The Magic of Musical Collaboration with Boredomfighters - Music Production Podcast #372
Tyler Manning and Jordan Dale are part of Boredomfighters, a nonprofit that brings music-making and collaboration to kids across the United States. Boredomfighters conducts workshops, assemblies, and "Instrument Gardens" to empower young people to create music on the fly using modern production techniques.
Tyler and Jordan spoke to me about their work in Boredomfighters and how they've been inspired by inspiring young people to create music. They share their techniques to help participants feel safe to drop inhibitions and have fun creating music together. The principles they share apply to any musical situation. We had a blast talking about their work and listening to music their audience created at a recent event.
This episode is sponsored by Baby Audio, makers of incredible music software. Use the code MPP15 to save 15%! https://babyaud.io
Listen on Apple, Spotify, YouTube
Takeaways:
Engaging in music production and creative expression through simple rules, examples, and creative constraints.
Encouraging vulnerability and the impact of technology on music education and creativity.
The importance of fostering intrinsic motivation and creativity in young learners.
The challenges and opportunities in engaging and inspiring young people to explore music and creative arts.
The significance of role models and exposure in shaping musical interests and aspirations.
The value of creating an ideal learning environment for music exploration and self-expression.
The use of vocal prompting and chat GPT in music workshops with kids.
The importance of capturing the energy of a space through music.
The ripple effect of their work and the empowerment of people to do similar workshops in their communities.
Links:
Boredomfighters - https://www.boredomfighters.org/
Boredomfighters Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/boredomfightersfoundation/
Boredomfighters YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@theboredomfighters
Boredomfighters SoundCloud - https://soundcloud.com/boredomfighters
Brian Funk Website - https://brianfunk.com
Music Production Club - https://brianfunk.com/mpc
5-Minute Music Producer - https://brianfunk.com/book
Intro Music Made with 16-Bit Ableton Live Pack - https://brianfunk.com/blog/16-bit
Music Production Podcast - https://brianfunk.com/podcast
Save 25% on Ableton Live Packs at my store with the code: PODCAST - https://brianfunk.com/store
Thank you for listening.
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Episode Transcript:
Brian Funk (00:01.305)
Jordan and Tyler, it's awesome to have you guys here. Thanks for showing up, first of all, and I think you're doing some really cool stuff. So I'm very excited to get a chance to talk to you both.
Tyler Manning (00:11.086)
Yeah, thanks for having us.
Jordan (00:12.553)
Absolutely, thank you. Love what you're doing.
Brian Funk (00:14.233)
Yeah, so, you know, you guys work a lot with like young kids and, you know, people trying to, that maybe might not have a lot of experience with music making. And I think it's such a cool thing to open people's eyes. I mean, I'm sure you guys know that fun feeling. And I bet a lot of people listening to like when they first realize like, Ooh, I could do this. I can, this is something that's not like impossible. Like I grew up thinking that.
rock stars were struck by lightning on mountaintops. And it wasn't until a friend showed me that he played guitar and taught me enter Sandman that I was like, my God, I could play the songs I heard on the radio. It never occurred to me before. So it's really awesome that you guys are doing that. How'd you get motivated to bring this to kids too? Because it's a lot of work and it's a challenge.
Jordan (00:54.28)
Hahaha.
Tyler Manning (01:12.234)
Yeah, I mean it all started with being in a festival environment all the time. Like a lot of us that got this going were throwing festivals, working festivals, playing festivals, doing different things in that environment. So we just saw an opportunity to create stuff while we were hanging out with people in between the sets that we wanted to see and we were around all these creative people. And so we just started making music out of things in public spaces and just like lowering the barrier of entry by...
Cause we're all electronic music producers mostly, so we've made music out of very simple things that get extrapolated on and doesn't require like deep layered melodic songwriting skills to create a beat that people can head nod to. So we just inviting people like, yeah, yeah, you have a wobbly metal thing, like come over here and record that wobbly metal thing and let's see what happens. And
Doing that a bunch got us invited to a school to talk about the music industry. And they didn't even invite us to the school to make music. It was just to talk about the work we've been doing in this space. And we thought the best move would be to make a song with the kids about being in the music space. And so we went to this Montessori school and made a beat with the kids. And it was just obvious in that moment that the stuff that we love to do was stuff that we do all the time.
when we're just hanging out, bringing that energy into a space where there's all these useful youthful minds and creative energy like that.
It was really an abundant experience for everybody and it was obvious that not many schools were actually making beats, bringing music production to the schools. So there was no questioning that. And that first day that we got to work with kids in that way, it was like, there's something here. There's like a gap in music education and there's all this music industry around all these gaps in music education. So.
Tyler Manning (03:10.661)
let's just go make beats in as many schools as we can. And I don't know, it just is like naturally unfolded where it just felt like the right thing to do. And the more that we do it, the more people are like, wow, that seems so fun. And it actually is so fun. So we're just having a blast doing it. And that's the main motivator is just waking up excited to do the thing.
Brian Funk (03:29.745)
Nice. How about you Jordan? How'd you get into it? Same story, working together?
Jordan (03:35.625)
Yeah, I mean a little different. They were already into it a bit. I popped in, okay, let me see, two, I guess three years ago and some change.
You know, I was just working at another job, but I had some friends that had crossed paths and wanted us to align, and I just reached out sometime, hey, I hear you do this thing, is there any way I can help? And I remember the time he was just like, yeah, we've got this workshop coming up, you wanna pop in, maybe bring us in? I definitely brought more than one, but that's what started, started.
Tyler Manning (04:06.05)
sin.
Jordan (04:10.793)
the whole path and then just where I was at my job at the time, it was after doing it the first time and saw the impact that was able to make like in the same way. Yeah. It was so freeing of just this free form of going into a space of these kids where it was truly like, it was a center of kids that have had, different domestic abuse things happen. And so just to see them all super excited, knowing that they have other things outside of there that, you know, we at least distracted their minds for a bit. It, it,
It just felt really good that like I did it as all that I could at my other job until it's like, I can't even make room for like this other thing anymore. They're not accommodating me. I got to try to make the jump to, you know, dive into this more. So, yeah, it started actually helping more full time of trying to help with the direction of this last year. And yeah, just workshops and festivals all the time, making it happen.
Brian Funk (05:10.573)
That's cool. And you know what you just said too about like helping people forget about life for a little while, just have fun is probably one of the biggest things that got me into music and keeps me coming back to music too. It's this, you get into this other world for a little while and then when you come back to your life, you're looking at your problems from a different perspective and you have some kind of like clarity sometimes or just.
a break in whatever emotions you're feeling so that you can sort of reassess, you know, if you're angry, like that's gone and now I can like analyze it instead of stewing in it. And that's such an important thing for kids to develop. I mean, all of us, but especially kids at a young age.
Jordan (05:37.896)
Right.
Jordan (05:50.952)
Absolutely.
Jordan (05:54.887)
Yeah.
right? Just the healthy ways to regulate. Yeah. Anyway, how you're feeling and just dealing with the world. If you don't have someone to talk to, such a great way to express yourself. And like, yeah, when we see this, you know, I even feel with kids, like we deal with kids so often, like it's even very obvious that there's like a point in age group where they're more aware of their peers and they're less willing to like be the first one to get on the mic. You know, I, I hope I don't look silly or whatever. And you know, it's,
I think it's important just everybody realizing, you know, taking yourself less seriously and being able to express yourself in front of others and alone, you know.
Brian Funk (06:38.57)
Do you have an idea of what age that is out of curiosity? Roughly.
Jordan (06:42.47)
I'd say it's somewhere between kindergarten and second grade. It varies with individuals, but it's somewhere in there. We've had younger and every kid is ready to go.
Brian Funk (06:51.337)
All that at Young.
Tyler Manning (06:54.299)
Hmm.
Jordan (06:55.365)
But like somewhere in there, it's just, it trickles in. And then I'd say like, yeah, between third, fourth and up, they're just all like, we have to earn their trust a little more. I feel like it feels like with those age groups and understandable, you know, said, you want me to be weird in front of my friends that we already call each other weird all the time? I don't know. Like, so yeah.
Brian Funk (07:05.353)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (07:14.025)
huh.
Tyler Manning (07:16.57)
The threshold is really like the freshmen in college. I think that's the most resistance I've ever experienced in like 500 workshops. The freshmen in college, because they're like new to this environment and they are like, their survival depends on being cool around these people. And so the effort it takes to like get them to get on the mic and express themselves in front of a room full of people, it's like.
when you're young, it's like, who cares? I'm just doing this thing. And you slowly become more and more dependent on what people think of you. I will say that I feel like once we get past 30 years old, people have started to let go of that a little bit more, depending on what kind of traumas they've dealt with. But the sweet spot, I believe, is the middle school, honestly. I think that they're still not too cool. They still love their mom and dad.
and they still are down to go on family adventures. And so any sort of programming that's built for them is still acceptable to take in. Plus the middle schoolers have what we call laptop sovereignty, where they have the ability to go and make music in their own time. So that's a really sweet spot to catch them while they're like, what am I into? And then before they go off and explore all those other dimensions of their psyche in high school, it's like...
Jordan (08:09.38)
Hehehehehe
Brian Funk (08:13.926)
Mm.
Tyler Manning (08:38.647)
Music. okay. I can get with this and then they go into high school with that perspective.
Brian Funk (08:40.101)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (08:44.229)
That's cool. I didn't think about that. They finally allowed to do their own thing, you know, kind of unsupervised and trusted. I thought you were going to say middle school would be that time when they get difficult because I teach high school English. I don't think I told you guys this. and I have, ninth grade mostly, and I find them to be very hesitant to.
Jordan (08:59.941)
Sure. Mm -mm, I don't think I can do that.
Brian Funk (09:11.748)
align themselves with anything. They won't tell me what music they listen to, they won't tell me what they like, they'll tell me everything they hate. They have no problem with that. But they are very concerned and, like you said, worried about what people think. I mean, I remember that feeling myself too. But I guess when you see little kids, the way they're just so like, whatever, I'll do it and get it into it.
Tyler Manning (09:18.357)
Mmm.
Jordan (09:18.372)
Yeah, that's right.
Tyler Manning (09:38.005)
Hmm.
Jordan (09:38.661)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (09:39.619)
of fighting each other over it sometimes too. But the older kids in high school tend to be a little more like, yeah, this is what I like and whatever, you know? They're a little more comfortable, but I guess once you switch to like a new environment again, like you said, like college, now again, you got to start over and it's scary again.
Tyler Manning (09:41.767)
Mmm, hands in the dirt.
Jordan (09:42.276)
yeah.
