymur Phell.
    Building Walking Bass Lines by Ed Friedland.

Books for General Jazz Bass Knowledge
    The Jazz Bass Book by John Goldsby.
    The Evolving Bassist by Rufus Reid.
    Topics in Jazz Bass by Danny Ziemann.
    Patterns in Jazz by Jerry Coker (not bass-specific).

Online Video Resources
    DiscoverDoubleBass.com.
    Chris Fitzgerald’s YouTube channel.

Notable Jazz Bassists
    Christian McBride, John Clayton, Kristin Korb, Larry Grenadier, Es­pe­ran­za Spalding, Eddie Gomez, Linda Oh, Niels-Henning Orsted Pedersen, John Goldsby, Dave Holland, and Chuck Israels.

Resources for Developing Fingerboard Knowledge
    New Method for Bass by Franz Simandl.
    Progressive Repertoire by George Vance.    

The post A Primer on Jazz Bass appeared first on The Instrumentalist.

The Start of the Program
    Writing songs and playing guitar was a hobby for me. I started my career at York Community High School as a special ed English teacher. During my first two years at York, I established a friendship with Performing Arts Department Chairman Bill Riddle and Band Director Mike Pavlik, and when a guitar teacher position opened up, I switched to part-time guitar and part time special ed English.
    At the same time, the music production program was just getting started. Originally the music department had one Mac for general use, which was purchased by the band director when the technology department switched the school to PCs, and that turned into five computers, then eight. With the retirement of the piano and music theory teacher, the music department converted the space into a music computer lab.
York sought a teacher who would be interested in developing a music production program. We called several college music programs across the country and eventually located a teacher from Indiana University. It was important to find a candidate who was equipped to develop this new type of program but also necessary that they would be willing to work part-time, with the potential of the position eventually evolving into a full time gig. This teacher grew the production program into a full-time position but left for a job developing video games. I was offered the music production classes and accepted before the department chairman had finished asking the question.
    I had been recording my songs for years and had experimented with recording technology, from a Tascam four-track to digital recorders that let you layer 32 tracks, but the first couple years were a crash course in learning the software. At the same time, I had inherited the class when dubstep was at its peak, so most of the students were interested in emulating artists like Skrillex and Deadmau5, when I had always been more into Wilco, Bob Dylan, and The Beatles. I worried that all the students would be disappointed that I wasn’t an expert in electronic music. In the end, my approach was to make the class something students with no musical knowledge could take and learn to do something new. This is still my approach.
    Some of my students come from band, orchestra, and choir. Others are the type who might never have taken a music class in high school if not for production. They want to get together and jam with their friends and write their own music in the process. My goal is to help these students channel their desires into creating some music.

Curriculum
    We have three tiers of music production classes, each lasting a semester. Music Production I is an introduction to using a computer to create music. We teach students how to use Logic Pro X but emphasize that this is not a Logic Pro X class. The program is simply a tool to make music.
    Students come into the class with a wide variety of experiences, but the aim is to show them all how to put together a song. Students already know the elements of music – melody, harmony, a bass line, a percussion part – even if they cannot define these formally. They just need to have these things pointed out.
    Keyboards can be intimidating to a student who cannot play piano, so I approach teaching keyboard as a big remote control that can be a drum machine or a horn section. Students learn some basic keyboard skills with the mindset that they are programming a sequence of keystrokes that will trigger sounds in the program.
    At this basic level, I want students to feel comfortable opening a project and have fun making music. Some students take the class because they have to take something. Others come in and discover that this is exactly what they have wanted to do with music and that these tools are perfect for expressing themselves. One of my students also plays in the orchestra, but after taking the music production classes, she is going to college to major in audio engineering. 
    Music Production II allows students to discover their voice. They have learned to use the tools they need, and the next step is to use those tools to express themselves. The big projects for this class is to use lyrics in some way. Some students have little trouble writing and performing their own words without any self-consciousness, but this is not the case for many others. When they express fear of sharing lyrics, I ask what kind of music they like. It always has lyrics in it.
    Students do not need to use lyrics they have written. Ben Harper has a song called I’ll Rise, for which he converted Maya Angelou’s poem Still I Rise to a song, and students are welcome to set someone else’s words to music if they prefer. I still nudge them toward writing for themselves, though.
    The bulk of Music Production III is devoted to what we call the EP project. Each student has to write a collection of three to five original songs with an overarching concept. Students can work independently or team up, but each student is required to contribute at least three songs. This semester I have a trio teaming up; they are going to have to write a full album of at least nine songs. 
    Students present ideas to the class. Some of these will be finished songs, others will be bare-bones ideas. I have had students write lyrics and melody during first period, record vocals during second period, and present it during fourth period. Other students in the class offer suggestions and feedback on possible additions or changes. All student work gets submitted to Google Classroom, so it is easy for students to call up their projects on any computer. Students in Music Production III have a great deal of independence, but my job is to keep them within a large boundary to explore ideas and find out where they want to go with this.
    Collaboration is also an important part of the class. It is required to work with other people to record your songs. This is not limited to people in the class. Anyone you can find to help is welcome. Presentation days tend to generate collaborative ideas, as students volunteer to add a part to someone’s song. 
    The project ends with the formal release. Students create a profile on  and upload their songs. The profile must be released to the class but can otherwise be kept private if students choose. Most of them make it public because I explain that if they want their work out there they have to market it; no one is going to find someone accidentally on bandcamp.

