Music production and DJing J-term

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...

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.

  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...