Tyler Manning (09:50.772)
Hmm
Tyler Manning (10:01.907)
Mm -hmm that could be a good thing to analyze actually it's like because I was a freshman in high school also are pretty tough cookies because the same same concept probably so I guess we could probably look at Really like how long these people have been around the people that they're in front of when they're doing it has a lot to do with that because it's like
Sometimes their peers and they've built up all of these like traumas internally within their peer group so they like are worried about something versus like a new group of people who everybody is chain reaction learning to become friends with each other. So I guess that dynamic is worth exploring. I would say probably freshmen in both of the worlds are just new to the environment. But the high schoolers, yeah, they like.
Brian Funk (10:42.433)
here.
Tyler Manning (10:46.513)
They all have their own inner connected way of one -upping one another. I'm sure you see that. Yeah.
Brian Funk (10:52.384)
yeah, that's like the whole thing. It's a constant figuring out the pecking order, torturing your best friends, like putting your mashed potatoes in their backpack, punching them in the arm on their birthday. That's my best friend. All this stuff happens. It's a constant just like, what can I get away with? And everyone's changing so fast and you're trying to figure out who you are. And...
Tyler Manning (10:57.745)
Yeah, yeah.
Tyler Manning (11:03.957)
Tell me this really happened. This really happened at your school.
Jordan (11:11.301)
That's awesome.
Tyler Manning (11:14.864)
Mmm.
Brian Funk (11:20.735)
where you fit in. And I remember that myself, like trying out different, even like different styles of clothing, like, all right, maybe I'm going to be a surfer kid. Maybe I'm a skater. Maybe I'm like, maybe I wear sports outfits, you know? Like you don't really know until you sort of try things out a bit.
Tyler Manning (11:30.48)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (11:39.854)
And then what hits could shape your entire reality. If a certain day you wear the surfer outfit and just happens to be on that day, like someone you're crushing on liked that outfit, that could be like your destiny. Now you're a surfer forever because it worked for you. That could be applied to music. Yeah.
Brian Funk (11:51.422)
Right?
Jordan (11:55.205)
You
Brian Funk (11:55.389)
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty wild to think about. Sure. Yeah, I bet there's probably a history of like some kind of validation that made me keep it, you know, keep going with it and something must have happened. Some reward was triggered.
Tyler Manning (12:06.797)
Yeah, yeah, yep. That's hopefully what we create with this opportunity is like that moment of validation that makes people be like, okay, I'm a surfer. Like I'm definitely a surfer. I'm definitely a musician. Like I can rap. Did you guys hear that? Like I got flows, you know? And then everything changes. Their whole peer group is like, wow.
Brian Funk (12:20.764)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (12:27.772)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (12:32.652)
You just went up there and did that. I was so afraid to do that. I couldn't believe I didn't know you could do that. You know, that like shapes people's whole future.
Brian Funk (12:40.347)
Yeah, yeah, that happens with everybody kind of when even when you're collaborating with other musicians, there's that kind of weird feeling out point where you're like, I don't know if I'm comfortable with that. How do you try to get people past that? You know, this I think this could be advice for whether you're working with kids or adults or just other musicians, getting people to sort of become because you have to become vulnerable. How do you get them there?
Tyler Manning (12:47.052)
Mmm.
Tyler Manning (13:08.627)
Yeah, we have a lot of tools. Jordan, you go ahead.
Jordan (13:12.038)
Yeah, I was about to say we have a bunch of tools that we try to help with that, but like in, you know, just, you know, creative setting, you know, learn the rules so you can break them. We just do, try to do our best job of setting up some really simple rules and examples. And we do this thing called I do, we do, you do, where like maybe I give an example of something real quick. Hey, do you want me to help you? Okay, your turn. But I mean, just a really easy example of like being able to be afraid and not know what to do. Like,
I'm sure you've had people just say like I don't know how to play the keys. I don't know how to play a key What do you mean? You're in this key? Something we try to do real quick and not even put too much thought into it is just like hey do your thing do whatever you want but hit the black keys and we're putting them in the constraints of like if you you know do the theory where like E flat minor pentatonic or whatever and something they play will fit in there and so we don't always do the job of explaining
that on the front end but just a simple rule, some simple constraints, now go to town. Like doing what we can to give them the best chance to set up with success with little instruction as possible.
Tyler Manning (14:26.439)
Yeah, we really just need like one person to help us set off a chain reaction of empowerment. You know, it's like, because when when we start the workshop, it's like.
Jordan (14:30.15)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (14:36.007)
We first, we just get everybody to chicken neck together. And that's like the opening of the show where we check the rhythm, we say, okay, like who here does not have rhythm? And then a few people are like, yeah, I'm not musically inclined. And then we get everybody bobbing their head to the metronome. And we're like, this is chicken neck. And we're just, I start balking like a chicken sometimes. That helps too, I would say with the.
you know opening up the vulnerability is to just be like silly and vulnerable ourselves. We kind of like we have to not be afraid in front of people to be a little silly so that way they feel like they're I do, we do, you do situation but the chicken egg opens the portal.
Jordan (15:17.991)
You know, we always try to say there's no bad sound. So like even if we, we might try to on purpose make a weird sound and just, you know, throw it in simpler and do something to it. Be like, Hey, like literally it's fine. We, we, we're going to make this cool, you know, try to just earn that trust through showing them sound examples and whatnot.
Brian Funk (15:37.749)
I think I do that a lot myself in the classrooms where I sort of sacrifice myself a lot, sacrifice my own cool to try to let people feel like it's okay. This guy's being silly. Yeah. Right.
Tyler Manning (15:45.732)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Jordan (15:46.695)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (15:51.651)
Yeah, they're like at least I can at least be cooler than that guy so
Jordan (15:55.047)
Yeah, exactly. I try to make it as uncool as possible so it's like, you can do better this. Like, what I do sometimes is I'll like go up to the mic and, I stub my toe, pretend to stub my toe on my way up and then just put a vocoder on it. And it's like, you don't get any of the, you're creating all the tone and stuff now. And you're like, wow, that wasn't cool. But it sounds pretty cool like after, you know, the process that you're trying to explain to us. So just whatever we can do.
Brian Funk (16:21.652)
Yeah, hey, that's like an important thing to do in our music anyways, not to judge things too harshly and just go with an idea, follow it and see what you can come up with. I always get stuck when I start overthinking things or trying to decide if it's cool or clever, you know, musically intelligent. If I'm thinking if it's gonna impress anybody, that's always where it goes wrong.
Jordan (16:31.944)
Definitely.
Tyler Manning (16:45.569)
Do you ever do, I think you do, I feel like I've seen you do these, like timed music making challenges where you only have so long. Yeah, yeah.
Brian Funk (16:54.035)
Yeah. yeah, that's amazing what happens when you do that. Yeah.
Jordan (16:56.776)
my goodness. Like I could spend the whole first half of just like, aw dang it, look at the time and be like, I gotta make decisions. And then just, it'll even happen in half the time that I really should have taken. It's great. I love deadlines.
Brian Funk (17:04.594)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (17:11.121)
Hmm. Yeah, that's something you guys do. The,
Tyler Manning (17:12.351)
Yeah, I think that pressure helps. Yeah. Because the workshop is one hour mostly. So we have one hour to get through beats, melodies, and vocals. Like we don't allow time to really overthink stuff. We're like, yeah, it works. We're moving. And then like we'll start moving forward. And then if it ends up not working, like we just take it out and let it let there be space. Not every layer.
ends up working all the time, but we let people hear what it would be like and we start stacking things up and it's a creative process of like deciding how many broken didgeridoo sounds can we actually stack on each other before it starts to sound too muddy. And so like the EQing on the fly is also and just like Jordan's so quick with Melodyne and making it not sound like autotune, but quickly fixing the pitch and...
Brian Funk (17:49.792)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (18:00.464)
Heh.
Tyler Manning (18:05.244)
Maybe this is a cool opportunity to show something. Do you wanna try to like, cause we have all these like modalities basically, all these mindset techniques that we go through with beats, melodies and vocals and each of them have their own little portals that we open up to continue to dive into the expression and let people let go of the barriers. So perhaps it could be fun to explore maybe like.
Jordan (18:08.275)
you
Brian Funk (18:30.894)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (18:31.898)
just a couple layers and maybe as we go throughout the conversation we can circle back as we go. But even just starting with the kick and the snare, those are the first things that we really try to build in first just because it helps us go from metronome into some sort of groove. Yeah, and we're just like, okay, somebody tell us something in this room that can make a kick sound. And we've gone over with them what a kick, a snare, and a hat is. We kind of get...
Brian Funk (18:46.766)
Mm -hmm. Something musical, yeah.
Jordan (18:49.926)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (19:00.025)
the drummers in the room to express what they know about drums and we run through the Boots and Cats quick little beat box lesson where, alright everybody we're Boots and Cats and okay now we're beat boxing we take it back so we got kick hat, snare hat, kick hat, snare hat now you know that those are the three drum pieces we need now what in here is a kick? and they'll be like well let's see Brian yeah Brian what's a kick in your room that's not an actual kick drum what do you got?
Brian Funk (19:08.077)
Hehehe.
Jordan (19:19.461)
you
Jordan (19:24.807)
trash cam. Yeah.
Brian Funk (19:29.549)
Yeah, let's say I've probably used lots of things in here. I've made a bang on tables, bang just on the microphone even, just the microphone stand. Yeah, you name it, hitting a book. Sometimes you're surprised too. Yeah, like sometimes little things become big. Just even like a little like canister. I don't have it with me right now, but like I keep my guitar picks in it and it's just like, when you mic it real close, it's very thumpy, but it's this little tiny sound.
Tyler Manning (19:32.344)
Yeah. yeah. Boom. Yeah. Classic. Classic. The tables. Books. Yeah, the closing of a book.
Jordan (19:36.134)
Yup.
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (19:47.48)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (19:53.41)
you
Tyler Manning (19:58.008)
Mmm.
Jordan (19:59.814)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (20:02.038)
Okay, so we got a kick, we got the table, record the table. All right, everybody check this out. Look, you can see the recording. When we're going through this magical microphone device here, we can see the noise that we've captured. And look at that, there's your kick. And everybody sees the kick, boom, there it is on the screen. The whole time we're doing these workshops, we got Ableton up on some sort of projection screen. Sometimes it's huge and epic. One day we'll do this in the sphere, you know? Like an Ableton up on the whole screen.
Jordan (20:02.886)
six.
Jordan (20:16.871)
you
Jordan (20:29.542)
That's right.
Brian Funk (20:30.282)
Right.
Tyler Manning (20:32.245)
Just mega Ableton, but this is very visual experience. Look at this sound. Look at this sandwich we're creating of layers. And do you use simpler, Jordan? Do you sample in? Yeah.
Brian Funk (20:40.298)
Hmm.
