Career Day at Linden High School in New Jersey

Screenshot from the presentation (5/25/2023).

This week I was reflecting on when I was invited to give a guest lecture at Linden High School’s Career Day in New Jersey last May. Tasked with engaging two classes of high school students in a 40-minute presentation surrounding careers in music production and technology, naturally, I was thrilled to participate. Because I am based in Atlanta and the Career Day was days before my dance concert, I called into the classroom via Zoom instead of presenting to the class in person. 

I knew interacting with the students would be crucial to making my presentation effective, especially because I was administering the lesson digitally. I understood that I should not have to rely on the lesson’s material to make our time together engaging; the way I teach must be fundamentally captivating as well. Teaching a class of students whose faces you can hardly see and voices you can hardly hear posed certain difficulties in my effort to make my presentation interactive. However, I was able to engage the students by asking them simple questions they could answer in unison–that way, they’d be loud enough for me to hear them. For instance, I would ask if they approved of a synth preset I chose, and students would cheer “NOO.” I would ask if they approved of the percussion sequence we wrote together, and they’d cheer “YESSS.” We had a system that worked.

I began the presentation by introducing myself, explaining what music producers do, why their jobs are important, and walked the class through the fundamental components of a digital audio workstation. To truly emphasize the importance of music producers, I provided a practical example. I stripped Juice WRLD and The Weeknd’s song “Smile” of all it’s production–the instrumental and vocal production. I contrasted the raw acapella with the final cut of the record, and the gasps and laughs I saw across the classroom showed me that the students better understood the breadth of a producer’s responsibilities.

After the presentation, the teacher of the class I lectured, Mrs. Natarajan, reached out to me to express her gratitude and that the students thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and look forward to seeing me again next year. I’m happy to know that New Jersey can expect to see some new, enthusiastic music producers!