Facilitating the Music Production 101 course was truly a wonderful experience! It was exciting to see the students interested in all types of music, including House/Techno, Rap, and R&B. Some of the students were beginners, but some were more advanced and were probably attending to learn how to use the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation)—Presonus Studio One 7.
The course also included 1 on 1 labs for the students. Each student had unique needs that were addressed at their 1 on 1 meetings. Some students needed to know how to streamline their workflow, others needed to know how to use the virtual instruments in more detail, and others just needed to become more familiar with the software, in general.
The students also had the opportunity to book the music studio to add lyrics to their tracks. One of the students had another setup at home and took a digital copy of their track home with them to add lyrics there. Another student booked the music studio, and they spent about two hours with me helping them to record their vocals over their track.
All of the students had some degree of originality. They also learned quickly. Teaching music theory was daunting, though. Because of this, I repeated the music theory lessons twice, going slowly over the lesson in detail. Overall, the music theory lesson at the end of the course was meant to give them a useful reference and foundation to use later in their music production efforts.
Overall, the class was satisfying to teach and gave the students some basic skills that they could use in creating original music for their TV productions and podcasts.
Also, the course is truly proving to be popular with Access 21 members, in that 5 members are waiting to attend the next occurrence of Music Production 101.