Jordan (20:41.574)
Yeah, so I have like a couple channels and audio that I make I mean I know we talked about maybe we could screen share maybe I can do that but I can see if I can figure that out real quick. I think I had something pulled up
Tyler Manning (21:02.293)
There's so many good percussive sounds in a classroom. There's truly so many good things. Pencils.
Brian Funk (21:05.641)
Yes.
Jordan (21:09.029)
it's wanting me to quit and reopen.
Brian Funk (21:15.464)
Sure, sure. Yeah, absolutely.
Brian Funk (21:21.064)
We'll let them come back. You mentioned the classroom. I've done samples with classroom sounds from locker kicking the desk, kicking the file cabinet, the bell, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's not a bell. It's this electronic sort of sound, you know, just like a pitch, right? And just to get them all to like clap their hands at the same time.
Tyler Manning (21:29.682)
Mmm.
The bell, the bell is a great patch too. I've actually done that too, yeah, like right there live. reported in Simpler.
Mmm. Ooooo. Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brian Funk (21:51.367)
Stomp their feet. It's hard to find 20 people to clap, right? So it's like awesome. yeah.
Tyler Manning (21:53.072)
yeah, the group clap. Really though, when you get like 300 too, it's just like, it's just the wildest, especially to get them all on time. But you always get that snare that's like tiny bit off centered. You get the J Dilla snares from those group claps. We layer them with like the doink of a can or something. Really adjective friendly.
Brian Funk (22:10.278)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (22:17.318)
Cool, so we got a screen share going. We'll talk the people listening through it as best we can.
Jordan (22:24.162)
Yeah, definitely. I've added the, this one's I've condensed it a little bit since we've like actually produced an out and released this one. But normally I have like a couple of audio channels that I'll just record samples straight into. I'll like call it like kick and snare just as an audio holder for where I'm going to put them in my simpler. Like I'll like, let's see what this one is. If we can hear it.
Like yeah, I think a kid just hit the mic on this one. But like, just doing things and I'll usually layer it with something else. I just, where I hit it on my keyboard might not be the right thing. And yeah, I've been audio tested this. But we usually just layer the kicks up and I'll, after we record it in, you know, we'll line it up in here, try to get pretty close to where the transient is and actually just like play something in real quick against the metronome that is...
Just playing the computer keyboard against the metronome with the samples we get so I see if I click this click group real quick Might meet this one. I have I think soloed ones
Brian Funk (23:29.187)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (23:40.068)
So yeah, we just get kicks going. Same thing like he explained, we get a clap. Same thing. I just played in in MIDI.
Jordan (23:50.116)
like I have this going to a reverb in here, but yeah, we just start adding things. Once we have something really easy and we can take the metronome off, well, we start adding extra things and we'll do a little bit of quantization to put it on there, but a lot of the things that I've been doing lately are like with the...
Beat mode in the warping and doing the transients to like 16ths and gating them in one way So you can like like let me go on to this sample like this is a good example of it of like this sounds like a pretty good shaker But if I like let it go, it's it's a little rough I've definitely also quantized it a bit but like if you bring those transients down like all of a sudden It's pretty on grid especially against the metronome Starting to add like other things in you just start get a bunch of these layers of
Brian Funk (24:35.265)
Yeah.
Jordan (24:47.736)
regardless of how they played it in, just trying to make it musical and that they could hear the thing that they did. Like this, just really quantize this thing they had and put this little drum they had, do some creative EQing. Just to like...
get the lows out and then just put a delay on it. We just, as many layers as we can can of like organic things that they play. And you know, we try to keep, I mean, most of the time when I do it, I try to keep it to like all sounds that the kids make just so they can understand like, Hey, I did that. But yeah, we're not afraid to use in like outside samples. Sometimes it's good to have something prepared if you're not quite able to set a groove, but still add elements in.
Yeah. Yep. Absolutely. You can make something fit that really doesn't. You could just, like, this constant solid sound and now all of a sudden it's gated rhythmically. It's great.
Brian Funk (25:41.662)
That's a great trick with the transients on that warp mode. Yeah.
Brian Funk (25:52.414)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a cool kind of hack of the warping.
Tyler Manning (25:54.213)
Yeah, and let's preface.
Jordan (25:57.191)
Yeah!
Tyler Manning (25:59.139)
All this is happening like very on the fly. Each layer like no more than five minutes because we're holding the attention of sometimes like up to 300 students when we do this as a full assembly. And so it's like, it's a very unique pocket to get into as a producer where you're like, all right, we got the shakers. All right, cool. Now you got like, I'm about to get another kid up here. So you got like a few minutes to get that to work and we'll move on to the next thing. Cause if we just lull and we're like over analyzing the sample too much, then.
Brian Funk (26:03.07)
Hmm.
Brian Funk (26:14.334)
Yeah.
Jordan (26:17.638)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (26:28.514)
we lose the audience and lose the energy.
Jordan (26:28.632)
yeah, it's hard to like try to produce a whole track out. You really gotta, you know, have some ideas planned to just grab little bits and make something work. Like, even when it comes to the bassline, like I have three of them here, because we just let the kids go. You can see this kid was just a solid brick.
just full lines through. Let me see if I can like listen to these. Cause the one that ended up with it, it's so funny how it happened. They were just blooping and it was like, that was funky. I'm quantizing that. So like, let me see if I can, yeah, probably. I was about to say, I didn't know I didn't get to a chance to like audio check to see if levels and how this came out over this, but yeah. Me on.
Tyler Manning (26:58.882)
Yeah. Maybe turn the metronome down a little bit.
Jordan (27:12.903)
Let me see, let me find a place that I can just play this rather than just playing the clips here. Well, I guess I need that clip.
Brian Funk (27:20.506)
It's cool, it's fun to hear the individual parts.
Jordan (27:24.038)
Yeah!
Jordan (27:40.777)
The next kid was just blip -blooping around. And... I was like, my goodness, hold on, I have to quantize this. That was so good, it's so funky, and just like... They did it on accident, purely, but it was so cool. Like, it's so great to hear things. Yeah. A girl came by and was like, I know how to play the cello, and we said the good line from...
Brian Funk (27:43.898)
Nice.
Brian Funk (27:55.322)
Yeah, a lot of space and groove.
Jordan (28:04.49)
School of Rock, he's like, turn it to the side and chill -o, you've got a bass. We had a bass, and same thing, this girl just played this part that I was just like, as a loop, that's fine, like, great. And just, if she didn't play the right key, but it's fine, just, you know, afterwards, just transpose it, you know, you have all the tools to do all this stuff, it's great.
Brian Funk (28:08.89)
Hahaha.
Brian Funk (28:30.168)
Yeah.
Jordan (28:31.786)
Same thing with the, we have some scents that we brought out.
same thing just press flat keys find find a piece that works I think I gated something over that
Jordan (28:50.572)
I think this plain old here is a little louder than it is in the arrangement, but. But yeah, we just grab as many things as we can. And then when it comes to, once we have like a good groove setting of everybody's happy with the instruments, we just start, you know, I mean, I guess I could let Tyler talk about this part of just getting inspiration for talking about the vocal part of what we do. Yeah.
Tyler Manning (29:17.914)
Yeah, so first of all on the instrument stuff too, I love that Jordan was like, yeah, he asked me to bring maybe one synth because when we met, he was like, yeah, I got all these synths. And I was like, great. We love playing with gear in the classroom, it really helps. And so he shows up to the first workshop with like 10 synths and like a looper and everything. And now it's like kind of become the standard that like, what do we got here, Jordan? We got the Hydra synth, we got...
Brian Funk (29:38.741)
Nice.
Jordan (29:47.085)
Yeah, so there's the base station from Novation, HydroSynth from ASM. We have an RC -505 that we explain the concept of looping and the effects real visually without needing to show macros and things in the DAW. And sometimes like a machine. We try to keep the drum things to things in the room, but you can do all kinds of cool putting the pads into a scale. And then same thing, now you've locked it. Everything
every choice is a good choice but yeah just giving them a range of things they could see in this world of music production to experiment and play with and yeah let it happen yeah for sure
Tyler Manning (30:32.121)
The Moog too, the sub fatty. The sub fatty really comes through whenever we need it to. Okay.
Brian Funk (30:32.562)
Yeah.
Jordan (30:36.91)
The Subsequent 37, yeah. When we do these larger setups, I mean, I bring it all out like a Novation Summit Subsequent 37, Circuit Track, Circuit Rhythm. I mean, I have three of the sizes of the Hydrasynth actually. Standalone Push.
Brian Funk (30:37.362)
hehe
Brian Funk (30:47.442)
Wow.
Tyler Manning (30:59.35)
Midisax.
Jordan (31:01.23)
Yeah, I have a Roland Aerophone Pro, that's one I'll jam on. We haven't had a good way to find cleanly to sanitize and pass it around, so we're holding off on that for a bit. But we've been trying to expose things to tool, you know, just new tools and things that they'll see in the space or just let them know if there's things they already do, you can incorporate the musical knowledge that you have into this in some way that is still fun.
Brian Funk (31:09.97)
Right.
Brian Funk (31:25.778)
Hmm. Yeah.
Tyler Manning (31:27.99)
And the blib blocks has been epic lately too. Have you seen these, Brian? Playtime, yeah, Playtime Engineering. They're making these synthesizers for toddlers and they just release like a standalone. Yeah! It's...
Jordan (31:32.366)
Ooh, BlipLux.
Brian Funk (31:32.626)
No, flip -blocks.
Brian Funk (31:39.697)
huh. yes, yeah with all the like levers and like button, big buttons, yeah.
Jordan (31:44.143)
Yeah.
It's actually so deep. It's a very, very, like not crazily deep synth. We're talking about mogas and stuff here, but like it's surprisingly deep for a child's toy. But like you wouldn't ever know until you read the manual and learn the button combos to press to get some of the more hidden features out. But it's like a mud pie machine. Like it's insane how cool it is. And if you route MIDI into it, you can separate the synth channels from the
drum channels coming in, you can really do so much to like, I don't know, I hooked the circuit tracks into it, circuit, yeah, circuit tracks, and I took the MIDI channels and I sequenced something that was like entirely sounds from the BlitBlocks, but I could now sequence it, not have to worry about, you know, I have to make all of this stuff happen in here, you know, I can now send MIDI notes and drum patterns to it. It is so fun. yeah, it's a really cool device.
Brian Funk (32:34.608)
Wow.
Brian Funk (32:45.808)
I can't believe it takes MIDI like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah.
Jordan (32:48.144)
It's wild and it has indicator lights of the LFO speeds like there's a whole there's just like a kids yay lights are flashing and then there's a whole thing to let you know like when MIDI triggers are coming in the speed of the LFOs where the LFOs route to with light patterns like it's Sweet like I was like this is surprisingly deep for what they're advertising as a child's toy here little little toddler take this You'll be growing up to play an electronic set on this one
Brian Funk (33:07.149)
Hmm.
