Music, Education, and Technology

This summer, I attended a three-day intensive course entitled “How To Make A Great Preschool Series.” It was offered by Emmy Award-Winning Josh Selig’s company, Little Airplane Productions in NYC.

It was an incredible experience and I learned so much! The presenters were a never-ending A-list of truly accomplished and dedicated professionals. During the three day program, I learned about pitching, writing, curriculum development, directing, music, legal, and production aspects of both live-action and animated preschool programs.

The overarching message I came away with was “through education, anything is possible!” The presenters were incredibly informative and encouraging, and they all offered to help the attendees beyond the conclusion of the academy.

Much like Berkleemusic students, the attendees were an eclectic mix of diverse professionals with a common passion and a desire to learn more. Whether it’s music, preschool program development, or any professional pursuit, I’m constantly reminded that continuing education and lifelong learning is key to a successful and rewarding career.

Thanks Josh Selig, Tone Thyne, Jeffrey Lesser, and Melinda Richards and all of the Little Airplane Academy staff and Instructors for an amazing experience and a reminder that anything is possible through education!

What do Houston TX, South Africa, Mexico City, San Juan PR, Ontario Canada, Brooklyn NY, Nonthaburi Thailand, Portland OR, Stockholm Sweden, Hampshire UK, Salt Late City UT, and Nashville TN all have in common?

They are home to just a handful of the more than 150 Berkleemusic students who successfully completed their online certificate programs last term. Today, I had the great pleasure of signing their letters of completion. It is always exciting for me to see how Berkleemusic brings people, with a passion for music and a desire to learn more, together from all corners of the world.

Congratulations to our Certificate Program graduates!

I’m excited to tell you that our kids/family music group “Debbie and Friends” has been nominated to the top 5 for the Nickelodeon Parents’ Pick Award for Kids’ CD of the Year! WE NEED YOUR VOTES TO WIN!

Please click the link below to register to vote. You can vote once a day through Aug. 30!

Nominated for best kids’ music cd. Vote now!

To hear the music, please visit

Debbie and Friends is a kids/family music project I started a few years ago. The project has grown and it’s been great fun and extremely rewarding. The concerts are all about interacting with the kids and families at our shows. The following is a “thank you” slideshow I put together for our fan families to show my appreciation for their support. They are at the heart of our success. I think the same keepsake can be done for fans of any genre.

What kinds of memory keepsakes have you put together for your band’s fanbase?

Performers! Have you ever found yourself in a position where you thought perhaps that show was not going to go on? I experienced this for the first time last week, just minutes before a Debbie & Friends concert for 200 families with young children in the Greater Boston area.

The band and I were set up and ready to perform as a major thunderstorm rolled through the area. Minutes before the downbeat, two telephone poles in front of the building were struck by lightning and fell over. As the families started to arrive, we heard a loud “POP” and the power went out in the entire neighborhood! The theater became dark and the sound system was down for the count.

The event coordinators talked of rescheduling, but as each minute passed more and more families arrived. We knew we had to figure something out. We couldn’t disappoint all of those kids. (Many our devoted fans wearing their Debbie & Friends concert t-shirts!)

Thankfully, we found a large classroom in the building with a piano and some natural light. Our guitarist grabbed his acoustic, and we all squeezed into the classroom together for a fun (and sweaty) sing along. We all had a great time and the families were most appreciative.

I related this story to my good friend and colleague Jonathan Feist, and he shared a simiar experience:

“I was once at a wedding where they lost power, but the band was ready with a whole set of unplugged songs, including some accompanied by just clapping along, with no instruments. It was great. They were total pros.”

Do you have a story related to this as a performer or concert goer? What are some things bands should do to make sure “the show will go on” when lightning strikes, or some other unforeseen circumstance gets in the way?

Debbie & Friends in Concert with Video.

As a kid’s/family performing group, Debbie and Friends are always looking for new ways to actively engage our audience. A typical D&F concert includes our fan families doing everything from starting up the band with a clapping beat, to fixing rhymes, playing the “Simon Says” song game, dancing, singing, and interacting with all five members of the band.

Our good friend and booking agent for the Midwest region, Jeni Cosgrove, challenged us to find a way to to incorporate our animated cartoons into our live show format. It sounded like great fun so we decided to give it a try!

