16-year old musician Andrew talks about his experience as an Oregon high school audio engineering student, and how Covid has changed his methods, but not the goals for his music.
Before Covid, Andrew was a freshman playing electric and upright bass with his high school band, and writing songs at home on bass and piano. More than a year later things are different.
Schooling from a 10’ by 12’ room in his basement, Andrew arranges music in Ableton live, constructing intricately layered drum loops and synth patches as assignments for his advanced audio engineering class — a class for which he was able to bypass the prerequisites based on his general musical knowledge.
Instead of jam sessions with the the school band, he now trades audio stems with friends as they construct compositions together for class.
Q: I’m interested in your perspective as a high school music creator during Covid who is at home, and I wanted to ask you what it’s been like taking a music class from home?
Well, there are advantages and disadvantages, and I think that in the modern age a lot of the music creation process can happen on a computer, and working remotely is something that a lot of musicians and producers already do. So the technology is there and that makes it easy to collaborate.
And the availability of school spaces – because there are no students right now – allows us to do things like re-amping in rooms that normally would have to be reserved in advance because they would be in use by classes.
Q: What plugins do you use most often?
Valhalla delay, and a lot of the stock Ableton plugins such as eq8, and compression.
Q: Do you have any musical influences who affect the way you approach making music?
Honestly I don’t think about that too much, and I mostly just do what sounds good to me. I have my own tastes.
Q: What instruments do you play?
Electric bass, standup bass, a little bit of piano. I have a sense for drums and making drum parts.
Q: Where do you want to go with your music?
As far as music production, my goal is to eventually release a solo album of original songs that I write and play the parts for; as far as bass itself, I’m not sure I want to go to college for music because [non-audio] engineering is a big part of my life. But I think that’s also why audio engineering is a good balance. I won’t necessarily go to school to study music, but maybe I’ll continue in some way down the path of audio production.
Q: Do you feel like your choice of tools – plugins, interfaces, daw – affect the way you approach writing music, or that they’re just there to serve your impulses?
I don’t have much experience with DAWs outside of Ableton, but I do feel that the tools, that Ableton is working for me. There’s an approach I’m taking that’s based on the plugins I have, so it’s possible I would develop different approaches as I expand my audio processing toolbox.
Q: Jumping into an advanced class without taking the introductory class, did you find there was anything you were missing, or had to play catch up on?
I went from being a musician who doesn’t know that much about audio production, to joining an advanced audio engineering class, and having to figure a lot of things out along the way.
I think every once in a while something comes up that I don’t quite understand, like some kind of terminology. But a quick google search is usually enough. Once you get the concept you can fill it in for yourself.
Q: Has anything specific you’ve learned transformed your writing, like a “wow” moment?
Reverb is probably what I’ve dived the deepest into. And shaping the tone of the instruments that I’m playing. I’m really fascinated with drum layering, and have discovered I’m a natural at it.
I think the most important takeaway from starting out is that you’re just listening. You have a general idea of what the techniques you’re supposed to be using, and you just listen and get into more detail and figure out what works.
It’s more of an experience thing than a knowledge thing.