Brian Funk (33:14.381)
Hehehe.
Jordan (33:18.05)
day.
Brian Funk (33:19.917)
Yeah, wow, that's cool. Because kids are really surprisingly good with technologies. And I can't remember, my nephew, he's 14 now. And when he was two, he knew how to take your phone and take pictures and find the pictures and blow them up. It was like, you don't even hardly talk yet. And you can operate. Yeah.
Jordan (33:27.503)
Yeah.
Jordan (33:33.103)
huh.
Jordan (33:43.889)
That's right.
Tyler Manning (33:45.742)
They're like born with an iPad.
Brian Funk (33:49.451)
It's funny, I guess we're probably like that too, playing video games growing up or things like that. We look like little wizards to our elders. That's pretty awesome. You have them just show up, tell them just play these certain keys and then your job is to make it fit, make it work a little bit.
Tyler Manning (33:59.63)
Hahaha.
Jordan (34:00.752)
That's right, that's right.
Jordan (34:13.33)
Yeah, we'll do things of like, yeah, whoever's the host is gonna just...
give brief examples and I might give little points of like hey the next kid maybe let's just get some long notes like same rules apply but long notes so because maybe a kid's doing something and it's not quite hitting and searching for it and trying to produce it out it's going to be pretty difficult but I could take the exact sound with the transient start that they're playing and if it's long I can resample it through simpler and play it later with the same tone and who will know it's the same stuff they played and yeehaw they're just impressed with look what I came up with it's
Brian Funk (34:25.866)
Mm.
Jordan (34:47.891)
It's great.
Brian Funk (34:48.17)
Right, yeah, that's cool. So you're doing a little bit of the work and.
Jordan (34:53.139)
yeah, definitely on the back half, but while we're there, we try to do with as much right there, raw as possible. And sometimes it really just works out. It's like, this is the vibe. We don't need anything else.
Brian Funk (34:58.57)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (35:05.226)
That must be really good musical training for you guys too, to be listening for good ideas, right? I mean, sometimes when we're making our music, maybe we have like some kind of goal in mind and you don't realize you're doing something really cool because you're trying to get to here. Right. Exactly.
Jordan (35:09.874)
keeps you sharp. Yeah.
Tyler Manning (35:11.082)
yeah. Mm -hmm.
Jordan (35:23.666)
along the way. Yeah.
Tyler Manning (35:24.871)
Hmm it's definitely it's taught me a lot about Holding space in a studio environment especially because we have to keep the attention of sometimes hundreds of young people but like this whole art form of like it's like producing the song Keeping the production session entertaining the whole time without like clogging up the energy flow. So like
Jordan (35:48.53)
you
Tyler Manning (35:53.67)
The best example I have is like to keep the loop going the whole time and we're adding to the loop and unless we need to like really stop and discuss what's going on, like keeping that energy going and keeping the loop alive, keeping ideas flowing and accepting ideas and turning down ideas without hurting anyone's feeling and deciding what to choose. Like those kind of art forms are really getting established in these workshops where we're
Brian Funk (36:12.967)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (36:21.094)
holding space for non -musicians in such a delicate way that when we get into the studio with musicians who are like used to this, I think personally it's flowed so much better because there's this like very lightweight language being used to get feedback. And we have these two roles when we're in these workshops where we have what we call like the producer or the metronomes. And we have these little gnomes that everybody gets like.
versions of them to the actual gnomes because it's the instrument garden so we're the metronomes and then the empowermentarians is the word that we're using lately the host so you have the producer steering the DAW and then you have a host type person usually like an MC like someone that's got energy can kind of hold the audience of a crowd and also has experience in music making that can empower and doesn't necessarily have to be a production wizard but is able to
Jordan (37:07.475)
you
Tyler Manning (37:16.29)
empower people to play is able to play some things to inspire people and especially is able to use their words as a way to help people through it and coming up with stuff once we get into the vocal section. Yeah, any questions about that before we talk more about the vocal stuff?
Brian Funk (37:31.012)
Mm.
Brian Funk (37:35.492)
Well, I mean, I could take on some side tangents, I guess, because there's so much here that I think are practical skills for anybody. Like you said, turning down ideas without hurting people's feelings. I mean, that's part of the process. You have to say yes to things, you have to say no to things. You have to make decisions to make music. And you're also trying to get people...
Tyler Manning (37:39.394)
Yeah.
Jordan (37:39.476)
Sure, sure, hey.
Tyler Manning (37:50.882)
Mmm.
Jordan (37:59.091)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (38:04.897)
involved and excited and probably a lot of people that have never done anything like this before. How do you go about that? Any techniques to ease that blow or make it not a blow at all?
Jordan (38:19.092)
One of the things I would say that we do is like, rather than try to make it a blow or just like, no, or that didn't work is maybe just like, stop and be like, all right, let's take a second and this time let's just listen and chicken neck, like bring it back to.
using your body as some of the movement. Because some of the kids are just kind of, they're stiff, like, no, I'm in front of everybody again, I don't know what to do. And it's like, at least the movement of the rhythm to like, at least have your body be on time with the thing. And it usually helps to list even a little bit with it being a little more on time, is just an initial thing. But yeah, what else you got, Tyler?
Tyler Manning (38:55.134)
I mean, I think celebrating people no matter what is a big part too. Like the feeling of expressing yourself and then everybody being like, yeah, like the whole room is clapping. Everyone's excited no matter what. Like we've had some very interesting things be expressed in this environment that are very avant -garde, but like the theme of the experience becomes very empowering. Like people start to catch on that like after someone goes, like it's a party and we're so happy for them that they were able to do that. So like.
Jordan (38:58.1)
Yeah.
Jordan (39:04.18)
Yeah.
Jordan (39:10.804)
Mm -hmm.
Tyler Manning (39:24.478)
that energy really helps the room. People throughout the workshop end up wanting to go up more because they know that they're gonna be celebrating and it's a safe place.
Brian Funk (39:33.953)
Hmm.
Jordan (39:34.26)
Yeah, literally this last week at the end of the vocal thing, there was this baby that was being quite vocal in the room and we brought him up to the mic and at the end we were just like, put him up there and he just went, and the rest of the kids were just like, yes! And then we sampled it afterwards but it was just so funny that just this little tiny baby laugh and everyone is just like, yeah! It was great.
Brian Funk (39:49.341)
Ha ha ha.
Nice.
Brian Funk (39:57.597)
Nice. Yeah. So you're celebrating like just the act of doing it, the process and the fun of it. All right. Yeah. That's a good reminder. Yeah. What if, right? What if we do this?
Jordan (40:02.004)
Yeah, the creative process and the joy of it.
Tyler Manning (40:06.554)
Asking what if. Yeah, what if like they're like, yeah, I don't know about that. No, it's like, that was great. What if we did it like this? I wonder what, you know, like reestablishing our intention and being down to explore because we're all we've all let out ideas that probably don't hit for even ourselves or other people. And just to accept that.
Brian Funk (40:20.445)
Yeah.
Jordan (40:30.548)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (40:32.57)
that's a part of the process. Like, okay, we now have an idea. We're one idea away from getting to the one that we're gonna use. Let's just keep putting them out and keep exploring and then, yeah, everybody's happy, excited, yeah, woo, we got it. It's like, thanks to music production, once it's on time, it's really like having a good producer obviously is a game changer for a person being in the studio because if you're in the studio with a good producer that can line you up and maybe cut...
Brian Funk (40:35.165)
Right.
Tyler Manning (41:00.698)
cut a certain part out that sounded good and help with some of the pitch things when it needs it. Like those things happening quickly help people see like, wow, like going through, working in a studio environment can make, I can do fun stuff with my expressions and it can work if we have the power of music production. There's a whole conversation to take there too about what kids are learning in schools about.
Jordan (41:14.932)
you
Brian Funk (41:20.155)
Mm -hmm.
Tyler Manning (41:28.95)
playing music and making music because most of the curriculum are about making something exactly how it was made before. Right. Yeah. Like, okay, this is how you play the song and this is how you play the song and that's it versus like, okay, let's just improvise and get it to be on time with each other and it's new thought. Yeah.
Brian Funk (41:33.434)
studying music. Yeah.
Brian Funk (41:40.218)
Right.
Jordan (41:47.508)
explore. I was about to say this is one of the things, I did music all through school through most of the modalities that they let us, but like it was one of those things that like I think about it now I'm probably gonna go pick up a brass instrument of some kind, that's why I picked up the midi sax recently too. It's like I was in like these high level stuff, but like I didn't like playing outside of that context. I didn't have any feeling or joy or like a place that I could express the creative things that I would do on my own, but like now here I have the
ability to not even really think about that I played this instrument forever but like I just I didn't have the freedom to explore with it so I didn't really even associate my creative self with it personally like it's it's so weird to think that like now I'm like I need to go pick up any brass instrument I got this but like I just didn't think about exploring it even playing with songs that I like at home because it's like that wasn't celebrated or a way yeah to express that at all in
Brian Funk (42:36.57)
Yeah.
Jordan (42:47.382)
The school system that I was in, I'm not gonna generalize and say that's everywhere, but yeah.
Brian Funk (42:53.367)
I think it's a common thing. When I was younger, I took a music class in seventh grade, I think it was. And it was like a general music class. I don't think we touched an instrument and we learned things. Two years later, I would pick up a guitar and fall in love. But in seventh grade, I hated it. I hated it. I was like this fruit, right? To be picked, right? And...
Jordan (43:13.748)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (43:16.56)
Mm.
Jordan (43:16.66)
Mmm.
Brian Funk (43:22.55)
had no idea but the way it was done was just it wasn't fun it was there was no fun to it it was like we had to we were tested you know we had like just vocabulary tests i remember doing all the time and it's just like i was like i don't care about this why do i have to do this and i didn't understand it either yeah but
Jordan (43:26.74)
you
Tyler Manning (43:32.4)
Mm.
Jordan (43:37.096)
you
Tyler Manning (43:40.72)
Mm. Yeah. Like you establish the vocabulary by just being in conversation about it and just doing it a bunch, right?
Jordan (43:41.62)
Can't we just play? Yeah.
Brian Funk (43:49.27)
Yeah. And a lot of my friends, once I started playing music and in bands, a lot of my friends that were in the band, they might like come over and be like, yeah, you know, play something on your flute. We're playing this song here. And they'd be like, I don't know what notes, where's the music? What do I do? And like you said, like you learned how to do it, you know, the right way. And they, I mean, take nothing away from us as musicians. They're amazing.
Jordan (44:17.844)
Exactly.
Brian Funk (44:18.838)
But in that context, they were just clueless. They didn't know how to do it. Very surprising to me because that was, yeah.
