Zach Diamond  0:00  
Hey there listeners. This is Zach. Just wanted to drop in real quick and let you all know that this episode is our close out for season eight. We'll be taking off the next couple of weeks for the holidays, and we'll be back next year on January 4, with a brand new season, brand new episodes for you. Thank you all so much for listening, for your support throughout all these seasons. Hope you enjoy this really awesome closer for the season on music education. There's some piano in this one really, really great episode, so let's get into it. And I hope you all have a wonderful holiday, and we'll be back next year. Welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. Each week, we bring you discussions with educators on how they use blended, self paced and mastery based learning to better serve their students. We believe teachers learn best from each other, so this is our way of lifting up the voices of leaders and innovators in our community. This is the modern classrooms project podcast. You Zach, hello and welcome to the modern classrooms project podcast. My name is Zach diamond, and I'm a high school media production teacher in Washington, DC and a modern classrooms implementer. Today, I'm joined by Eric Jao, founder of mix major and CO creator of electronic music elements, and Bob Habersat, a high school music teacher, co founder of shed the music.com and CO creator of electronic music elements. Welcome Eric and Bob. I'm so excited to have you on the podcast. 

Zach Diamond  1:31  
Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Good to meet you.

Zach Diamond  1:34  
Yeah, of course, this is super awesome. Anybody that's seeing this on video can see all the musical backgrounds, and so I am definitely in my happy place our listeners, many of our listeners will remember that I was a music teacher for many years. Now I'm an audio production teacher, similar world, but this is going to be an awesome episode. We are going to talk all about teaching music and living music with students and all that good stuff. So definitely really excited for this one. Before we get into that, though, I'd like to have you guys tell us more about who you are and how you started your education journeys. Eric, why don't you go first?

Eric Jao  2:10  
Sure, yeah, man, it's, it's been a it's been an interesting ride. Because I came from the music industry, you know. So for about two decades, my job was to be a professional DJ, musician, music producer. And I did that for about 20 years. And during that time, I went pretty far, you know, I toured with Madonna. At one point, I found myself with residencies in Las Vegas and traveling the world that performed for over 3 million people in 36 different countries. And I got the chance to make some music, some cool music projects. Linkin Park. I did some tour music for Shakira Rihanna. I did some music for Cirque du Soleil. And throughout that time period as a, you know, as a touring DJ. And it was, it was, you know, had kids at the time, and it's at a certain point, I was like, man, you know, it would be awesome to spend more time at home. And I had this really amazing sort of like discovery here, where I had my five year old daughter at the time. This is 10 years ago, so she was 15, almost 16 now, but she she told me she wanted to make a song in this office right here, and we made a song together. And in the process of making a song with her, I was teaching her for the first time. I was teaching a kid for the first time how to create their own music. And I thought, this is, this is pretty awesome. And that was my inspirations 10 years ago to start mix major. And that's when I started figuring out how to teach kids how to create that's specifically kids and teenagers, no adults at that time, anyway, how to create their own music. And that's that's really been my mission. And when I found Bob, it's interesting, man, we met like, seven, about seven years ago, something like that, six or seven years ago, something like that. And it was a similar situation where I was, I was interviewing Bob for my YouTube channel, similar to what we're doing right now. And it was like, I didn't have a pot. It was sort of like a podcast and, you know? And I was like, man, Bob's doing something really cool, you know, I just thought it'd be kind of cool that like to somehow bring this, you know, music technology and music production education into an actual like a in in school classroom, but as curriculum, because I was making videos anyway. And was like, Well, what if, what if this somehow was in schools used by music teachers to help them teach their students how to create music, you know? And then Bob, Bob was already doing it. This is really cool. So we stayed in touch, and that's how we we started working together several years ago and built electronic music elements. But that's my, you know, that's my path into education. It was sort of from the industry coming in. 

Bob Habersat  4:37  
Why do you have to have me follow the Madonna and Shakira and Linkin Park. That's not fair. I can't do that.

Zach Diamond  4:45  
This is absolutely, I would say, musically, our most illustrious podcast episode yet.

Bob Habersat  4:52  
Well, my name's Bob, and I came from a more traditional path to. Going through university to be a music teacher, but I grew up as a like Garage Band guitar player, and when I went to school, I loved music, so I took band, I took choir, but I always felt like I was an outsider, because when I'd go home, I would be tinkering in my garage and recording with my friends and writing music with my buddies and hacking together a bunch of sound cards so I can put more than one mic on our drum player. And when I went to school for music education, I quickly found that what I wanted to do was to give the me's of the world a place I wanted to provide an alternative you know, aperture for music education for the people like me. So through the last 15 years, I've been trying to develop programs to give my students choice and voice in in creating music. So we have a full four year guitar program. I teach at high school. We have a full four year guitar program. We have a full four year like non performance music production program, and we've re branded our general music courses as the commercial music program. So currently I actually teach choir guitar and shoot. I'm just teaching choir and guitar right now, the band director is teaching music production for the first time in forever, because we had a kind of a restructuring of our department, but maybe that we just celebrated our 10 year anniversary for the shed. About 10 years ago, I was teaching a piano class, and I had a student who was not there the day we went over bass clef. And there we were talking about bass clef, and I don't know I wasn't here, so I got a microphone, I I got a webcam, and I duct taped it to a microphone stand, and in our closet I started, I just made a video on bass clef using a little whiteboard, and then I housed it on our music department website. And then when that student was in class again, I was like, Hey, watch watch this video. And then, you know, they got caught up right away. And I kept recording videos of topics that students may or may not have missed. And eventually, everything that we had at our in our department was kind of we codified it, and we made universal language for it, so that a kid in choir or a kid in band or a kid in guitar, it had the same way of talking about maybe rhythm or pitch or scales or whatever. And we had all these videos. And then I started to create curricula for my music production students on creating production through using the MIDI controller as a performing instrument. And then that became a course, and students would just watch all those videos for the course. And it became popular. People used it in covid. And then, you know, Eric found me and interviewed me for for his YouTube channel, and my first guest on my podcast was Eric. We actually, it was my first time using Ableton. Eric and I made the theme music for my podcast on the podcast. At the end of the podcast, this is wild ride. And now we've made this non performance based music production program, and it's kind of been a culmination of all the pedagogy that I've learned through, you know, teaching, like with flipped methodology, and, you know, Eric's industry skills. And you know, I have the best job in the world because I get to go in the classroom. I get to be a musician with my kids, but I also get to be a mad scientist and put together all these new creations and innovative ways of teaching, put in front of the kids and be like, does this work? And sometimes they go, this is awesome, and sometimes they're like, that's horrible. And that's where I'm at. That's me,

