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Day 6 - Sampling By: Eli C.

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The main subject for today’s class was sampling. Sampling is a critical technique in the music industry, in which a clip from a sound recording is reused in a new song. This could involve taking the isolated beat, melody, or vocal of a song and using it in a new song, typically by first augmenting it. I arrived at school today, and we began watching a documentary on people’s differing perspectives on the morality of sampling. There were two extreme perspectives displayed in the documentary: First, was that sampling is morally or legally wrong because it is stealing people’s hard work as a shortcut to producing a song. It is said to be wrong because people are typically not credited or don’t have a royalty when their work is used. This means that even though the artist’s work might be popular when sampled in other songs, the artist could be struggling. The second perspective is that sampling is morally right and that people shouldn’t be sued for it, because it gives those who are not fi...
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Day 5- Theo

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On day 5 of Music Production and DJing, we started the day by watching a documentary about Mark Ronson and his story of getting to be a famous producer. Mark Ronson is known as one of the greatest producers and DJs of the new generation of music, having produced many famous tracks, including "Uptown Funk" by Bruno Mars, "Valerie" by Amy Winehouse, "Nothing Breaks Like a Heart" by Miley Cyrus, and many other notable songs. After the documentary, we worked on personal projects, such as DJing, mixing/making a song or beat. Also, after the documentary, Hiram came in and spoke with us, helping everyone a little bit.  In the afternoon, Hiram stayed and helped us with our project by helping figure out the software, or our personal projects, until he had to leave around 1:30. We continued working on our project for the rest of the day, and played a few of them on the big speaker at the end of the day to wrap the day up.
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Day 4 - Gio

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On our first outing of the term, we visited Sig's Lagoon and Cactus Records, then ate at the post. We were honored with a tour and history of Cactus Records, followed by extensive bin searching. We then went to get some food at the Post in downtown. Ryan and I prepared to devour the 2 separate meals we had bought from the Post. A loaded fries and a chop and block can do a number on a man. We then went to Sig's Lagoon for more crate digging. We then returned to the school to continue creating music and listening to our vinyls.
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Day 3 By Quinn Walsh

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On Day 3 of Music Production and Djing, we began the day by watching a documentary on Quincy Jones. He is known as being the greatest music producer of all time, as well as a composer, conductor, and trumpeter. He produced some of music's most iconic songs, such as Michael Jackson's "Beat It," "Thriller," "Billie Jean," and many others. After watching the documentary, the students were given time to work on their personal projects, such as DJing, creating and Mixing Beats and Songs, and playing instruments.  In the afternoon, Hiram joined us to share more tips and tricks for DJing and Music production. He also shared with us a song he had recently been working on and gave us a quick lesson on how to change any song into a genre of your choice. Students were able to work individually with him and share their projects while receiving advice to better their work. After working on our projects all afternoon students shared their art to the class to wra...
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Day 2 - Experimenting with FL Studios and DJ'ing Hardware By: Max F.

We began by installing FL Studio on our computers and watching an intro on learning how to use FL Studio. Gio and I, the two students who knew how to use FL Studio, then helped to mentor everyone else, as we all experimented with different ways to use FL Studio and create beats. Mattthew wynne, a POHS alum, helped us as well, teaching us things Gio and I didn’t know. We had a great time creating our own beats! When Hiram came in the afternoon, he showed us how to make our own remixes of beats. We took vocals from another song and added our own drums and other instruments to finish our remixes. We shared them with the rest of the class. It was a new experience that we all thoroughly enjoyed.
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Day 1 "The Beginning" By Ryan Mantel

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  We started by getting straight to the basics: what is music, and what is music production? We all listed a definition of what music is, such as a storytelling art medium utilizing sound waves. To break the ice, we all talked about what made us fall in love with, as well as our first memory of music. Mine was playing a simple two-person version of “Heart and Soul” with my mom. Next, we differentiated a music engineer, a music producer, and a DJ. A quick video helped us understand the responsibilities of a producer past just giving their opinion on the music.  Much of our work was in the afternoon with our teacher, Hiram. He has been DJing for 15 years and producing music for 13. He showed us all how to use his controller, as well as some of the remixes he made and posted to Soundcloud. This was our first opportunity to get hands-on with the equipment. We all had the opportunity to use the controller and transition from song to song. We finished off the day by choosing four or...
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Day 4 of music production J term

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 Today, we worked on our individual songs while preparing for a producer to come and visit the school.  He then talked to us about how the music industry is and the way to navigate through it. He explains through social media and building on your own brand. He shows there is a harder way to be completely independent from the big music companies. It was a very interesting talk and very useful for future striving independent artists.
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Day 6 of Music Production & Djing

 Today after a small break we worked on our final projects, we also made a nice little song where we made a song where most people in the class helped. Today i worked on this beat that i ultimately ended up deleting because its just did not go. But it’s all about trial and error. I had already made two beats i really liked so this was mostly just to get creative and fun. Making a beat usually takes me a little while so it’s really fun to just be focused for like the whole day and just chill. 
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Day 5 - The freeze

On this day we were unable to attend school due to the frigid conditions in the Houston area. This was a minor setback that we experienced but it was ok in the end because we rescheduled all the activities we had to later days.
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Day 3- Music Production and Djing

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 Day 3     For our third day we started it by walking to Black Hole and picking something up to eat/drink. Then we strolled around the near by neighborhoods, giving our minds a rest hoping it will spark up some creativity. Afterwards we headed back to school to focus on our project.  Once the clock hit 11:30 we decided to go out to Cava to eat some lunch. Then we went to Vinal Edge Records, in which we browsed some records. Once we had bought anything that caught our eye we left but before we went we met up with Dj Sun who has won Houston Dj of the year seven times.  He had said the last time he checked how many record he made was fifteen years ago and at the time he had made twenty thousand. After speaking with him we headed back to school and worked on our projects some more. 
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Day 2 - Music Production and DJing

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Day 2      For our second day we watched two documentaries in the morning and in the afternoon we went on an outing. To start off our morning we took some time to start brainstorming for our projects that we will be working on over the course of this term. Afterwards, we watched a couple documentaries and had a small discussion about what we took away from each one. The first documentary was about the music production process. The documentary showed clips of several producers and what their job was like in the studio and working with several artists. The second documentary we watched was a bit longer and it went into detail about sampling. Sampling means to take a piece of an already produced audio and rework it to fit in with a new audio. This documentary talked about several cases where a piece of audio had been sampled without any credit or money given to the original creator. In each case the sampled piece would eventually be taken down for copyright reasons. After th...
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Day 1: Introduction to Music production and DJing

 Today in the first class of music production and DJing, we started the J-term with some questions about our experience with music, such as if we played instruments, and if so which ones, when we fell in love with music, our earliest musical memory, etc... After a bit of open discussion, we took a small break. Afterward, we watched videos on the history of music, human's instruments through different eras, the invention of sheet music, and its origins in the church. We then had another discussion on sheet music and whether or not it is limiting to musicians, as well as cultural shifts in what is and isn't considered high culture. By the time it was finished, it was time for lunch. Once lunch was over, we watched more videos, these ones being on the music industry and record companies. We talked about whether or not the oversaturation of music was a good thing, about the financial struggles of a music artist with record labels, and the complications of trying to break into an in...
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