Jordan (44:24.916)
Right, yeah, it's like an act, it's not a creative flowing of something. I'm reading this other thing that I am fluent in this other language that I can transcribe, but like yeah, as a creative act, it's just clueless. They don't prepare you for the first thing to do on your own. Like, yeah.
Brian Funk (44:42.69)
Yeah, and yeah, winning awards and going through NISMA and things like that. But I think an important thing to start with is the fun of it. Hey, you can have fun with this. I love that idea of what makes noise, just grab something. That's what you're always told not to do as a kid.
Jordan (44:49.588)
Yeah.
Jordan (44:57.012)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (45:07.852)
Hmm, yeah.
Jordan (45:08.756)
That's right.
Brian Funk (45:08.85)
And same thing, you guys tell them, you have to touch the instrument and play it. Just bang around on it. As a kid, you're like always told not to. Don't touch the piano. Right.
Tyler Manning (45:12.396)
Yeah.
Jordan (45:14.228)
yeah.
Tyler Manning (45:18.508)
You can feel the teachers wince when we're like, go on. We're like, go on. Now, I hope when you leave this workshop, you're beatboxing in the hallways and somebody else is adding layers with a melody with their mouths or whatever instrument they have, you know? And it's like, please go bang on the desk. All the teachers are like.
Jordan (45:20.82)
Yeah, it's kind of our favorite part.
Brian Funk (45:34.13)
Mm -hmm.
Brian Funk (45:39.698)
No, it's a good thing though, because something I've seen more and more, and I wonder if this is where you get the name boredom fighters, are just kids that are not really interested in anything. And I've been in a couple of meetings, even with parents where, you know, trying to help the kid for something and it's like, well, what do they like to do? And it's like, I don't know. Like they're on their phone.
Jordan (45:39.732)
What if we started?
Tyler Manning (45:40.876)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (46:07.308)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.
Brian Funk (46:09.551)
And it makes me wonder about myself if I was their age today, which is the age I started playing guitar at. If I had a phone, you know, where I could access all everything forever, never run out of videos to watch, never be bored. If I would have stuck with a guitar, if I would have got through those hard parts where your fingers hurt, you don't know what to do, you sound terrible. I don't know if I would have stuck with that. You know?
Tyler Manning (46:38.375)
You think you maybe would have gotten distracted from your course if you did have a phone, you're saying? Hmm, yeah, like you were able to focus.
Brian Funk (46:43.918)
That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I'm saying like, I would have like tinkered on it for a minute and be like, I can't do it. Like, okay. Well, a lot of what I did as a kid was out of boredom. A lot of the things I learned how to do, cause there's nothing else to do. You know, and even if you, I played a lot of video games, but you know, after you played all your video games, you were done with them, right? You didn't have a whole library of things to download from.
Tyler Manning (46:51.398)
I'm just gonna go scroll on Instagram.
Tyler Manning (46:56.55)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (47:09.318)
Mmm.
Brian Funk (47:14.222)
There was nothing on TV. There was nothing on TV. But I don't see as many kids involved with things on their own unless it's organized. Whether it's organized sport or a club or some activity where the parents set it all up. So to give them that, like here, do this, beatbox in the hallway, bang on the desk, I think it's an important thing to expose them to.
Tyler Manning (47:17.286)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (47:25.044)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (47:25.798)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (47:44.134)
Yeah, it's an interesting dynamic because even in a world where you can access all the information that you need, I think that people are subject to the role models of their environment. And that's kind of what the boredom fighters thing is all about is like creating those role models and environments that let you know that there is things that you can do with your life to be creative versus the things that your existing community is doing. So you don't feel like you have to do what.
what the what your family has set out for you. You don't have to do what the conveyor belt of capitalism has to has planned for you. That does not have to be the route that you take because
I feel like the mental health epidemic that we live in is often because people wake up very upset with what it is that they have to go do that day because they built a life around this comfort zone doing some sort of job that they really don't like and just did because that was what was available to them and they felt like that was what they could use to create stability in their life. But.
showing them like, hey, you can actually create a life in music and creative arts and here's like the steps to do that. This is a reality. That's really where a lot of that stems from is like rural communities that don't have a music industry or inner city communities that are just getting inspired by dangerous habits. Boredom is like this.
multifaceted angle from areas that actually don't have anything to do versus there's also the areas that just have dangerous things to do. So music being an interception in that versus pursuing dangerous habits is kind of what that is all stemmed around. Does that make sense?
Brian Funk (49:33.383)
yeah, definitely. I mean, the devil's playground, idle hands was that expression, you know, like, you know, like you get into trouble and you got nothing to do. And yeah, I could see like that's, there's sort of these like two problems, right? Like you can get into trouble or, or you're over scheduled, over planned for, and you're not allowed the freedom to kind of figure stuff out creatively, you know?
Jordan (49:37.312)
Yeah, you got it.
Tyler Manning (49:37.409)
yeah.
Tyler Manning (49:43.873)
Yep.
Tyler Manning (49:57.121)
Mm.
Brian Funk (50:03.334)
It's a tough world for the kids today to grow up in.
Jordan (50:06.473)
That's fast.
Tyler Manning (50:07.964)
Yeah, being born with an iPad in your hand, it's like this. It's so beautiful that we can learn anything we want to at any moment, but I see where you're at about.
Maybe you wouldn't have stuck with it, the thing, because you were stuck in a room with your guitar and no access to other people to talk to or infinite dopamine release by scrolling through your phone. So you played with this thing and got entertainment and self -satisfaction within that space. Like, is that, are we taking that away by?
having access to those things all the time, but it seems inevitable that, you know, in the next 10 years, you're gonna be born with a social media account and you'll get notifications like day one, like, congrats on being born, you got friend requests waiting, you know, that seems to be the inevitable reality. So how do we create things in those environments that inspire people to work in their physical community, right? I hope that.
Jordan (50:42.481)
you
Jordan (50:58.05)
I'm sorry.
Brian Funk (50:58.566)
Right.
Jordan (51:07.042)
Cause right like here we are with the ability to and the exposure of all these years of popular media and things and people wanting to share their tips and tricks and things. So like, right, the same thing of where I guess you could just let the media come at you. There's so many guides to learn all of the things that people are excited about and think are cool in these different spaces, whether it's like visual effects, 3d modeling, like,
It's it's exciting to see and how accessible some of these tools are and how how they can be low -cost or free It is so exciting but right it also takes that per that exposure to it and knowing that it is possible and someone to I don't know like Yeah, let you know that this is a possibility that exists out in the world
Brian Funk (51:59.137)
Hmm. Yeah, it's important to see that. again, for me, like growing up, I never really saw anybody play guitar in front of me, you know, that unless it was like on TV or maybe a stage, but I've been to too many concerts at that point. It took like, wow. Like you show me what you did. Talk to me about it kind of thing. And, having that, bringing that to them is great.
Jordan (52:11.651)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (52:28.641)
You know, like, yeah, you, that thing, when you were banging on those things, having fun as a kid and you got yelled at to stop, there's actually some value to that. Cause it's a great, it's a great window too, to their playfulness, you know, the inner child type thing. And it's something I always tell my students at the end of the year is like, don't lose that. Remember that. Don't forget that. You're going to be told to mature and grow up.
Jordan (52:38.019)
Yeah.
Jordan (52:44.771)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (52:50.339)
you
Brian Funk (52:55.041)
I'm always the one that's saying, everyone else will tell you that, I'm going to tell you not to. It's so important. It's a good reminder to us all too.
Tyler Manning (52:58.87)
Mmm.
Do you?
Do you remember the point in which it went from like noodling on the guitar to having an intrinsic motivation to get better at it when you woke up every day? Or was it like, did that happen for you right when you started playing? Or was it like a journey? Hmm.
Brian Funk (53:19.009)
It kind of did. It happened really quick because I couldn't believe it was possible. You know, I didn't know I could do that. I didn't know I could play the songs I heard on the radio on an instrument if I had one. I had no idea. First 14 years of my life, it just didn't occur to me. And that's probably with so many things for so many people. Like you just don't realize that's something you could do.
Tyler Manning (53:25.494)
Mmm.
Jordan (53:26.115)
you
Tyler Manning (53:31.99)
Mmm.
Tyler Manning (53:46.038)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (53:46.563)
you
Brian Funk (53:48.126)
Actually, I think like even surfing was one of those things too, where, I mean, I live on Long Island by the beach, but even that seemed kind of like, it was like for the older kids or something. And then my buddy got into that and was like, try it. I was like, okay. And that was a fun activity that you could do. But for me with the guitar, it was just kind of like, I was so blown away that it was.
Jordan (54:04.675)
Hehehehehe
Brian Funk (54:17.821)
is like, I just didn't even know that door existed. So it was a lot of fun to, yeah, it was just a lot of fun. And that kept me coming through playing on like a cheap guitar and having it hurt and sounding bad and not knowing how to do it. Just that kind of, you know, a feeling of that excitement.
Tyler Manning (54:21.616)
And so you had to keep opening every day.
Tyler Manning (54:41.264)
Yeah, I'm very interested in the exploration of helping that come along quickly for people, especially in a public environment or an environment where it's fast paced and figuring out how to set up an ideal situation as much as possible within the studio for people to fall in love quickly without having to get intimidated by music theory or navigating a DAW or...
Releasing music and impressing other people and like getting a record deal Those are things that kids actually think about prior to ever making music and stuff I definitely thought about I think probably is normal for people to think about before putting themselves out there as a music er But I'm wondering like what that tool really is It feels like this workshop is getting close to that, but I'm very interested in exploring that situation and seeing how we can
Jordan (55:15.621)
you
Brian Funk (55:23.677)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (55:35.152)
let everybody kind of feel the confidence to be the Rick Rubin in the room and hold, you know, the tastemaker.
Brian Funk (55:45.465)
Well, so much of what kids do now has this goal attached to it. One thing I loved as a kid was playing baseball. It was like the first thing I loved to do. And you'd play in the street with your friends and that was like the fun of it. But now it's like, well, you need to get a scholarship. You know, you need to get on these five different teams that you can play with. A lot of everything sort of has like a point, you know?
So I could see how, yeah, I'm going to play guitar, but I'm not good. And I wasn't, I knew nothing about music whatsoever. I paid no attention to that music class in seventh grade. So I didn't know anything. And it was, I never like thought I could even really do it until I was doing it. And it taught me that like, you don't have to be born with it, I guess.
Tyler Manning (56:39.051)
Mm.
Brian Funk (56:44.216)
And I think there's a lot of that kind of, like you hear like kids at a young age saying things like, I'm not musical, I'm not creative, I'm not artistic. It's like, well, how do you know? Like try, you know, you're the, like, I can't draw. It's like, well, how much time have you spent trying to draw? You know? Yeah, that, that kind of Carol duet, right? The, the growth mindset stuff.