Chris Gemkow performs onstage at the invitation of one of his students. Photo by Helena Koczur.

Equipment
    We have a dedicated Mac lab for the class. Beyond the computers themselves, you will need a digital audio workstation program. When I took over the class, we started with GarageBand before moving to Logic Pro X, but students kept wanting GarageBand to do things it could not do because it is designed to be user friendly rather than for a professional studio. Eventually we abandoned GarageBand and taught Logic Pro X from the beginning. We use Logic Pro X because that is the program for which the school has licenses, but there are other options available, including Ableton and Pro Tools. I recommend against a web-based digital audio workstation. There are interesting web-based options available, but it is better to have something local to each computer for the sake of long-term reliability.
    To start, you do not need the best microphones. Eventually, the program should have something durable and reliable, but even smart phone mics work. In Music Production I, one project is recorded entirely through smart phone. We have eighth-inch-to-quarter-inch cables, and send sounds from the phones to Google Drive, then download them onto the lab computers. If you have ten tablets, each with a microphone, then you have ten microphones.
    MIDI controller keyboards are also essential. We have 88-key models with weighted keys now, but we started with 55-key, plastic keyboards, and they worked just fine. You can teach the concepts of recording and MIDI generation without top-tier equipment.
    You will also need audio interfaces – something that allows students to record through a microphone or anything with a quarter-inch connection. We can use these to upload sound files directly to the computers. 
    We have a recording studio that is slowly and steadily improving. The room is not soundproof, but we are getting there. This spring we installed a couple ceiling clouds for sound protection and some side panels to reduce the 90-degree angles in the room. It is expensive to completely soundproof a room, but that is the goal. We are still a few years away from finishing it.

Extracurricular Options
    Our school has an after-school musicians’ club. It was originally called the Amateur Musicians Club. I inherited the group from another teacher. It started as a small gathering of 10-12 students who met after school to have jam sessions. When I transferred to teaching in the music department part time, I put out an announcement and had 60 students show up to the next meeting. I had no idea what to do with that many students, so I had them spread out and work in smaller groups.
    Over time, it evolved into an open gym for musicians. They know they can just come down after school and make music. Students have the option to work on computers, but mostly they want to play. Some work privately on a recording project or write songs. Others use the space for band practice or to collaborate with a partner on something.
    We have some instruments, but I encourage students to bring their own. The only rules are to be respectful of the equipment and the environment. I walk around and check in on students, listening to their work. One of the joys is hearing new songs written by students, and it started happening often enough that I wanted the club to make an album.
    At this point I had started working on a master’s degree, but had not decided upon a final project yet. I had to involve students in the project, and the prospect of an 80-page research paper was unappealing, so I proposed recording an album of my students’ original material. The idea was approved, and the York Album Project was born.
    At the beginning of the school year, I invited students to write and record a song to contribute to the album. Taking Music Production was not a requirement; it was an extracurricular project with CDs to be made and a release party at the end of the school year. It went better than I expected and has become an annual project now; this year will be the fifth album.
    For the first few years, we worked with a sound engineer who has a studio in his garage, but now we do 90% of the recording and mixing (combining individual tracks) in house, then I send it out to get mastered (transferring the sound files to a data storage device, from which all copies will be made).
    The York Album Project has also branched off into yet another project, called the LP Project. At the end of last year, I approached six different soon-to-be senior musicians and groups who were writing prolifically and encouraged them to put together full-length albums. These seniors are having a release party for this project in early April. We will have a videographer and a soundboard mix, and at the end of it all, these students will have a meaningful experience and a great memento of their work to use after high school.

Performances
    There are a few performance options throughout the year. I want students to have the experience of performing a Saturday night show, but for obvious reasons, we cannot do that in a bar. There is a combination recording studio and performance venue in a nearby suburb, and we had a show there in December, and the LP Project release party will be there, too.
    The first four release parties for the York Album Project were in Chicago, but we are moving it closer to home this year to entice more of the community to come. We found a local restaurant with a music venue, and the York Album Project release party will be there.
    In addition, the Illinois Music Education Association has an annual composition contest. This year, in the commercial/popular category, four York students won awards – first place, two who tied for second, and one honorable mention.

The Best Part
    The best part of this is that it demystifies music-making for students. Writing songs and recording music is something everyone has access to. They have the opportunity to go through every step of the process in a supportive environment. I overhear students asking each other whether they are going to contribute to the album or start their own band this year. 
    Students come to me almost weekly  to ask if they can play me a song they wrote. I get to hear new songs that no one else has heard, and students trust me to listen and help develop their art to put out into the world. 

The post Teaching Music Production A Profile of Chris Gemkow and York Community High School appeared first on The Instrumentalist.