Zach Diamond  8:39  
yeah, wow. There is just so much that I want to respond to. There was a lot there. Yeah, wow. Okay, so Eric, the first thing I want to say is I had a very similar experience when I had my daughter. I was also playing music professionally. It was my job, but only for about two, two and a half years, and then I had a daughter, and I was like, getting home at, you know, one in the morning and waking up at 12, you know, noon, and just like, it's not sustainable. And so that also pushed me into the classroom, and I have personally found it more rewarding. I love music, and I still make music, and there is just something about teaching somebody else to make music or or just seeing the spark right when they pick up a microphone and record something and they're like, this is so cool. Can I make ASMR, which is what kids ask all the time, like, there's just something about that that is, it's ineffable, and it's, there's nothing that compares, but yeah, it hits different when it's your own kids, right? When you're teaching your own kids, that's definitely an inspiring first step. So yeah, definitely write with you on that. And then Bob, what you said about like, making music curriculum for the yous of the world, right? And I would say the same thing for the me's, because as a music teacher, I also. I never felt like my teaching style fit in with the sort of like band, choir, or even like general music approach. And I also taught, I used Soundtrap for many years, eight years, to teach middle schoolers to make music. And I really, really liked it. I felt like, and especially because I was teaching a class that not all the students chose to be in. It was, it wasn't an elective. It was like their schedule randomly got them placed in it or not. So not everyone wanted to be there to make music. And yeah, like, I found that Soundtrap was this really incredible platform for kids who had no idea what they were doing to make something that was cool enough to hook them, and then kids who did know what they were doing to make something really, really amazing, right? So yeah, I mean, we are. I feel like the three of us are in good company here. We all have a very similar sort of philosophy and approach. And yeah, I'd love to hear you talk a little bit more about that, Bob, since you mentioned it, talk a little bit more about your experience teaching with digital music. And it sounds like you have a whole program based around this non performed music. How does that make music curriculum more accessible for students?

Bob Habersat  11:09  
Absolutely. And it doesn't just have to be in a music production or general music classroom like you can. You can teach using music technology in any kind of classroom, like we were doing a lot of recording and music production stuff, and I'm showing some of Eric's videos to my choir class. And we're talking about thinking like a DJ, and, you know, thinking about your audience and your outcome, and we're making our own arrangements. I kind of like to think about instead of thinking about music technology, it is more like student centered, project based pedagogy, and you can't so you can do that in marching band class. You can do that in a mariachi ensemble. It works really well, and it lends itself very well to a music production class. But you know how it allows students to, you know, interact at a high level, and there's a high level of engagement, is they feel like they have a voice, because it's not director driven. It's not, here's my my conducting baton, and everyone is following me. It is, I am making a thing, and using a tool like Soundtrap, like you're saying, is the ultimate, you know, entry point is very low, and you can get students feeling really good about what they create, and then that in that gives them the thing that's really important, which is that curiosity for learning. As soon as a student is curious, as soon as, like you said, that light bulb goes off, then their journey can begin. But yeah, digital music and music production, it's the more I teach it. I'm not that old, but I've been teaching music production in general music and also in ensembles, for a long time, and it's starting to all kind of just meld into this thing where when students make when they work together, and they're creating something, where it could be a warm up for an orchestra, or it could be they're making a beat and they're laying down some tracks and they're rapping over it, like when they have ownership of it, I feel like that's where the light bulbs go off the most. And it's so cool to see

Zach Diamond  13:33  
totally, totally. I am 100% on the record as a lover of project based learning. And I would say also, like, you're right? I hadn't even thought about this. But like, learning music production skills is useful for a performing musician, right? Really valuable skills if you're going to pursue that as a career, even if you're not a music producer. 100% but I agree, the project based aspect of it all is what contextualizes all the work that we do in class, right? And and sometimes, sometimes it can be a struggle to motivate kids, but if, like, there's a really clear goal, a clear endpoint, a reason why we're doing this, a project, right, then there's a reason why we're doing it. It's, it's, it's, it's in a context where the kids know what they're being asked to do, and why, right? We and they and they're motivated to do it because they want to see that project through. Eric, how about you? Like, I'm curious, because I feel like DJ isn't the most like traditional type of musician to become a music educator. So, yeah, talk to me about your approach to music education with a with a background in DJing. Yeah.