How?
First, we created a version of one of our cartoon music videos without recorded music. Then, we added a click track. During the performance, the click track is sent to our drummer, Bill D’Agostino’s wireless earphones so that he can lock in with the click and remain in sync with the video from start to finish. The band plays along with Bill so that we are all in sync playing, singing and dancing along with the video.

The Result?
The families in our audience LOVE it! And we do, too. In addition to adding a multimedia dimension to our show, we’re promoting our music video catalog and visits to our Web site, You Tube channel, and Jitterbug.tv. The cartoons all contain movement parts, so the families in our audience continue to be active participants throughout the show.

I highly recommend giving live performance with a music video a try! (Thanks Jeni!) I’d love to hear from other bands doing this sort of thing. Please share your experience.

The following is our “Little Red Riding Hood” animated music video. This is one of the animated music videos that families sing and dance along with during our shows.

Debbie and Friends Remix Contest Site

Berkleemusic is THE place to learn about what’s happening in the music industry and how to effectively leverage the tools available to today’s musician to market music both online and via traditional outlets. We have courses on the Future of Music and the Music Business with Dave Kusek, Online Music Marketing with Mike King, Concert Touring with Jeff Dorenfeld and John Czajkowski, Music Industry Entrepreneurship with George Howard, and the list goes on and on.

I often say that in addition to being the dean of continuing education at Berkleemusic, I am also a student. I’ve learned so much from the curricula and instructors listed above, and I’ve have the good fortune to be able to apply this knowledge to my own kids/family music project, Debbie and Friends.

The most recent outgrowth of my music business education with Berkleemusic is a fan-engaging remix contest for kids and families. As our courses teach, visionary artist managers such as Terry McBride of Nettwerk have been doing this kind of things for years with mainstream artists. I’m hoping it will be successful for kids/family music and with our fan families who want to engage in musical activities beyond listening. My producer, Michael Carrera, prepared a GarageBand version of one of our new songs that was originally produced in Logic. There are a lot less tracks than the original version, but we wanted to make the GarageBand file manageable for our young producers. The contest is now live and can be found here.

The contest just launched and already we’ve been able to monitor interest and excitement from our fan families and people in the Remix world. Remix Comps not only embraced the idea that’s outside of their genre, they also made a special effort to convey this is a contest geared towards kids/family music.

It will be interesting to see how the contest unfolds. I’ll report back on April 5, to announce the winner and share the experience.

What kind of fan-engaging ideas have you been able to try with your music as a result of your studies with Berkleemusic?

It’s true that in addition to being the dean of continuing education at Berklee, I am also a student. I learn so much from our Berkleemusic students, instructors, and staff on a daily basis.

Just last month, we launched a brand new online course by Michael King entitled Online Music Marketing with Topspin. It’s a brilliant combination of cutting edge, best practices in online marketing wrapped around the new direct-to-fan sales and marketing platform, Topspin.

The course is extremely popular and by the tweets and blog posts of our current students, it’s a hit! For me, the course and the Topspin platform provide practical tools that I’ve been able to use immediately with my own kids/family music project, Debbie and Friends. With very little effort, I’ve created streaming audio and video widgets, as well as “email for media” widgets, like the one shown below.

When logged in, my Topspin account shows me all of the additional “shares” this widget has and the number of hits it’s getting in each location. The email for media widgets are so effective, in fact, that my email list is growing in a way that only used to happen at shows. It’s very exciting to see how well it all works, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of what this platform can do!

The Topspin account interface is easy to get around and the tools provided are extremely practical and useful for today’s aspiring musician (author, etc.). Next month, when it’s time to release our new CD, I’ll begin digging into the sales functionality of the Topspin application and will have more to report. In the meantime, what has your experience been with Topspin so far?

Berkleemusic has so many incredibly talented, dedicated instructors including LA producer, Erik Hawkins. Recently, Erik was interviewed by Mix Magazine on his work with Berkleemusic. The following excerpt didn’t make it into the piece but is filled with some great information, so I thought I’d share it with the Berkleemusic community.

Erik Hawkins

What courses do you teach for Berkleemusic?
EH: Music production courses. For example, Pro Tools 110, Producing Music with Reason, and Remixing with Pro Tools and Reason. I’m the course author and instructor of Producing Music with Reason and Remixing with Pro Tools and Reason. 



