Jason Raymond and Eric Maier

Raymond’s and Maier’s innovative teaching idea, “Make Music + Youth Culture Incubator,” is designed to provide a mentorship program for three specific populations: middle school students, high school students and audio production professionals. The Make Music Club is a hands-on sound production after school program for area middle school students to work in a project-based, individualized/collaborative club setting where they can create beats, develop lyrics, devise sequences for drum patterns using MIDI and/or samples, and create tracks with instruments or recording vocals in the sound booth. This program is a collaboration with the Future Fields Recording Studio in Burlington, Vermont, and high school students enrolled in the Digital Media Lab for audio production, middle school students and a rotating mix of current recording artists in a variety of genres and also work in music production. The model is structured around circles of mentorships, with high school students mentoring middle schoolers in audio production, and professional audio producers and artists mentoring high school and middle school students.