Dr. Langol and I have a wide-ranging discussion about the music education program at Berklee, recent trends in music technology and education and what the future may hold.

Meaghan O’Connor-Vince teaches at Barnstable High School in Hyannis, Massachusetts. She is very active in the Massachusetts MEA and has several articles published in the Massachusetts Journal for Music Education. After being hired as an assistant band director, she was faced with having to teach a music technology course. She developed her own curriculum for her students and within a few years was teaching music technology exclusively with an expanded curriculum that included advanced music technology courses and courses on composing for hip hop, rock, and pop music. She is in demand as a speaker across the country for music education conferences and she has two instructional units published on the MusicFirst Classroom platform.

Jason Freeman is a Professor of Music at Georgia Tech and Chair of the School of Music. His artistic practice and scholarly research focus on using technology to engage diverse audiences in collaborative, experimental, and accessible musical experiences. He also develops educational interventions in K-12, university, and MOOC environments that broaden and increase engagement in STEM disciplines through authentic integrations of music and computing. His music has been performed at Carnegie Hall, exhibited at ACM SIGGRAPH, published by Universal Edition, broadcast on public radio’s Performance Today, and commissioned through support from the National Endowment for the Arts. Freeman’s wide-ranging work has attracted over $10 million in funding from sources such as the National Science Foundation, Google, and Turbulence. It has been disseminated through over 80 refereed book chapters, journal articles, and conference publications. Freeman received his B.A. in music from Yale University and his M.A. and D.M.A. in composition from Columbia University.

Chris Rickwood is a versatile and dynamic composer, with a flair for creating musical scores that capture the essence of video game worlds. With a career spanning over two decades, Rickwood has honed his craft to create immersive soundscapes that are as diverse as they are memorable. Having composed music for a wide range of titles, from the epic battles of Smite, Paladins, and Tribes: Ascend, to the whimsical landscapes of Brawlhalla, Jetpack Fighter, and Adventure Time Battle Party, Rickwood is no stranger to the challenges of game scoring. His past work also includes Madden NFL 12, Orcs Must Die! series, Ghostbusters: The Videogame, and Age of Empires Online, to name just a few. Rickwood has contributed his expertise to the game audio community as a founding member of the Game Developers Association in Georgia and by serving on the Advisory Board for the Game Audio Network Guild and the Board of Governors for the National Association of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Learn about the newly rebranded and retooled podcast and meet my new 14-year-old Production and Social Media Manager!

The foundation of everything that we do is based on a term we coined called creative literacy. It’s about kids reading, writing, and reflecting through multiple mediums. We want to make sure that all students, regardless of their abilities, were able to share their knowledge in a medium that worked for them. Our students have developed video games, produced songs, written and staged musicals, produced podcasts, and created a fashion line that was presented as a fashion show. Kids need multiple ways to express themselves and this program provides a stage that these kids can shine on who otherwise may not have that opportunity to shine.

Which teacher has two thumbs and Grammy Award winning hip hop music producer Kenny Bartolomei spending a day with their students? ME!! I was recently introduced to Kenny “Barto” Bartolomei. Kenny won a Grammy Award for Best R&B album and a Billboard Award for the R&B/Hip Hop Album of the Year in 2006 as a part of the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League Music team for their production of Mary J. Blige’s album “The Breakthrough.” He is also a composer, multi-instrumentalist and member of the Universal Music Publishing Group. He has worked with a virtual Who’s Who of the top Hip Hop artists of the last 25 years including: Drake, Rick Ross, 2Chainz, Young Jeezy, Nikki Menaj, DJ Khaled, Machine Gun Kelly, and many more. Barto was generous enough to spend an ENTIRE day in the middle school where I teach for our “Career Day.” This pod is audio that I recorded of his visit, some Q&A with the students, and our recording session with Barto. Enjoy!

A conversation with Composer & Video Game Sound Designer Alec Ragsdale. Alec tells me about his early musical influences and his journey to becoming the audio team lead for Hidden Leaf Games upcoming release Fangs.

After a bit of a hiatus, the MuTechTeacherTalk podcast is back! Let’s commiserate together, then share a huge pat on the back for what teachers (and students) have been through the last 2+ years. In this episode, I look back on the last two years while confidently preparing to step into the next school year, but not before taking some well-deserved time to relax and recharge. I hope that you enjoy the episode and make sure to let me know what topics you would be most interested in hearing about in future episodes.

I continue my exploration into finding the reasons behind the division between classical vs commercial music in higher education. How can teachers learn how to teach music creation with technology if there are no institutions able or willing to teach them. Pop, Rock, Hip Hop, & R&B music are distinctly American and a critical part of our history and culture yet, we don't include it as part of our "formal" music education system. If we can figure out how we got to where we are now, perhaps we can discover a way forward...