What are some of the ways you approach designing an online curriculum?
EH: As an online course author, I strive to keep the class content both accessible and interesting to all levels of students. It’s exciting that in one class there can be students at a variety of skill levels all working on the same lesson. So, in order to accommodate these different skill levels and keep things challenging for everybody, I offer a variety of ways to learn the material. Students who are new to music production can jump in at the basic level with videos and interactive Flash workshops, while more advanced students can dive into discussion questions at more length and tackle the extra challenge portion of a weekly assignment. There’s something for every level and you can pick and choose the materials within a lesson that best suit your personal goals for the topics presented.


Can you give me an example of how the scope of an assignment might address different levels?

EH: In the courses that I’ve developed for Berkleemusic, I spend the first few weeks making sure that everybody understands the basics of the music software programs that we’ll be working with. This frees up the remaining weeks for getting creative, using the new production techniques introduced in each weekly lesson for actually producing music. For example, beginning in week eight of the Producing Music with Reason course, students start writing and producing their own song that I expect them to have completed, mixed and mastered, by the end of week twelve of the course. And, in my Remixing with Pro Tools and Reason course, students complete three remix sketches as a warm up for producing a full length remix beginning in week seven.

It’s an intense ride but there’s no better way to hone your music production chops than to apply the production techniques that I’m teaching in the lessons to actual projects. And, throughout this process students receive feedback from myself and their fellow classmates. It’s really an amazing learning environment.



How have you seen the Berkleemusic program evolve during your tenure there?

EH: From my perspective, the Berkleemusic team is continually pushing forward and never content to simply rest on their laurels. They’re constantly improving the online tools for teaching and reaching students, and they seem to be steadily rolling out exciting new courses. I myself have participated in much beta testing for new course material, Web site and chat tools. And, I am personally responsible for keeping my own course material fresh and up to date. So, yes, I think it’s safe to say that we are continually evolving to both improve upon the online college, to meet our student’s needs, and, in my case, to keep up with cutting edge music production techniques.


I know you’ve been teaching online for a few years. How has the way you teach online evolved since you started out?
EH: Much like the Berkleemusic development team, I’m continually refining how I teach online in an effort to improve upon my lessons and to offer students more quality material. For example, I realized very early on that everybody learns differently, so I’m always working on ways to deliver a lesson topic in a variety of forms. I’ll explain the same production technique in a detailed description, with screen shots, a video, a step-by-step exercise, and an interactive Flash quiz. I’m counting on one of these ways clicking with the student. And, if the student still has questions, I’m available for further explanation through private messaging, text chatting, and, more recently, video chats with screen sharing.

When you think about it, there’s really no end to what we can accomplish online as Internet technologies and access improves around the world. It’s pretty astounding. 



Is there anything else you’d like to add?
EH: I can’t even begin to tell you what a blast it is to work with aspiring music producers all over the world. In one class I might have a high school senior in Michigan, an attorney in Alaska, a recording studio manager in Japan, and a US serviceperson stationed in the Middle East. Everybody has come together online, at Berkleemusic, to learn and to collaborate on music. Consequently, the energy in our online courses is great, very positive and nurturing. It’s really wonderful to be a part of this and to help foster this sort of energy in my classes.

Finally, I’d be leaving an important piece of the puzzle out if I didn’t mention that I get to do all this from the comfort of my own home studio here in Los Angeles. I think that because I’m also a working composer and music producer here in LA that I’m able to offer a unique perspective on the business to my students who may be, geographically, very distant. I’m a happy camper composing and producing tracks here in LA and sharing my experiences and knowledge with my students online and I think that this positive energy comes through in my classes and online interactions. I don’t think there’s any substitute for this sort of genuine enthusiasm and real-world experience. A couple of other working pros here in LA that also teach for Berkleemusic include, composer Ben Newhouse, author of Orchestration 1 and 2, and producer/engineer David Franz, author of Producing with Pro Tools and Recording and Producing in the Home Studio.

Debbie & Friends on Fox TV’s “24″!

It’s hard to believe after posting about this licensing opportunity more than seven months ago, the Season Premiere of 24 will air this Sunday night, January 17 at 9:00pm EST. I’ve been told that two Debbie and Friends cartoon music videos will be playing on a TV that Sutherland and a young girl will be watching together.

This is just one example of what an exciting time it is for musicians to find licensing opportunities for their music. I am proud to say that I was able to put this opportunity together because of all that I have learned from our Berkleemusic instructors and their courses in music production and music business.

I hope this story will inspire more of our Berkleemusic students to monetize their song catalogs through licensing opportunities.

Please tune in this Sunday to see Debbie and Friends’ children’s music videos on 24!