Disciplinary Expert Tour - Leah Getz (Recording Artist)

For this project, I interviewed one of the best up-and-coming music artists in Central Illinois (no bias whatsoever)...my sister, Leah Marie Getz (look her up on Spotify)

For my tour, I went inside her recording studio that she has set up in her apartment and she walked me through the various items of tech she uses in her music-making/recording/production process (pictured below).

Tech Involved.

• Ableton Live - This is the primary program Leah uses to record, mix, and master her songs. It receives input through MIDI data or audio recorded directly into the program. Once in the program, the sound can be edited in all sorts of ways to bring about the final product.

• Akai MPK mini - This is a MIDI keyboard that Leah uses to record various drum loops and bass tracks (pictured below). It talks to Ableton via USB, and it is played the same way one would play a larger electric keyboard (which she also uses).

• Splice / GarageBand / YouTube - Leah uses several software programs to record loops that will then feed directly into Ableton. Splice and YouTube are both web-based and have many public domain tracks that can be downloaded as mp3 files to be used in programs like Ableton. GarageBand can be found on any Apple device, and it is basically an easier, simpler version of Ableton. Like a lot of new artists, Leah started writing songs on GarageBand before switching to a more sophisticated program.

Leah's Songwriting Process

Leah walked me through her process from getting the idea for a song to eventually posting it on her SoundCloud channel.

First, she begins with a lot of doodling on her keyboard or guitar to find a chord progression she likes. She says she has recently been using YouTube and Splice for this process because they have lots of loops in the styles of her favorite artists.

Leah's really good with words, and her poetry and lyric writing is a beautiful science. She said that it's hard for her to describe her exact process because it often changes from song to song.

Once the song is ready to go, she goes into Ableton and sets the backing tracks and drum beats to the required tempo. She often uses her MPK Mini to do a lot of this work. After that is complete, she begins recording the vocals, often recording herself on multiple tracks for added harmony. Once everything is recorded, she begins the long, tedious process of editing. This includes adding effects to the vocal tracks, balancing the audio in the mixing board on Ableton, and eventually being content with the finished product. From there, she exports the song to her Soundcloud profile, but she doesn't set it to "public" until she's listened to it several times on her own to make sure it's just right. "They say you should listen to your music a lot in the car because that's where most people listen to music these days," she said. "I want to make sure it sounds just right in that setting before I make it available online."

Tech Implications

These pieces of technology, all of which are affordable and operable by non-music professionals, have completely revolutionized the lives of singer-songwriters like Leah. Decades ago, if a person wanted to get noticed for their song writing ability, it required uprooting their life to move to a Nashville or a New York City type of place (not that that guaranteed success anyway). Nowadays, in the privacy of her own apartment, Leah can turn out single after single of high-quality, highly-produced music content with a few clicks of her talented fingers. Through companies like CDBaby, Leah is then able to release her music to the world in hopes of being discovered on the world wide web.

Teaching Implications

By mastering and modeling these items of music technology, I am able to open that door of creative possibility to my students. While I do teach Music Theory and Music Composition at my school, what Leah showed me today was a whole different side of the music production world. While the pace of change differs by community, the centuries-old tradition of forcing students to learn music notation by studying the likenesses of Bach, Beethoven, and Mozart in order to achieve musical success is deteriorating. Students these days want to immerse themselves in these creative environments (like GarageBand and Ableton) that allow them to make amazing sounding works of art in a fraction of the time it took students of the previous generation. Leah is a great example of that. Due to dyslexia, she was never able to keep up with her peers in a traditionally music classroom setting because the note-reading was too difficult for her. Now that she has found her stride in the world of modern songwriting, she is thriving as a musician, and her creative output as a 21-year old is quite impressive.

I would really like to do a better job of teaching kids the basics of digital songwriting. I have given assignments in the past in GarageBand, but I never really followed it up with any sort of comprehension check for mastery. I also run a group for students interested in music composition, but we've mostly focused on the pen-and-paper, traditional, notation-based forms of composition. I feel like I should "update my software" and bring The Composers' Guild into the 21st century with more singer-songwriter benefits and resources.

One of my former students is finishing up her undergrad degree at Illinois State right now (Lauren Schaff), and while she was a fantastic composer during her days at MHS, she has since transitioned to being a singer/songwriter herself. She just released her first EP under the name Lillian Bloom during the pandemic.

People like Leah and Lauren show me how the "do, mean, relate, think, and be" of music technology influences the modern world of the singer-songwriter. They are able to do so much more than musicians could in the past simply because of the speed and efficiency that is built into these software programs. The meaning of music has never been easier to communicate thanks to social media platforms. In addition to her songwriting, Leah will often post videos of herself explaining her music on her Snapchat and Instagram stories. This allows singer/songwriters to relate to their fans in much more personal ways, allowing them to build their brand in online communities rather than the local clubs and live music venues. The thinking process of songwriting has completely been turned on its head, as there really isn't much music education needed anymore to produce pretty high-quality recordings. So many of these software programs have built-in MIDI sounds that rival any group you could hire in Nasvhille. So much of the process can be automated too, so you don't actually have to be able to play any of the instruments you want to write for. Lastly, the being of a musician in the 21st century is also drastically different thanks to this technology. In Leah's case, she has found her true sense of identity and personal passion thanks to this craft, and due to her school experience, she might not have had these opportunities without the technology she was able to leverage to launch her career.

Leah (right), my wife, and I performing at an outdoor concert in Peoria in 2018.