Tyler Manning (57:01.867)
Mmm the power of yet. Yeah
Jordan (57:03.113)
Alright, I was about to bring it up.
Tyler Manning (57:13.003)
Yeah, that was our camp slogan last year. They were really pushing and we were using it in the studio so much. Yeah, the power of it. I can't draw yet. Right. I can't draw at the pace, at the capacity that I wish to be able to draw yet. But I mean, I still get that. When I hear people say I'm not musically inclined, I light up. I'm like, yeah? How about this? Let's try this. I'm gonna chicken neck for you. Now are you musically inclined? Anything we could do to break that. Because that's just like, yeah. It's...
Brian Funk (57:15.64)
tower if yet.
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Funk (57:26.68)
Right. me too, yeah.
Jordan (57:30.184)
Whew.
Brian Funk (57:34.968)
Right.
Tyler Manning (57:42.859)
I could see how it is a spirit calling for some people though, versus like, if you don't fall in love with it, you don't have to force yourself to, and maybe that's not your instrument or style of mega music. I remember when I was first shown music production, it was 2012, and I was like...
My friend that showed me at the time was a very analytic person and he was very into sound design. So he would really think hard about one sound in one bar loop for an hour. And I was like anxious. I'm like, I just want to play. Why are you staring so close at the screen? Is this what making music is? So it took me another eight years to start producing music once I learned about workflows and on the fly.
Jordan (58:17.32)
Mm -hmm.
Tyler Manning (58:28.709)
workflows where you can play and jam at least some and get ideas down versus having to click and write all the melodies and things like that. So I could see how these different kind of introductions into the space could really determine whether or not someone's going to fall in love with it or not.
Jordan (58:35.274)
you
Brian Funk (58:35.54)
Mm -hmm.
Brian Funk (58:45.332)
Yeah. Yeah. Like you said, those role models, how you're exposed to it, what you see, what you think it's possible.
Tyler Manning (58:55.301)
Yeah, and then we got these coming to be rappers being generated every day in our workshops and across America. It's the hottest genre in most schools that we work in. Jordan, do you want to bust some of these vocals out and see what we captured?
Jordan (59:16.626)
Yeah, let me see, let me re -fire the open, re -open this real quick.
Brian Funk (59:18.164)
Yes.
Brian Funk (59:21.876)
A nice thing about that though is, you know, it's not singing, right? So it's, and it doesn't require an instrument. Obviously it's a skill, right? It's a talent you can work on, but I think it's a little less, or a little more attainable to a lot of people. Cause that's, it's my mouth. It's almost like talking, which is what I do all day anyway. So it's a, it's a good entry point.
Tyler Manning (59:46.437)
Mmm. Mm -hmm.
Tyler Manning (59:51.429)
100%. Yeah, the pitch, you don't have to worry about the pitch. You don't have to worry about harmonizing most of the time. It's just like words coming out while chicken -nicking. Key ingredient.
Jordan (01:00:04.874)
That's right, got to.
Brian Funk (01:00:07.791)
So there's some challenges there though. I mean, to get them to do it of course is the big one, but also like, how do you come up with things to say? I would deal with this myself even. Okay.
Tyler Manning (01:00:19.359)
Wait, before you go there. Jordan loves using chat GBT for prompts. I have to give behind it. I'm always trying to extrapolate it from the room and give the teachers the brownie points. Get the brownie points with the teachers by going after things that they're talking about in their class already or the motto of the school or something about the school.
Brian Funk (01:00:27.311)
cool.
Brian Funk (01:00:41.455)
Okay.
Tyler Manning (01:00:46.334)
is always very good and on brand for the song to come out in that direction. So I'm always trying for that prompt, but it definitely ends up being about hot dogs and chickens and like, yeah. And then so the Chagy BT element too that comes into play there is always interesting, but go ahead, Jordan.
Jordan (01:01:05.101)
yeah, there's a few things we do. Cause like, that's something I struggle with myself. Like, I feel like I haven't put nearly as much vocal work into anything I've done as I'd like. And it's mostly cause like, do I like what I have to say? And then I am in my own way of the words that are there.
even though it's like I want to do things with my voice, but no, what do I say? So like it's not my struggle with, but then having these kids that are already, I don't know, a little like aloof of what this thing is anyway, sometimes I will, especially when it's just me and Tyler's not there, Tyler's really good at eliciting that out of people. I'm a little more introverted, but I'll be like, yo, what do we want this song to be about? And then, you know, some kids, especially on the younger, will just yell something out.
And like I'll have a prompt in chat GPT or equivalent things. I've used a few different programs. And I'll have a little bit of a pre -context in there of me of like, hey, we're doing this music workshop with kids. We're called the boredom fighters. So it'll have that. Sometimes it'll throw like.
the board and finders help and make like it'll throw some of that in the beat sometimes of like of the lyrics which is helpful but we'll say hey we're making a song I want kid friendly lyrics about and I'll just let a few kids shout some things out and you know
It's usually just a bunch of random nouns and verbs, but it'll spit something out. And then all of a sudden, since they didn't have to come up with it, there there's a little less resistance of like, yeah, sure. I'll go up there and read it or whatever. And then, you know, Ableton and warping, you can make everything on time and make it sound a little more natural flowing out of them than maybe how they delivered it. Yeah, that's one of the ways that I definitely go about it. We also do this thing where
Jordan (01:02:52.207)
especially if some of that's not working or we can't get other kids other than one that was like stoked to read about it like, hey, let's do ad libs. What's your some of your favorite noises to say your favorite noise into the mic. And then sometimes people just go up there after they see noises and just say something because they're a little more comfortable. But
Also, I'll put auto tune on and it'll be like, say anything. And all of a sudden they'll be singing a little more because it's sing songy. Like I'll just go sheesh. But now it's like, you know, she like they're stoked all of a sudden of like, that's how this is done. So like there's a few things of just like earning that trust just a little bit with them so that they feel a little more free to go in their own directions of things that we wouldn't have come up with for sure.
Brian Funk (01:03:13.834)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:03:23.018)
Yeah. Right.
Brian Funk (01:03:35.055)
Yeah, I'm sure that's a lot of fun for them to like hear echoes and auto tunes and you know, cause that kind of brings them into like the stuff they listen to. And I love it. That's a great, great use of chat GPT also. Yeah. We vilify it a lot, but, that's a cool use. You know, it gets people moving, get them going.
Tyler Manning (01:03:39.704)
Mmm.
Jordan (01:03:41.038)
yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:03:48.376)
yeah.
Jordan (01:03:48.782)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:03:50.904)
Yeah.
Jordan (01:03:51.438)
Are we trying out here? Use the tools available to us. for sure. Definitely. But yeah, I can find a few things in here. Here's like purely just ad -libs. I don't think this has like auto -tune or anything, but I also have an auto -tune one of the kids just like they knew auto -tune was on it and they were stoked about it. Yeah, I can just run through. I do what I can.
Brian Funk (01:04:15.654)
These are great clip names you have here, by the way, I see. I want my honey mustard. Make sure to get that barbecue.
Jordan (01:04:20.658)
That's right. I try to make it easy for me because I like to do a lot of my before I actually arrange anything inside of session view. I feel like it helps me organize my ideas and it's just really easy to drag and then just drag and drop by hitting tab. So like I'm so fine with it. I like it. Put this back where it goes. But yeah, I'll hit some of these, I guess. Let me see here. Hopefully it's not too bad.
Brian Funk (01:04:38.662)
Yeah.
Jordan (01:04:50.578)
I want some chicken wings. I want some chicken wings. I want some chicken wings. I want some chicken wings. I want some chicken wings. So yeah, they just all of a sudden are a little more comfortable and vulnerable to sing in front of their peers.
Tyler Manning (01:05:06.674)
Woo!
Brian Funk (01:05:16.998)
Yeah.
Jordan (01:05:17.522)
Cause some of these ones are, I think there's just going to be noises and stuff. Ascending chicken wing. What is this one? Chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing
Jordan (01:05:34.29)
I know this is annoying being loops. They're all one shots in the song. With the side of Chick -fil -A sauce. They're eating us all. But yeah, we'll take all of these and exactly. it's great. And then these ones that are the verses. Let me see if I can turn off my effects chain or something and see if we can just hear this as is.
Tyler Manning (01:05:42.194)
Hehehehe
Brian Funk (01:05:44.71)
You hear him laughing in the background. Yeah, that's cool.
Jordan (01:05:59.315)
Nuggets, fried chicken, baked chicken and more We got chicken tatters, chicken baked in love galore We got canes, we got game and plenty of games So many sauce losses in my car Don't mess with my nuggets, fried chicken Chicken wings, chicken wing, hot chicken I rendered this one out. So when they sang it, I don't know if you've ever, there's a little meme song, but I took it into Vocodyne, into Melodyne and I made it all unison so it was easier to make in the same key.
Brian Funk (01:06:11.745)
Wow.
Jordan (01:06:26.77)
But like, yeah, we take all this stuff and then take it and make, you know, proper stuff out of it. Let me, let me go out of here and un -solo this stuff. Let me see. I'll just start.
We gotta go back to back to arrangement
Chicken, baked chicken and more We got chicken, tatters, chicken, bacon, love, God, Lord We got cans, we got a game, and plenty of games So many sauce, losses, and I don't care Don't mess with my chicken wings, I'm gonna fall Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall with me Chicken wings, chicken wings, I'm gonna fall
So like a lot of that is just like this TikTok that's going around and these kids just doing a skit of a TikTok even like whatever works, we'll just let them do it. But yeah, it's good stuff. That's essentially it'll do some more looping. That's the important parts.
Brian Funk (01:07:59.005)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:08:06.237)
Mm -hmm. That's awesome. You can totally hear. You hear the fun they're having in there.
Tyler Manning (01:08:07.692)
Deep, deep. It's so empowering.
Jordan (01:08:14.1)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:08:15.847)
There's only two rules in the instrument garden. Rule one is that no sound is a bad sound. And rule two is that when we say, y 'all ready for this, we need everybody else to go, da na na na na na.
Jordan (01:08:28.628)
Hehehehe
Tyler Manning (01:08:34.598)
and then we stop. Those are the only rules, just in case you were wondering.
Jordan (01:08:37.972)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:08:38.269)
Nice. Yeah, it's really impressive you're able to get this to work, you know, to get a bunch of people, a bunch of kids especially that are probably very hard to keep their attention, like you said, as I've experienced firsthand, but to come together to and work on something. And it sounds great. It really does.
Jordan (01:09:04.724)
Well, thanks. It's a fun.
