Wanting to share his knowledge and insights from performing with his band Attakid, Max Cowan has created a space for students who are interested in furthering their talents in songwriting and music performance.
This semester, Cowan is teaching an extra enrichment course called Song Studio for $325 that offers students the opportunity to learn about songwriting, recording, and production. The course is part of a broader initiative called Musicianship Tracks: two other programs will be available, taught by musicians Jason Muscat and Josh Charney, called Band Works and Improvisation Lab.
Although Song Studio is offered as an enrichment program rather than an elective, Cowan has planned out a curriculum that includes three five-week course modules. Students with or without musicianship experience are all encouraged to join if they’re interested in trying something new.
In a Jan. 14 email sent by Cowan, a Google Form was provided for students to sign up for the program, with the second set of enrichment rounds set to begin on Feb. 23.
“If you want to engage with the music production process in any conceivable way, you belong in Song Studio,” Cowan said.
Unlike his fall elective Sound Experience, where students experimented with manipulating sound waves, Song Studio will give interested students full control over their song production.
“This after-school time is giving kids access to me and sort of the broader scope of my musical world,” Cowan said. “We’re off-syllabus after school. I’m not conforming to the curriculum.”
Still, Cowan hopes to bring both Sound Experience and Song Studio together as sister electives in the future, with the latter being open only to students with prior musicianship experience. Cowan intends for students to complete a song as their culmination of Song Studio and perform it at the end of the semester. He emphasized that students have complete artistic freedom over their finished products.
“Whatever aligns with their own sort of musical desires. My goal is that at the end of the program, for each student to have something that they feel is finished and that they are proud of,” Cowan said.
During this semester’s trial period, Cowan hopes Song Studio will attract students who are motivated to create and produce music, with a focus on accomplishing the goal of producing an arrangement of a song.
“I hope Song Studio will empower the students to take command of their own musical creative processes. The idea being when they go home, I want them to feel like they can do something about music,” Cowan said.