Eric Jao  14:38  
You know, the thing is, before DJing, way before DJing. It's so funny. I tell my I tell kids this all the time. I'm like, you know, I've been playing piano for like, 43 years. And they're like, wait what? 43 years ago? I started when I was seven. And they're like, wait a minute, what you've been playing for that long? So, like, I came from traditional music, you know? And then I. I played piano for you know, I've took lessons for about eight years, and then decided I wanted to take jazz, because I just wanted to learn jazz. I started learning jazz, and I was like, Oh, hey. I started understanding, like, the why behind the what I was playing. I was just before. I was just reading sheet music, but now I started understanding, okay, well, that's, these are the scales. This is the why. These chords, these are voices? I go, Oh, that's interesting. So then I started being able to figure out songs that I heard on the radio. This is back in the 90s. I'm like, okay, I can kind of figure out how to play that. So I could hear it and figure it out. Then I was like, Wait a minute. Then I started hearing songs in my head. I'm like, Okay, now I can hear things in my head, and I can do that too. So that's where it came from, really, is from piano and and what happened later in life, you know, like, it's not later that much later. As a teenager, I started DJing, and, you know, it's a whole nother set of skills. It's not DJing is not music production. It's related to music production, right? And it's, it, there's, but it's, it's a different set of skills. But what's interesting is when they intersect, you know, when you're thinking about DJing, you know, I'm sorry, when you think about music production, you're thinking about creating music, right? But when you think about DJing, you think about playing music, okay? And in order to play music, you have to understand it, and you have to understand what music is going to do, what the effect is going to have on the listener. So, when I started, you know, teaching kids how to how to do this, I was like, Well, you know, it's kind of like approaching it from a DJs perspective, is like listening to music critically, in the way of, like a What's the song going to do? What is the what is this song going to do when I play it for a group? What effect is this going to have on the listener? So when I'm making my music, or when I'm teaching making music, if you approach it thinking as a DJ first, then you really are thinking about the end in mind, which is like, what, what a lot of things are, you know, like they think, Okay, well, what do I want my listener to feel? What I want them to what experience do I want the listener to have? You can apply this to other media arts or anything creative, like, if you're making a film, what do I want them to feel? What's a message I want to convey? Right? So thinking like DJ first has been the approach. And it's funny, because until I started working with Bob, I didn't realize that's what I was doing. And I was like, okay, that's why, I guess that's what I've been doing this whole time. Because, you know, it's like, just really thinking from that big picture, you know, what is the music going to do for the listener, and then treating it sort of like, you know, big picture. And then you kind of like, shrink it down to its bigger parts, but still kind of, or smaller parts, but still kind of big. What are the ingredients to music? It's almost like being a chef. So you go from like, thinking like a DJ, what's this going to do for the listener. But thinking like a chef is sort of like, hey, you know, you know, there are four main ingredients to music, kind of like their food groups. When you're thinking about food and it's just your drums, your chords, your bass and your melody, your drums, your chords, your bass and your melody. You know, you got energy with the drums, chords add emotion, bass adds power, Melody adds identity. This is the, this is what I've been, you know, this is the approach that I've always taken. Because it's, like, it's really easy to understand for kids too, like, Oh yeah, okay, yeah, that does this, yeah, this. It does. They put those two things together or something else. So that's, that's the approach. So coming from, from a DJs perspective, really understanding what the listener is going to feel and what that we want them to experience before making the music helps kids and anybody really create with more intention, totally.

Zach Diamond  18:27  
And I'm really glad that you made that distinction. I have tried, like, I have friends who are DJs, and I've tried, like, with the two turntables and all the stuff. And it is, it is not a skill set that I have yet is, is absolutely a performance, right? It is not music production. And I guess that it's important to highlight that difference, so that we're not conflating, you know, the two different approaches that you both have. So Eric, like, I guess when you are teaching, is your teaching approach more based around performance than it is production.

Eric Jao  19:03  
Ironically, no Bob and I, it was the opposite, like when we first started talking, when I found Bob, I said, Hey, this is kind of interesting approach. It's not my approach, but I liked his approach for what I understood what he was doing, like I didn't I, because I hadn't really thought of it that way. Basically, Bob's approach when I met him was production through performance. So you must be you create, I'm sorry, you cultivate musician skills in order to be able to produce. But the way I'd been teaching it his was really the opposite. Even though I came from being a performer, I kind of realized was like, well, in my experience, especially with young kids, you know, like I'm talking about, you know, I started, when I started mixed major, I tried to teach five year olds how to create electronic music. And I realized, okay, it's a little early to create, you know, like it's, there's a way to do it, but the approach, very early on, I was like, oh, you know, a lot of students don't. Have that. I've come across a lot of kids don't have a ton of rhythm yet, even when they get to, like, age, you know, especially at age like seven, eight or nine, but then, all right, maybe, maybe around age 11 or 12, they're starting. It depends on the student. But they all love music, and they can all tell like, Okay, well, if you know where the stuff go, if you know where the notes go. If you know what the recipes are, you can make something cool. So that's the approach that I had. It was actually not what you would think. It was actually an approach that was also contrary to the way that I had learned how to make music. When I first started making music, I was I was like 18 or 17 or 18. This is after I started learning the jazz and being able to kind of make what was in my head. You know, I only knew recording quantize, maybe, and layering and then and doing it that way, just multi tracking that way. I didn't know there was step sequencing. I didn't know what that was for many, many years. And I met other DJ producers, and I would make music with them. I go, Oh, he says, How do you do your chords? He's like, I just draw them in. You just draw them in. Let me show you. And then you he's I got a chord chart on the wall. I remember this guy this awesome. He's a great producer. He was a great producer. I went to his house. I saw that. He said, chord charts. I go, Oh, it's interesting. He says, Yeah, I just used that. And then I used that to kind of but he had a really great ear for it. He didn't know the music theory, but he had enough tools where he could just make the thing that was in his head, and he made really good choices. It didn't have any music theory. I go, that's interesting. So when I started experimenting, or really just teaching kids, that's what I realized pretty early on. You can't I need to make it not performance based, because not everybody's got those chops, but they all have the imagination

