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 brought you to the Foxgrove?

MM: I’ve always wanted to take some sort of music class, and this was the most accessible way to start. I didn’t really have too much experience aside from when I was really young, so I thought it was the perfect way to make the music that I wanted, the music I was interested in, without the pressure of going back to school or something.

TL: I always wanted wanted to take a music course. I had asthma when I was growing up, so I could never be in a band — they wouldn’t let me! I was in school musicals and stuff, but that was as much musicality as I ever had. Then this came along, and it seemed very accessible. The intro class went really well. I saw the music production level 2 course and thought, yeah, I’ll take this a little bit further.

SB: It was kind of a New Year’s resolution thing. I was online, looking for all the stuff I’ve ever wanted to learn.

FG: How do you plan to keep this going?

MM: I want to buy the software and the equipment and play around with things. I make videos, but I always seek out people who are musicians to score them.

TL: Same thing — buy the software, play around with it. I also do a bunch of videos for magazines, so hopefully, one day, I’ll get to sneak one of my own songs into that.

FG: What surprised you once you took the class?

SB: I really loved how intimate the classes were, and how it wasn’t just like, “click this button to do this.” It was like, BOOM, you’re doing it. You’re learning as you’re doing it. That’s the best way to learn, I think.

TL: It was nice just to get personalized attention.

FG: Did you guys get to know each other during the course?

SB: You’re so focused during the class that you don’t fraternize...

MM: I feel like I got to know people through their music. It’s kind of a cliché, but you can tell a lot about people through what they listen to.

FG: Did your own music change as the course went on?

MM: I think I was more focused on learning different ways to structure it and different ways that sounds can go together. I learned a lot from the first week through the end, and I feel I have a different understanding of what works and what doesn’t.

FG: What was your proudest moment during the course?

MM: Not anything big. The proudest I felt was when I was discovering things and learning how things worked. I’d be like, YEAH! and then go on to the next step. I’m happy with the things I made, but I was really happy when two things went really well together, so I felt like I wasn’t just making noise.

SB: My proudest moment was when I realized what my strengths and weaknesses were. Because whenever I try to figure stuff out by myself, I’m just like, GYAAH! IT’S NOT WORKING! And then I get frustrated because I can’t figure out what is the problem.

FG: Do you remember the moment you realized what your strengths were?

SB: Yeah. I guess Ben (the teacher) was making a big deal about how I cut up “Under Pressure,” so I was like, okay, yeah, I thought I was doing good, and now I know I am. Because he’s freaking out over it.

TL: Mine was actually starting and finishing something. It’s so hard, especially creatively, to get an idea and execute it — but even within three hours, every person in the room had something they could show. And it was cool putting it on Facebook and Instagram, having people be like, “oh, that’s so cool, I would never think to take a music course.” Yeah, it is pretty cool.

-

Today we feature Mike's favorite track from his Electronic music production, Level 2 class. Here's why he loves it:

“I'd say the Jeb Bush one because it was really funny to do. I enjoyed manipulating Jeb Bush's depressing candidacy speech into something that was funnier than he. Creatively I just thought it was a great opportunity to use his natural speaking tempo as the ground work for the track and then was able to find what sounds worked or didn't work with it.”

-

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 2 of 3 in this series.