By Marianna Nash

Here at The Foxgrove (FG), our students come from all walks of life. Get to know Sarie, Tom and Mike, three of our esteemed Electronic Music Production graduates, over these three days.

Sarie Bott (SB)
IT Manager for top art gallery by day. Karaoke champ by night.

Tom Losinski (TL)
Digital designer/animator looking to add a new creative outlet to his repertoire.

Mike Mytnick (MM)
Digital producer working in video production and social media. Swedish pop fan. Colorblind.

-

FG: What were some other discoveries you made?

MM: I didn’t realize how easy it was to make a song with just a few loops. I always assumed everything was classically composed, that even modern pop songs were on sheet music—

TL: —I always thought that too!

MM: I didn’t realize how easy — not easy, but simplistic — it was to create something.

SB: Yeah, I feel like I learned something similar to that. I always thought that it had to have so many complex parts. But really, the simpler, the better.

TL: When you started listening to music outside of class, you could kind of, in your mind, see what the layers were and say, oh, they made that one the bottom layer and they have five other layers to switch things up... It’s not as super-complicated as I thought. I thought everybody had, like, giant sheets and were penciling in and erasing notes—

SB: —and wearing a curly white wig!

TL: Yeah! And I was like, I don’t even know what a treble clef is!

FG: So it demystified the process for you guys.

MM: Yes. The walls were broken.

SB: It was like a framework to put your ideas inside of, instead of a blank piece of paper.

FG: Do you think you’ll make more music outside of work, for special occasions?

TL: Absolutely.

SB: I actually wanted to do a mix for my friend’s birthday, but it was before I took this class. She loves Selena, so I made her this cake that said “Keep Calm and Bidi Bidi Bom Bom.” I wanted to make a remix of “Bidi Bidi Bom Bom” and have them play it in the club, but I didn’t know how!

MM: I definitely want to make my own music. For me, personal video projects are sort of therapeutic. I feel like I listen to so much music, I go to it for that reason. I have these ideas, but I never knew how to translate that into sound until I started taking classes here.

FG: Do you guys have any musical background?

MM: I used to sing when I was younger. I grew up in Ohio, really close to Oberlin. They scouted people at my middle school and picked me and this girl to join their choir. It was this really intense thing. There were these choir competitions with these twelve year old boys facing off against each other. Very weird, very Midwest.

SB: I sing. I used to be in a competitive karaoke league.

TL: That’s so cool.

FG: Wait. So do you guys sing the same songs each time, or pick new ones?

SB: There would be a new theme every week. One was “weather,” so people would be like, “It’s Raining Men,” “Umbrella,” you know...

FG: How did you guys settle on the songs you chose to remix here?

MM: It was one of my favorite musicians and songs. I was listening to it on the way here, so it was kind of fresh in my mind.

TL: They were my go-to gym songs.

SB: I love that you work out to “Work Bitch.” My song was “Pendulum” by FKA Twigs. I just always listen to that song on repeat. I wanted to remix it, make it faster, because I feel like sometimes you’ll get into a song and be like, ugh this is amazing, and then you’ll play it for someone else and they’ll be like, what is this? So I wanted to make it more widely appealing to get people who don’t like the song to like it.

-

Today we feature Sarie's creation from the Electronic Music Prouction, Level 2 course. Here's what she thinks.

“This is one of my first projects. It’s where I first started cutting up clips and I like the juxtaposition of sounds throughout this track.”

At The Foxgrove, we welcome all beginners with no experience. All you need to bring is an open mind and the love of music. We'll take care of the rest. Check out all our classes here.

Come back tomorrow for part 3 of 3 in this series.