Zach Diamond  21:39  
Exactly, exactly. I think that that's a really important point. And I think it's this is one of the things that really, I don't think that I could have articulated this at the time, but when I started teaching it, looking back on it now I can see like it felt to me, like performance, performing, playing an instrument, is is a barrier for some kids to accessing, like, the fun part of music education. And that's why I think that something like Soundtrap or garage band or or like, you know, the very basic level DAWs, where you can just pull in a bunch of pre recorded loops and a kid who has no musical experience at all can make a cool beat in, you know, 10 minutes. That's that's something that I think is, like revolutionary in music education. I'm interested to hear Bob then, because, like, you do have music or you do have students moving through a music program, and I would assume that eventually they do learn performance, if they're going into, like, ensembles and choirs and things. And I'm curious to hear about how the skills transfer, if they transfer from one to the other, because I would definitely teach what I would call music concepts like music theory, concepts like rhythm and form through Soundtrap without exactly using those words. But then as kids got older, I would start to throw in the vocabulary they were still working in Soundtrap, and I actually never taught instruments or performance at any level, but, but they started to learn concepts that they like already knew from sixth and seventh grade Soundtrap, and connect them to music theory, right form, rhythm, you know, quarter notes, eighth notes, that kind of thing. So how do you see the concepts transferring from the world of music production to the world of music performance? If they do,

Bob Habersat  23:21  
yeah, they totally do. And we just see if this works. Boop, okay, so the way I used to teach music production is, you know, I had kids learn how to, you know, keep a steady beat here, to, like, start to put things together so that they could create. And ultimately, the goal was to have them create with intention and to be able to, you know, have control of what they're making. But like you said, that performance based element is a barrier for some, and especially students with, you know, development disabilities, physical disabilities, differently abled students like it was impossible. And what some of the new tools in Soundtrap have done, some of these non performance based tools, like the chord triggers, where you can literally look at it looks like an accordion, and you can all describe what I'm seeing here. So you can look at these, these things, or look like little buttons, and then all you have to do is click a button and it plays the chord. And that allows students to, you know, without time, without having to worry about time, they can create with intention and iterate on their creativity and have full control. You know, I feel like a lot of people think that garage band and music production at school is just dragging and dropping loops, which it can be, but you can have students like fully create music without learning something like the piano keyboard. So we've actually started so the music department in my school, the non Performance Base. Or the non ensembles. So they could take piano one, they could take guitar one, or they could take music production one. And the first level of all those, there's no like sheet music in it. There's no music reading. It's all like having fun sounding good on your instrument. So like in guitar class right now, we're learning about power chords, and they're learning the notes in the neck, but they're doing it as a function of, like, let's play a Nirvana song and the first note is an F sharp, which is the second fret of low E string. Like, that's what we're doing in guitar and in piano, I have a method where, you know, they have these shapes that they apply to create chords to be able to play pop songs. And in music production, we're using elements one, so it's, you know, the non performance based music production tools harnessing the, you know, those four elements of music that Eric talked about. But I have, at the beginning of all of my classes, I have them go through and they're using this Looper that I made for the curriculum, where they can bring in guitar, drums, bass and Melody separate from each other, and they could feel what it's like bringing those things in. I feel like in an ensemble class, even students don't have any control of and they're not thinking about that end goal. They might be thinking about the concert, but they're not thinking about what their part is doing related to the whole and how that is affecting the audience. So in my ensemble classes, students make their own arrangements, like in my choir classes, there they have this big grid, and they have, like, intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, ending, and then we're kind of writing out just descriptions of what everyone's doing, and then we improvise based on the framework. We're building energy over time we're thinking about that. So that's all music production skills. And I think it translates. It translates so much more easily than you'd think. You just have to open up your mind to it and go through and create using music technology tool like Soundtrap or Ableton. And, you know, I feel like a lot of music teachers don't know. They have never created before, so they've only recreated, or recreated. They've only, you know, like, maybe they do the Percy Granger, and they're like, oh my gosh, I want to be a lead trumpet player in the band. And then they go to college being, I want to be the lead trumpet player in college band. And then after that, it's like, well, I'll be a band director and I'll play lead trumpet. So right, the context is gone. But as soon as you can get them thinking like a DJ, and you could do that in that those beginning level courses, so the you know, over the last couple of years, since I've been working with Eric, the way that I talked to my students as a students has evolved, where it was super I'm a jazz guitar player, so like, I'm nerd. Like, at the beginning it was like, we're going to talk about major seven sharp 11 today, and the Lydian, the Lydian Scale.

Zach Diamond  27:54  
Bob, can you just play that really quick for our listeners to hear what that sounds like?

Bob Habersat  27:58  
Yeah, this is Major. Major. We know major, but we're gonna sharp, the 11, baby. It's a cool sound. Oh yeah,

Zach Diamond  28:10  
sharp, that 11, Bob, that 11, sharp, that 11. Yeah, go.

Bob Habersat  28:14  
So that's where I was. And you know, think about the if you have 20 kids in the room, how many students are gonna light up when you say sharp the 11. But if you have 20 kids in a room, and you're talking about creating and building energy over time, and you're having them use like something like our our looper, where they're bringing in, you know, drums, bass, chords and melody, and learning how to create form without talking about it and then having them feel it like, like the kadayan or if those are the big general music pedagogues from early in the 1900s late 1800s and they were all about movement and the kinesthetic relationship of you know yourself and the music. And there's a reason why they are the big pedagogues of our profession, and you can do that using non performance based tools in something like Soundtrap, and it translates to every facet of what we're doing at my school.