Tyler Manning (01:09:06.15)
Yeah, it takes good producers who are willing to explore and let go of things. That's a big part of it on the fly. It takes, like, as a person who's mostly been in the host role a lot of times in these workshops, I definitely stress producers out. I can feel it. I know I stress Jordan out. It's like a very stressful environment when you have 300 little humans looking at you to wonder what's going to happen next.
and we just record to something that is out of key and off time. And I'm gonna talk to the audience for a couple minutes while you go in the headphones and clean that up. But like, when I run out of stuff to say and it's time for the next layer, like you better be ready to record the next one. You know, it's like a very, I believe a lot of producers could do this. And we really are looking for more producers who love the challenge here and have the drive to...
Brian Funk (01:09:36.317)
Hmm.
Jordan (01:09:51.956)
That's right.
Tyler Manning (01:10:05.665)
become better at holding space for studio musicians with experience with that and people that want to learn to be better at that because that's kind of the skill set that we we want to grow. I mean as far as our team goes as I know like that's a skill set that we want to be able to have and I think that a lot of times when we're talking to kids about how to use these skills. First I want to say to you like what you said earlier about just doing things to do things. I do try to find the balance.
of saying, hey, you could do this for money, and it's now money motivated versus like, we should explore this for the sake of exploring an expression and those balance. But I think it's important for kids to know that they don't have to be a rock star to play with music production. And it's a skill that can be used for making music with your friends or for your friends. If your friends are talented musicians, this is a skill you can use to help them record their album. And it doesn't have to always be.
about you and that's like a new thing that's in the last 15 -20 years it feels like the producers are finally getting an opportunity for it to be about them if they want it to be where the DJs and producers are headlining shows instead of just being the ones engineering the tracks and there's a whole new reality that's opened up for that but it's just about finding that for us and that moment where we can say hey you can do this and we're playing with this and
If you want to pursue this deeper, here's how and here's our info and we'll help you with that.
Brian Funk (01:11:41.652)
When you go to schools and kids have this much fun, are there any kind of like follow ups with the school? Do they try to like incorporate any of this kind of stuff into their programs? Do you know or they have your back or?
Tyler Manning (01:11:58.112)
That's for sure. The first few years of this was like, we're having as much fun as we can doing as many workshops as we can and just doing the workshops everywhere and anywhere. And then we started to like feel this kind of lack of substance in that we were like getting these kids super stoked about music production and then leaving and then they didn't have the resources. And like we're all volunteering and bringing down all of our gear sometimes hours away from the studio where it.
Brian Funk (01:12:18.099)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:12:25.531)
just going to these places at no cost and doing this. So it was like already the resources like weren't there in the beginning as much as we needed them to be. And then we realized like, okay, well, how do we, how do we put longevity into this program? So now the big push is for each chapter to have their own gear for ongoing curriculum. Cause believe it or not, a lot of schools still don't have functioning computer labs. I've actually been shocked.
to discover this because we've worked in over 100 schools now and we've installed ongoing curriculum and 10 of them and a lot of the time the struggle is like having just 10 computers that can handle Ableton that we can install Ableton on and guide the kids through an ongoing curriculum that's a semester long or multiple years long and we have a few different formats that we've brought it. Sometimes it's one hour a week after school.
Sometimes it's once a month in the classroom. Sometimes it's at a completely different location outside of the school. There's different ways that the model works based on the resources we have, but to answer your question, the model here for sure is going from one studio where we're all in the studio together making a song. That's kind of the gateway where we're like, all right, this is music making. We're having fun. We're in a large environment. There could be hundreds of people in that room and -
just making music together and trying to expose people to the magic of being in the studio together. And then that is our way to say, okay, now who at this school, if we had a studio here, how many of you would use it? And then the teachers see 300 kids raise their hand and then we can go to the principal and say, okay, this is something that the students will use. Now you got to put some budget on the line for us to give the kids this ongoing. We need you to pay our producers and we need you to get the gear.
to have this ongoing curriculum. That doesn't work often when we're like, all right, school, you gotta pay producers and you gotta pay for gear and we're gonna show up and we're gonna take care of everything for you. Often the music teacher has other things in mind and they don't understand music production, so they aren't ready to take that on. They're worried about what it's gonna do to their curriculum, which is seeming counterintuitive, but I understand being a busy teacher, you have a lot of goals.
Brian Funk (01:14:26.575)
do.
Tyler Manning (01:14:49.3)
you have to achieve. So adding things to your plate you don't understand is tough. But we're overcoming that hurdle. We're overcoming the budget hurdle. So that's why as a nonprofit, we've been pushing to just have grant funding and have outside sponsors and money that's in a space for us to just say, OK, school, you don't have budget for this or you're not willing to allocate budget, but you have a demographic that is obviously wanting this. Well, we're sending producers and all the gear for an ongoing curriculum. And we're.
you know, we're bringing 10 laptops, 10 interfaces, 10 microphones, 10 sets of headphones, 10 MIDI keyboards, and these kids are all gonna be on their own devices learning how to do this while we're showing them along the way and at the end they're gonna have their own music and we're gonna use our music industry relationships to put these kids on shows that already exist. And that's working, it's definitely working and our whole thing is based around connecting to the music industry to use that to fill the gap for the ongoing learning so the kids can...
We go there, we do a workshop, and we're like, yeah, music making. And then we're like, you wanna learn more about this? Okay, here's an ongoing curriculum, either in your school or somewhere close. And now here's a show at the end of the curriculum. Now you all have something to work towards. Now you're gonna be able to play that song in front of maybe it's at your school, maybe it's at an actual local venue. We've had a group open for Dead Prez and play all original music and original choreography and it changed everything.
for them and these kind of opportunities. We had a kid open for Honeycomb direct support at the black box and he's like 11 at the time and he's playing crazy dubstep in a renowned sound system with a packed out crowd. Those...
Brian Funk (01:16:23.85)
Wow.
Jordan (01:16:31.067)
Yeah, he's opening for the Whittler in a couple of months. Yeah, it's at the Mish. It's wild.
Tyler Manning (01:16:34.062)
Yeah, the Mish. Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:16:34.794)
That's so cool. Wow. That's excellent.
Tyler Manning (01:16:39.182)
Yeah, so that's the, that's I think the model for the ongoing sustained learning is like we have this tool to get people excited about making music and it can be used for a lot of things. It could be used for team building. It could be used for just creating a sense of belonging and could be used for, you know, just some sort of gap in programming that needs to be filled in these organizations. But it's all really the seed planting for us to say like, well, if you really want to learn this, then here is a place. That's like the main goal is for every chapter to have dates.
Brian Funk (01:16:42.858)
Hmm.
Brian Funk (01:16:53.002)
Sure.
Tyler Manning (01:17:09.07)
on the books consistently that they can say, you're into this? Well, here is a time and a place that you can learn more and actually navigate the software yourself and learn alongside it. And I will say we also are unfolding the Good Producer program, which is something that we're using. We're building the online platform right now for it to be more integrated. We've kind of been in the beta phase of that the last few years with a few kids. But basically kids,
They say, hey, I want to learn more about music production. I'm in a rural community or I don't have access to these workshops you guys are doing. They apply for scholarship points and then they use those points to cash in free one hour Zoom mentorships with our good producers and network that have volunteered. Sometimes producers volunteer one hour a month. Sometimes they want to do more. Sometimes they want to do less. But we're getting to the point where it'll be really simple for a producer to say, I would love to help kids make beats. I have two hours a month on Thursdays that I can do that.
and then we background check them, we train them on our processes, and then their calendar is now something that's available on our website. So kids that want to learn that we've given these scholarship points to, we're calling them beat coins. So you get beat coins, and then you cash in the beat coins for your one hour sessions. And ideally we get to the point where we have like our full roster of producers on the website, and you go to it and you say,
Brian Funk (01:18:21.378)
Clever.
Tyler Manning (01:18:33.865)
well, here's like, OK, this person makes dubstep. I like dubstep. They listen to the producers music. They're like, OK, this is a producer I want to learn from. They apply for a time with that producer. And then we built this funnel for producers to put their energy into helping without having to leave anywhere or do anything. They just got to tap into Zoom for an hour and respond to a couple of emails. And now they're a role model in another kid's life. And they have this person they work with every month ongoing.
We've done this with a few kids and it's working out great. We're showing kids how to get sets and play shows in their community, how to throw their own events in community. And that seems to be the model is these ongoing in -person experiences alongside digital mentorship anywhere. And I think that can be the bottleneck opening up for kids in these rural communities everywhere that, you know, maybe once a year we fly them out from the middle of Alabama and they go to our camp in the mountains.
and they've already built a relationship with these producers so they're meeting them in person now making beats with them for a whole week which is another thing we do a week in the mountains making beats it's crazy we bring we bring the Hennessy sound rig dude these kids are flexing the rig with all these their campers and peers around them they're like rinsing whips with all these kids and it's just the craziest experience none of them have been to concerts before half the time half the time and they walk around the corner and there's a Hennessy rig and
Brian Funk (01:19:36.326)
Mm.
That is.
Tyler Manning (01:19:57.576)
an LED wall and it's just the bass is rattling their clothes and we're giving them earplugs. Yeah.
Jordan (01:20:01.791)
yeah. The staff lovingly calls it the baby rave. Cause just a bunch of kids that have never seen this before and just watching me like, my gosh, we have these pictures of these kids just like, what is happening? It's so cool.
Brian Funk (01:20:03.201)
Heheheheh
Brian Funk (01:20:13.713)
That's awesome.
Tyler Manning (01:20:16.162)
The most grateful audience you'll ever get, I swear, is like, these kids have never even been to a concert most of them, let alone heard what happens at 15 hertz with a proper rig and seeing this LED wall, and so they're like, they're so grateful. No matter what you play, like, the crowd is gonna lose it. It really helps the kids in that space. Yeah.
Jordan (01:20:19.231)
Yep.
Brian Funk (01:20:28.641)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:20:37.057)
Hmm. Right. That's awesome. Yeah, that's gotta be so much fun to watch happen.
Tyler Manning (01:20:43.233)
No doubt. Yeah, the unfolding. I think the culminating event is really important for this. You know, we talked about the intrinsic motivators and stuff and just doing it for the sake of it. But I'll say personally, like making music, nothing makes me progress more in my music than having a show on the calendar. And as soon as I have a day on the calendar, I'm like, I'll I'll I'll lollygag for six months on a track. And then I got a show next next week and I'm finishing it so I can rinse it out. And I'm like, everything's pushing forward because I have this.
Brian Funk (01:20:48.737)
Mm -hmm.
Brian Funk (01:20:58.401)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:21:11.201)
this actual deadline in mind. So I think giving the kids a culminating event is big. Yeah, yeah, it's like same thing with the one hour producer challenge. It's like, now you have a guideline on when it needs to be done, so you're gonna set some sort of priority to it versus it being something you get to one day. Mm -hmm.
