This upcoming semester JLA is going to be offering a new elective, digital music. This year digital music is going to be taught by Coach Martinez. Coach Martinez started music engineering when he was 16 and has owned and operated a recording studio in Orlando for 4 years. Music created solely by electronics was only invented in the early 1950’s and has only been everyday accessible since the  2010’s. Because this is such new technology and class, it raises simple questions. Why should a student take this class? What is Digital music? How is it taught?  Here are pieces from my interview with Coach Matinez to help answer those questions.  

Question 1. Why should students take this class? “Students should take this class because it’s very expressive and creative and usually the kids who are taking the class want to be there.”  In the 20th century the advancement of technology is rapid. You can now make songs with 10 instruments in 15 minutes.  Coach Martinez got into college because of his experience in music engineering. In this evolving world knowing how to use every day technology to make music can be a useful skill for a career or to get into college. 

Question 2. What is Digital Music? “I would define digital music as instruments put on a computer because essentially it’s the same concept, the same frequencies, the same notes but translated into the computer and with that comes audio engineering and sound processing.” 

Question 3. Who are you going to measure the progress of your students?  Digital music is a unique class because there is no exact measurement of progress so how do you know that students are progressing at all? Coach Martinez answered “Music is very subjective so to measure progress it’s not going to be if I like their music but more if the students understand the concepts I’m teaching them and applying them.”  

Question 4. How do you teach new things after you’ve gone through the basics and how are you going to build concepts ? The software the Digital Music students will be using are Logic Pro and Garageband. Once you learn how to use these apps there isn’t much more you need to know so why do you need a class for it. “There’s always more you could learn like little hidden secrets but really just practice practice practice and that’s how you get better.”

Digital Music is going to be a fun class and is a great skill to have when thinking of the future of music.