Zach Diamond  29:13  
Yes, you don't want to talk to a room of 26th graders about sharp elevens. And I just can't express enough how accessible this approach to music teaching made my class for kids who didn't necessarily want to be there and, yeah, like, I didn't spend all year letting them just mess around with loops, right? Because that wouldn't have been very productive either. They would have gotten bored. But Soundtrap has tools that, like you said, that let them explore further right, and find new things. And I could teach them. I could teach them the Soundtrap tools that those were some of the lessons right here is how you do this thing in Soundtrap. It wasn't even exactly a music lesson, but it gave them another little tool in their toolbox. To to have a musical idea. And Eric, like you were saying, Have the musical idea and know how to make it real, right, using Soundtrap. Eric, can you? Can you tell us a little bit more about your approach to teaching, like, how does a lesson go? We've got a little bit of a glimpse into Bob's approach, but tell us about yours. Eric, 

Eric Jao  30:21  
yeah, you know, it's funny, because the thing that there's a very big similarity between what Bob was doing with the shed and what I was already doing with mixed major, I'll tell you a funny story about the first time I taught a group of students where every student had their own computer. Okay, because at the beginning of mix major, it was just me bringing my Ableton Push a keyboard and like, making standing at the front, you know, and we write songs and create songs. I would create songs with, like kindergartners and like first and second graders and third graders, like young kids. But it was, it wasn't one to one, you know, in terms of the technology, in terms of the device. This one was my first time. Was at a micro school in Reston. They brought me in to teach a semester of music production, and I remember the feeling that I had when I remember everything going through my head when I first started speaking, and I've got these 10 students, and I'm like, oh, okay, I get it. These three over here know exactly what I'm talking about. These four over here, they're kind of ahead, so they're a little bored, but then these other three are kind of behind, so they're kind of, they're kind of frustrated. And I'm like, this is number one, this is just like DJing. I have to figure out how to manage this, this, this crowd, and keep them engaged with what I'm saying. But number two, that's the realization. First time I was like, Oh, this is just like DJing. Number two was, I know exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm going to record myself the whatever the project is. I'm going to record every single step in the project, like a screen recording, or, you know, me just talking the thing that I would say to the class, I'm going to record that step by step so they can just rewind me. They can watch it again. They can be like, Oh, I forgot what he said, but I can go to that video and see exactly what I need to do. And that way everybody that needs to go ahead, they can jump ahead if they want or if they need. The more time they can rewind me, and then now I can more easily manage this room I had, you know, I didn't have any teaching spread, and, you know, I didn't I was learning as I was going feet through the fire, right? But that was something that initially happened where I was like, Oh, this is exactly what I need to do. And that's that I still continues that way now. So there's, you know, we do, you know, I teach now, I had a brick and mortar at one point, which was pretty awesome, but I had to close it during covid, and thankfully, that ended up being a blessing. Teaching online. I teach everything online now, group classes online. So like me, for me, a big class is, like, maybe eight students, maybe sometimes we get to 10, but like all in a group setting, and what we do is we rely on videos to be able to address every single student simultaneously without having to be with every single student. So I came up with this idea of video notes. So every student has a we use a Google Doc. Every student just has a Google Doc. Well, I need a way to track all the students learning. Everybody's gonna get a Google Doc. And like, in that Google Doc, you know, I'm gonna check all your projects that you're working on. It's all project based, right? Okay, every student's working on a project. I'm gonna check all your products before class, and I'm going to have notes written down in your Google Doc that are written down, and there's gonna be a video note of me opening your project going, Oh, this is great. You know, like I've got on my computer, I open their project on my computer and give them feedback and go, Okay, this is what you should focus on today. That way I can talk to all 10 of them at the same time. Is the beginning of class. But then the ones that really need the help, I can go to them individually and but still connect with everybody. So that was my solution to that back in the day, I still do that, but that's still the format. I have a project mentor that I brought in to take some of the load off, and that project mentor goes through all those things. So now in the class, I am able to make these sort of meaningful connections with each of the students, and then even give my perspective on top of what the project mentor is doing, but that is a big part of the way we teach. So the students are always able to know what they need to work on at any given point in time. They're always sort of moving forward. One more thing I'd like to say as well is that in with my the online the classes I teach are all online students from all over the country, sometimes Canada, sometimes abroad, will log in. And what we do is, at one point, I was just teaching them project based. It was all project based, but individual projects per student, which we still do. Everybody still has their own. We call it a lab project, but we alternate. Between lab days and group days. So a Lab Day, everybody works on their individual projects. They come into the Zoom. We say, hey, there's announcements and everything, and then sometimes we chat, and then we go to everybody gets a breakout room in zoom. So if you ever use Zoom breakout rooms, imagine each student has own and it's like going into a computer lab. Everybody's got headphones on, nobody's disturbing each other, and the instructor can go between the rooms, sit, listen, and it's completely isolated, and you can give that feedback. That's a Lab Day, right? But then on group days, we have actual, you know, it's actual group either group lessons or group activities. So we've been doing Bob, and I've been developing level two. So all this recording stuff I've turned into units to teach my my students. So like this particular level two, of our elements, curriculum recording, found sounds. We're doing field recording next Bob, but we just finished the found sounds project, and it's basically, it's, it's mirroring the stuff that we're creating for in the Soundtrap world. I'm doing it with Ableton, with my students. And these are really fun, because now they have two projects they work on, like they're working the individual, but they have this one grouping everybody's working on at the end of that, everybody shares, everybody, no matter what, at the end of the like, for example, four week Found Sound unit there, everybody shared at the end and says about their project, and then we move on to the next thing. So that's the way I do it. I don't know. I mean, just why I figured out works best for me.