Jordan (01:21:13.343)
I love deadlines.
Brian Funk (01:21:13.441)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:21:26.593)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. man. So true. Yeah. When the, when there's a show on the calendar or, or, or any, like you said, any kind of deadline, really just suddenly what's important. It comes into focus, you know, and like all these little things that we do, you can spend like a week and a half compressing your kick drum and suddenly you realize like, I don't have time for that. I got to finish this. Got to move forward. Yeah.
Jordan (01:21:27.071)
Eventually.
Tyler Manning (01:21:41.697)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (01:21:51.649)
Yeah, the letting go.
Jordan (01:21:52.257)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:21:56.573)
Yeah, I could see how that's an important thing. I mean, it is in school music programs. They have the concert, you know, that they do throughout the years for different events. Yeah. Otherwise you just kind of, what are you doing? Like you're just kind of playing around. I mean, it happens too, like for me, even just producing music or whatever, like you can just kind of play with your toys, you know, but to have some kind of end point gets you.
Jordan (01:22:01.697)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:22:04.413)
Mm -hmm.
Jordan (01:22:04.801)
Something to work towards, yeah.
Jordan (01:22:09.505)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:22:09.889)
Yeah
Brian Funk (01:22:26.428)
putting them to work. It's awesome stuff you guys are doing. I love it. And I mean, the proof's in the pudding, right? Like, just listen to this. I mean, you can, I always talk about this as far as our own music, like, have fun. Like, it comes through in the recording. You can hear, and like, literally, you can hear him laughing and having a great time. I think that's an important ingredient in this stuff to, to...
Jordan (01:22:28.929)
Absolutely.
Jordan (01:22:44.513)
You
Brian Funk (01:22:52.284)
To see that and hear that it's obviously very fulfilling for you guys you both glowing when you talk about it, so I can only imagine the effect that's having on so many people
Tyler Manning (01:23:04.444)
Yeah, it's been good. It's like a...
I feel like first of all we should just make a whole sample pack of children's laughter. We have so many good ranges of laughter and the board and fighter sample pack is for sure coming.
Jordan (01:23:12.929)
Noooo
Brian Funk (01:23:13.948)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:23:18.3)
You know, like with the vocal prompting to like outside of the chat GPT stuff, like we get some really deep stuff unfolding in these environments. And sometimes kids say stuff on the mic in front of hundreds of kids that they've been holding on to for a while. And people will cry. People will become concerned. People will laugh like people will now respect them in a whole new way. And this whole form of expression is really just like the art of allowing, letting go and just letting it out in a space where you feel safe, I think is something that everyone
should have access to no matter whether you're going to be a musician or not or you want to make your life about it like having a sounding board you know when you're playing yourself back you express thoughts and you hear it from it now you're observing yourself from a third person perspective and it's like opens the portal for introspection and just understanding who you are and then you dive deeper that you're like well I want to be a musician like well then who am I what I
I gotta put myself out there now. Like what is my role here? You know those kind of thoughts really have unfolded for me as a music maker because of Megan Music and that's the portal we're opening.
Brian Funk (01:24:27.)
Hmm.
Brian Funk (01:24:30.904)
That's a great point. I mean, you get a chance to sort of see yourself from a different perspective. Like you said, that third person perspective on yourself, it happens a lot when you listen back to your music or any kind of art really, you know, whatever it is you do, you get to see and say, wow, how about that? You know, like I didn't, yeah, that's what I mean. Like sometimes even years later, you're like, wow, look.
Tyler Manning (01:24:43.126)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (01:24:48.47)
Yeah, or even later, you know?
Brian Funk (01:24:55.256)
Look what I was thinking about. And sometimes even that meaning changes. You see the situation differently.
Tyler Manning (01:25:00.662)
Mmm. Mmm.
Jordan (01:25:01.986)
Contextualization. Yeah, absolutely.
Tyler Manning (01:25:05.366)
And we're capturing too, like.
We do this workshop in places like educational spaces, but we also do this at festivals still and events and like conferences and stuff like that. And it's this really a special piece of media that you get from the thing because now we've captured the energy of the space and you can hear it when you're 90 years old. When you listen to that song that you made in the instrument garden at that festival with your friends, like you're going to be teleported right back to that entire weekend just by listening to that song. And remember,
that moment. I vividly, every song we have that as Board and Fighters has done, I remember every piece of that day just by going back and listening to that. We captured this like audible photo album of an experience and that's just a really special tool I think too for the introspection.
Brian Funk (01:25:57.62)
Yeah, it's true, right? Like, it's almost like a sound diary of sorts.
Tyler Manning (01:26:02.038)
Yeah, yeah, you hear like the chatter in the background, the textures of the room, like things that were thought of in that space and yeah, it's good for expanding the human.
Jordan (01:26:02.468)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:26:08.403)
Hmm.
Brian Funk (01:26:13.107)
I love that kind of stuff in what I'm recording too, just kind of let the world in a little. I think, I think when you first start, you think everything's got to be perfect and I need an isolation booth, but now it's like the last thing in the world I want. You know, I want to hear what was going on and be reminded of what was happening. It was a moment in time. And yeah, with like something like that, I had a festival or at a school or some other environment.
Tyler Manning (01:26:19.19)
Hmm
Jordan (01:26:29.124)
Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:26:29.398)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:26:41.843)
You can really tap into that. Yeah.
Tyler Manning (01:26:41.936)
the least ideal, the least ideal recording space. It's like a loud gym and we got the mic right in front of the speakers and all these kids are chattering and it's like, all right, now, now's the time to record.
Jordan (01:26:44.324)
Yup. yeah.
Brian Funk (01:26:47.475)
Yeah.
Jordan (01:26:49.092)
yeah.
Jordan (01:26:55.876)
yeah, been getting pretty good at having to use RX to try to clean some of it up on the back end. that's right. There's lots of great tools in there. Woo, it's wild.
Tyler Manning (01:27:03.568)
Shirt. As a toe.
Brian Funk (01:27:04.851)
I bet it's teaching you tons of things on the backend.
Brian Funk (01:27:13.747)
So where can we direct people? Where do you like to have people go if they want to learn more? You've obviously got social medias and stuff. Is there like a home base you prefer to send people to?
Tyler Manning (01:27:24.368)
Yeah, I feel like the Instagram has been the most active for community for us, Board and Fighters Foundation on there. The website has access to all of our pages and information and applications to get involved, boardandfighters .org. Yeah, I would say as far as the internet goes,
hit us up in there in that space and we would love to be in your local environment whether that's a local festival or a conference or a school or a community center a library ymca boys and girls club side of the road side of a mountain on top of the the museum of discovery anywhere that you can have people we would love to be there so we're here to teach people how to do this.
workshop. It's very important that we are like there's no there's no lock there's no vault of intellectual property here like this is very much an open source project and it's important that
Brian Funk (01:28:21.423)
Hmm.
Tyler Manning (01:28:23.563)
We're just sharing these ideas with people and that they can feel confident using these ideas. So anybody that wants to start doing these kinds of workshops in their own space, we'd love to empower them. We have a lot of tools for empowering people to do this. And we're really dialing in, Brian. This is like, this year has been crazy. We've gotten to the point where people hit us up and they say, hey, we want to do this in our community. We'll book a couple of assemblies in the area. We'll fly in. We'll do the assemblies.
We'll do a couple other workshops. We'll show local producers how this goes. And then when we leave, we've gotten ongoing dates already in the community that that producer or their team can do these sessions. And we have resources and Slack network and committees in place for people to get support on throwing fundraising events, getting grants, finding more workshops, building the team, partnering with events.
Like all those elements of building a chapter of a functioning nonprofit or just building a team of people that do workshops. Like we're really dialing in how we can do that now. And we've got seven chapters started up that are functioning with their own chapter leaders and their own workshop flow and outreach flow and team building. And that seems to be the model for us to help as many people with the resources that are already available to people. Because it's like all these schools.
that don't have music programs have a hundred producers in a 10 mile radius a lot of the times. And if we can just show them, hey, you actually already have the superpowers to be a role model. You already, just by being a person who sits in your basement all the time on your computer, you now have these superpowers you can use to help people like build an entire life in music. And here's how you use them and activate them. So that is our plug is, yo.
Let's help people make music. Here are the tools. Hit us up and we're happy to help.
Brian Funk (01:30:21.898)
That's awesome. I can only imagine what the ripple effect is going to be from what you guys are doing. You really have no idea how you affect other people and what kind of like doors you're opening and little light bulbs you're turning on. So I appreciate it. I think it's awesome. You're doing great work bringing a good thing to a lot of people.
Tyler Manning (01:30:44.932)
Thank you. So are you. Really appreciate all the tools and resources that you share. And I know you aren't getting paid for a lot of the things that you produce for the world and that just that energy that you put into creating stuff for people is right in line with the work here. It's like you're just creating all these tools that people can use to... I loved your turkey gobbler Thanksgiving thing. That was the one for me. I was like, okay.
Jordan (01:30:46.598)
Thank you. Absolutely.
Brian Funk (01:30:48.074)
Thanks.
Brian Funk (01:31:10.73)
The Thanksgiving Turkey. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. I love the weirder we can get the better.
Jordan (01:31:11.814)
Nyehehehehe
Tyler Manning (01:31:14.116)
This guy is a boredom fighter. We... Yeah.
Jordan (01:31:15.814)
He gets it.
Tyler Manning (01:31:22.18)
Yeah, yeah, we'll have to do a workshop with you sometime. Where are you actually?
Jordan (01:31:22.342)
That's it?
Brian Funk (01:31:27.05)
Long Island, New York. Yeah, cool. Awesome.
Tyler Manning (01:31:28.228)
Okay, great. All right, well we're ready. You get us in your... Bring us to your school, Brian. We'll do a workshop in your classroom. Doesn't even have to be the music teacher, the whole assembly, you know, we just pull up in one classroom. It's all we need is people to give us just one room. We just need a roof and power and a group of humans and that's the only resources we need. We can make everything work.
Jordan (01:31:32.87)
Hehehehe
Brian Funk (01:31:35.37)
Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah, that'd be sick.
Brian Funk (01:31:50.186)
Yeah.
Brian Funk (01:31:54.822)
That's cool. I love it. Well, listen, we'll send people to your site. All the stuff's in the show notes. Boardandfighters .org is the website and Instagram is I think the same Board and Fighters, right? So Board and Fighters Foundation, but that'll all be in the show notes for everybody. Thank you guys both for coming on. It's great talking to you and thank you to the listener. Take care. Guys, thanks so much. That was great.
Tyler Manning (01:32:08.036)
Foundation.
Tyler Manning (01:32:16.516)
Thank you.
Jordan (01:32:16.967)
Thanks for having us.
Tyler Manning (01:32:24.004)
Good vibes.