Zach Diamond  36:31  
Eric, anybody that's watching the video is like seeing me kind of chuckle because you are describing to a tee a modern classroom. Our listeners, modern classrooms. Listeners, right? Like anyone familiar with the model, Tony rose introduced us. I'm not sure how much they explained to you about the model. It is a self paced, blended, mastery based model. And you, you basically developed one independently kind of like calculus, right? Wasn't calculus like, developed by two people independently. It's just like, you know, because, because we all, I was also laughing at the end, because I also taught a found sounds unit in Soundtrap to my sixth graders. It is one of the most fun projects ever. I want to talk more about that in a minute, but it's just so interesting how it's a universal challenge that we face, right? We're teaching a group of students who are not all at the same level. And Bob, you mentioned that you had a student that was absent, they didn't learn. I think you said the bass clef that day, right? So, like videos, it's such an obvious solution, right? We can clone ourselves. We can multiply ourselves. And that doesn't mean that we just like, make the video, drop the video and leave. We're their teacher. You know, we work with them as they work through the videos, and we help them, but that means that we can help them all individually. We give them this specific support that they need. The found sounds unit. Eric, so I want to, I'm curious, like, because I was gonna, I was gonna, I was gonna ask you this before you even mentioned the found sounds unit. But I used that unit to teach my sixth graders microphones, basically for the first time, because they obviously found sounds in the world and had to record them. They hadn't used microphones up until that point. I'm curious, like, curriculum wise, how do, how do these projects all the kids are doing different projects, right? So what unites a unit in your curriculum?

Eric Jao  38:28  
Yeah, so in the group lessons, everybody's working on the same thing, sometimes at different levels. For example, you can be doing found sounds and recording yourself, you know, whatever that is, a pen click, or, like thumping, or doing this for a kick drum, right? But then the the students that are more experienced, they're they're getting in there, and they might be like, they might be taking, like, the click of one sound, the the thump of another sound, putting them together, adding effects, and then resampling that that's the same thing, but it's further right, so, so it's the same idea. So that way students can at different levels, can do the same project in that way, but then on, on the individual side of things, in our with our lab projects, every student is it's you'll have a class with like, super advanced student and super beginner, and it's the reason why it's fine on lab days is because they each have the feedback that they need in terms of what they need to work on, and they have an instructor in there to work with them individually in separate rooms, on the things that they're working on. So on the individual side of things, on the lab days, they're able to focus on that individually, and it's completely fine to have mixed skill levels in the same classroom, in the group days, because there are deeper levels to everything. You know what I mean, you can be on the same project and have a completely different outcome based on your, you know, your level of experience.

Zach Diamond  39:58  
Yeah, totally. And I think that that's one of. Really great things about project based learning, even if you narrow the scope further, right? If you tell every kid, okay, you get a pen click. You get, you know, you hit your mic for the for the kick drum, and you get, like, a middle C, right? They'll all make different songs using those three elements, right? They're different people. There's no way that they're going to make the exact same thing. There's a lot, a lot of freedom, even within that highly sort of restricted context. It can be very powerful educationally.

Eric Jao  40:28  
And one thing when, when I was working with Bob on elements, one thing we realized pretty quickly was was there will be levels of differentiation needed for the students. And we're like, we're like, hey, what about the students that like finish quickly? Like we should probably come up with some stuff for them to do, but that's like related to the the drums. It's keep it in drums. That way. They don't just jump ahead, but they're still going deeper into the subject matter. So for in our elements curriculum, every single lesson has enrichment modules. So they have to, and they have to be unlocked by the teacher. So that was Bob's idea. Was like, Oh yeah, you know, the teacher should just be able to go around and check their work. And if they are worthy of the unlock, they will get unlocked and, you know, and then move forward, and then now they get unlocked the enrichment modules. And some of those go, I mean, some of them go pretty deep, the ones with the level two, the last you have, I don't know if you've seen all of me at Bob, but the ones that I just uploaded for for the latest lesson, or, no, you haven't yet, because I just, I know, I think I just did that. Yeah, it's for 3.1 resampling. It's resampling. So there's like five enrichment

Zach Diamond  41:38  
lessons, and each one of those is, it's a lot of stuff for them to be able to go deeper. So that's, that's one thing I wanted to say, yeah, totally. That's another modern classrooms concept. The we, you know, in modern classrooms parlance, that would be the must do, the should do, and the aspire to do activities. Everybody has to learn the basics, right? But then there are extensions, and I really love, and I appreciate the the idea that differentiation isn't just for the students who are struggling. It's for, I mean, you didn't even mention that, right? You talked about differentiation for students who are who are working more quickly and pulling ahead. They need something to do. So awesome. Awesome there. Bob, I was going to ask you to talk more about how you use videos, because you are in a classroom setting, right? So I'm curious to hear how that goes for you, especially teaching ensembles, if that's a thing. I'm curious to hear about that,

Bob Habersat  42:29  
all right, so I'll talk about non ensembles first. In like my music production classrooms, every student has their device. I introduce the topic. Sometimes I introduce it with direct instruction, so I'm there. Sometimes I give like a lab activity, where they get into it all together. And sometimes I show a video to start it out. And then when we've gone through the project, you know parameters together, then they're on their own, and they are all you know, at their stations with elements, and they can see all the steps. And I've done this for shoot eight years, where students are going through steps in music production and in guitar class. And what it allows me to do is I get to walk around, and I get to make meaningful connection with them and give them real time feedback, like I grade in person, I'm able to give them, you know, what they need to hear when they need to hear it, and I can just manage everyone's mastery of the different topics, like Eric was saying, you have the the unlock button. You have to demonstrate mastery of the main objectives before you can move on. Because, you know, we're human beings, we naturally want to, we actually want to pull forward to do the next cool thing. It's not fun to show that you really understand how to make an eight bar drum pattern. You just want to make the halftime thing because you heard it in a Drake song. That's cool. Let's harness that curiosity. But first you have to show me that you understand how to do understand how to do the regular thing. So I we have differentiation and a little bit of pacing, things that can, you know, kind of are fluid within our units of a general music classroom, because we have that that deep enrichment and remediation for students, the differentiation online, so we use those videos, but like in ensembles, I have a lot of training videos, and what I call, like, learn along scores that I've made today in choir, we were doing, you know, there, there's this method that I've created where they can hear different parts of chord progressions. They could sing them in small groups. So we what's on what we're doing. We're doing birds of a feather by Billie Eilish, and we went over the chord structure for it. They got into small groups. They use my videos to memorize what the feeling of singing these different parts of a triad is like with these. Certain voicings. And then they were able to work in small groups to create their own chordal pads and punches and ostinatos and riffs and stuff within that chordal structure, because they went through that video, and then they can record it, listen back, iterate, and then they can, you know, all work to try to make something, you know, in their little group, which wouldn't be possible without, you know, those videos. And then, you know, we have students getting ready for our all state. And I made a bunch of videos on, you know, hearing different parts of, you know, the different core qualities, and I put that on our LMS, and students are watching the videos and listening and sitting along so, you know, it can complement the ensemble. But, like, we haven't learned a full song yet. We're I flipped it into a process based choir classroom. We are not I want them to be able to read, and I want them to be able to, like, improvise and come up with their own parts of things. And it's so cool to see it actually like i is the first time I've taught choir in 15 years, but I went to school to be a vocal instructor, so I get to take everything I've learned, and now I'm putting it all and it's like, it's, it's so it's so cool to see. But yeah, the videos that are helping in the ensembles too. Even in marching band, we had videos for every type of move they would do, and if they weren't there, or if they were in sectionals, and like, Oh, shoot. What's the command for this thing? They could just look at the video and, oh, there it is. It's nice, nice reminder.

Zach Diamond  46:28  
Thing, totally, yeah, it's, it's like, a resource. It becomes a resource, right? It's not like, it's replacing the teacher. It's just a resource that you provide for them. And you know, you mentioned earlier, the student who is absent, right? Like, if a student's not there, the video, basically, it's a tool for you to not have to repeat yourself however many times that you have absent students, right? Awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. I'm curious. So you talked about triads and chordal pads and ostinatos. I know what those things mean. I have a degree in music. Do you use that language with your students? Or, I guess these are advanced students who are taking choir. Or are they not like? How does that come from traditional music education, to put it that way? Or are those do the students in your music production classes know those terms as well?

Bob Habersat  47:19  
We use those terms in elements. And I found early like, you can create new terms or use terms that aren't, you know, industry specific, but there's like, a huge push right now for college and career readiness and making articulation with the industry. And I could call a pad a pad, and I can call an Astana on Asana. It's just a word. It's the way that it's introduced and the way that it's connected to the student that gets, you know, traditionally, music theory has this, like, you know, there's the meme of the rocket scientist saying, Oh, it's just rocket science and or something about music theory and the rocket scientist or something. But it's all in the implementation of, you know, how it is delivered. And I feel like coming from the music production again, thinking like a DJ, you just listen to music and you like, what does that sound if we can give it a term, even if it's something that sounds super complex, like ostinato or pads and punches or a triad or something, then we've just identified that sound. But everyone hears those sounds, so yeah, I use them in my beginning class. They use my advanced classes. And when they go to audition for all state, or when they go to a college audition, or we're doing college entry, or any or that they go to do a gig, then they have terms like, they also talk about the, you know, running a low pass on the vocal mic, so we don't get feedback. But in our we have a, we have a student run entertainment label that hosts a weekly concert in our media center. That's awesome. So there's, like, a lot of you know, terms that we do there too. And I think the kids like it, especially if you're real with them. It's like, this is, these are the words that we that we use as professionals. So why not use them?

Zach Diamond  49:13  
Yeah, totally. And that's what I was getting at. I think I've been talking a lot lately on the podcast, because I just sort of moved into the world of CTE and career readiness, right? And it's like there is an authenticity to that, right? Because you, the way that you said them, it just, it struck me, like, it just kind of, you just, like, rattled off the words very naturally, right? And I was, I'm like, imagining you doing that with a student, and, like, it's just very impressive to think that the student understands that, because those are complicated ideas, and they're three different ideas, right? Well, I guess chords and triads, not so much. But like, Yeah, you don't have to, like, teach it like vocabulary. Sometimes you can just use the words. And if you are talking about something, the students will understand. You're using a word to describe a thing that they can conceptualize, and it's authentic, right? Right to be like, This is how we talk about this thing. It's just a word like you said, Wow. All right, well, we're so close to wrapping up, which I don't really want to do, because this is just absolutely fascinating. And honestly, I kind of want to hear you play more piano, Bob, because this is something that has never happened on the podcast. Guitar. Yes, I see he's pointing. He's pointing to the guitars. We've never had someone with a piano ready to go for the podcast, so that's awesome. But before we close out, a couple last quick questions for you guys, what do you both hope to see in the future, and what goals do you have? And this can be personal or professional, or for your students or anything, sure.

Eric Jao  50:36  
Yeah, happy to you know, I'm really what I think I found working with Bob on electronic music elements has been so exciting in terms of the things that we're creating. It's been awesome working with Bob on this and like seeing that grow and as it you know, we we launched it last year, summer of last year, and things just keep getting better and better. So it's really encouraging, and it's awesome to see where this is going. I have a lot of lot of high hopes and for elements, and I think it's going to we're going to do great things with it.

Zach Diamond  51:11  
That's awesome. Awesome. Bob, how about you? Yeah,

Bob Habersat  51:16  
I would like to make it easy and accessible for teachers around the country, around anywhere to be able to provide high quality music production and also media arts lessons that are sequenced, that are taught by you know, industry professionals want to make that available to everyone. So like, we just finished elements one, we're working on elements two, working on a capstone. We're working on an Ableton course. And there's, there's Media Arts tie in. So there's, you know, video game music, there's podcasting, there's music for film, there's all these things that students need, and it's hard if you don't have any experience or expertise in those things. So we'd like to create a full four year path that teachers can easily implement. And we have just opened up our professional development that we normally do over the summer. We do a free two week PD, over the summer, we just opened it up for free to anyone, and and you just have to go to eMusic elements, calm, backslash. PD, you could take it. And we're actually working now with the University of San Diego through inspire edu, where you can take it, if you get the digital badge, you can pay the University of San Diego $100 and get a full graduate hour, graduate credit hour that you can use for your licensure. But it's not about that. It's about again, once you see that you can make stuff outside of music production, even if you're an English teacher and you are you haven't, like written a poem before, or if you're a it'd be really hard to do it in science, because a lot of things have been discovered. But you know, you got to, you got to make stuff to be able to bring that authenticity and that, you know, that that genuine sense of curiosity to your students, we want to be able to give that to teachers. So that's what our goals are, is to have that full pathway where teachers can easily through our instruction videos for students, for our instruction videos for teachers and through the PD, you know, give the students the means, the use, the USS, the the other 80% that aren't in band or choir a place, because they deserve that place. And our world is going to be a better place if we're all, you know, artists.

Zach Diamond  53:37  
Yeah, that's amazing. And yeah, I mean, I'm sure that most music teachers got into teaching music because they love music. We don't want to lose sight of that. You know, it's funny, as you were talking, I remembered a I went to a PD a long time ago. I was, I was living in Peru, in Lima, Peru, and I was teaching English to university students, and we had a PD by a woman named Penny ur an author. She was incredible. And we were using these, like, very, like, lame textbooks that we had to use to teach English, right, with a very standardized curriculum. And what this the what penny or what she said, What, like, stuck in my mind was mangle the textbook. She was like, take that textbook, tear it apart, like flip it backwards, do everything wrong with it, mangle the textbook, be creative in how you teach. And I feel like that's happening now in music education. I think that the way that all three of us, well, YouTube, mostly, and but this is how I taught music too. Like the way that we approach music teaching, I think, is just such a more rich and enriching and fun way to engage with music as a young person, as a student. So I feel validated by this conversation, because that's mostly what I was doing too in middle school. And. Right? And just, yeah, what a fun What a fun time, you guys. This has been absolutely fantastic. You just mentioned a bunch of sites and links, and I will link those in the show notes for our listeners. But besides that, how can our listeners connect with you two if they'd like to learn more?

Eric Jao  55:18  
LinkedIn is good for me. LinkedIn, we can put the link, I guess there just LinkedIn slash Eric, how, E, R, i, c, j, A, O, that's a good place to if you want to reach out, connect to me. You can also just email me. You know, it's pretty, pretty easy to get a hold of. So there you go.

Bob Habersat  55:36  
Okay, you can email me at Bob, at shed the music calm. You can also go to shed the music calm to learn about our free modern guitar curriculum. And you can go to eMusic elements.com to learn more about electronic music elements. Definitely check out our free professional development eMusic elements.com, backslash.

Zach Diamond  55:59  
PD, love it very well done. Were there any sharp elevens in there? I couldn't hear under, under your voice. They're all just major sevens. I heard the major seven

Bob Habersat  56:08  
these are all major sevens. I wasn't cool enough for sharp elevens. Yeah, sorry, there's, there's your sharp 11

Zach Diamond  56:17  
Well, thank you guys so much. This was wonderful, wonderful conversation. So much appreciate having you both on Eric and Bob. Thank you for coming on the podcast.

Eric Jao  56:27  
Thank you for having us. 

Bob Habersat  56:29  
Thanks very much.

Zach Diamond  56:34  
Thank you so much for listening. Listeners, remember you can always email us at podcast@modernclassrooms.org, and org, and you can find the links to topics and tools we discussed, as well as more info on this week's announcements and events in the show notes for this episode at podcast dot modern classrooms.org We'll have this episode's recap and transcript uploaded to the modern classrooms blog on Friday, so be sure to check There or check back in the show notes for this episode if you'd like to access those. And if you enjoy our podcast and it's been helpful in supporting you to create a blended, self paced, mastery based learning environment, we would love if you could leave a review that does help other folks find our podcast. And of course, you can always learn the essentials of our model if you want to go beyond the podcast through our free course at Learn dot modern classrooms.org and you can follow us on social media at modern class. Proj, that's P, R, O, J, we are so appreciative of all the hard work you do for students and schools. Have a great week, and we'll be back next Sunday with another episode of the modern classrooms project podcast

Transcribed by https://otter.ai