Behind the Beats: How Teens Created Our Podcast Intros

Meet the teens who created the new sound of our podcast. Neshaminy High School music production students took the challenge to compose a variety of intros and outros for the Giving Youth a Voice podcast. Along the way, they learned a lot about their own talents, creativity and technical skills. Listen as they share their experiences and sense of accomplishment.

Transcript

Brianna
Welcome to the Giving Youth A Voice Podcast where we share information to youth by youth. Stick around to hear what we've chosen to share with you in this episode. Check out more information and resources about the Neshaminy Coalition for Youth at our website NC4youth. org. That's NC4youth. org. There you can find our program and resources and become a member for the betterment of our community. Also, check out our Facebook page to see our latest news and events. Give us a like. I'm Brianna, the host of this episode, and please enjoy. 

Patrick 
Hi, my name is Patrick McCullough. 

Heaven 
Hi, my name is Heaven. 

Roman 
Hi, my name is Roman. 

Michelle 
Hi, my name is Michelle. 

Connor 
Hi, my name is Connor. 

Liam 
Hi, my name is Liam. 

Patrick 
In today's episode, we are here with the music production class of the Neshaminy High School taught by Mr. Detweiler. So Mr. Detweiler, would you maybe explain how this whole thing came about? 

Mr. Detweiler 
Yeah, so this is Mr. Detweiler and it was actually Mrs. Swanson who reached out to me through email. Just straight out of the blue, I was just minding my business, I came right from music production. And I got an email saying, "Hey, we heard that you teach a music production class." And they were asking, "Would it be possible for your students to write original intro and/or outros for our podcast?" Once she asked me that, I thought that was a great opportunity for students to create their own music, especially at creating intros and outros, it's not something that you guys have really done before or not that I know of. So I thought that was a great opportunity for you guys to kind of get outside your comfort zone while still exploring the fundamentals of what we do in music production, which is exactly that, is producing music, how it's recorded, how you make music. So I thought it aligned perfectly with what you guys are learning about. So I said, "Absolutely, let's do this thing." I gave the students about a week or two to create some intros for the podcast. They actually asked specifically to make four separate intros that had the same melody but had different genres or different styles so that the podcasters can use it based off of what was being talked about in the specific podcast. So we have 11 students in our music production class, each one of them made multiple intros for this club. After they're finished, we assessed, we discussed, we listened to them, and then sent it to the podcast club. So I think you guys voted on which intros you guys really liked and then chose based off of that and the rest is history. 

Patrick 
Yeah, pretty much. It was a great opportunity for all of you guys and you guys absolutely delivered. We all really appreciate that. 

Mr. Detweiler 
We just want to say thank you so much for inviting us too At least as the teacher, I was expecting the club to reach back out and say like 'hey, for a thank you, we wanted to like throw you a party and like have you on a podcast'. That's really, really cool. So we want to thank you so much for inviting us and, and why it's be a part of your guys' passion, your guys' program as much as you guys, or, you know, a part of ours. A part of our classes here. I can't wait to see how far it goes. 

Patrick 
Yeah, of course, I'm really happy that you guys were able to actually do this. You actually put your talents on display in some way. And it was, it turned out really, really well. So thank you. Thank you guys

Brianna 
So for everyone here, how did it feel to be presented with this opportunity to have your music potentially displayed on a podcast and how did it feel to have the idea of potentially being picked? 

Connor 
And Mr. Detweiler told us about a project to make intros and outros for the podcast club. At first, I was a little nervous because besides from like other projects, I didn't have the experience or the skills that I would have wanted to make intros and outros for an actual outside-of-class project. But once I got into it, once I started the project itself, I realized it was actually very fun to do. And when we found out that when we submitted the podcast, they selected and chose a few of them. And we're even going to throw us a pizza party for it. I was actually really happy that Mr. Detweiler actually accepted the offer. And then just say there's a bunch of music out there. I felt like it was very special to personally create something that was going to be used in things that we didn't have control over as in the podcasts. 

Brianna 
I know for me, when Donna and Melanie first presented the idea to us, I was really excited about it because obviously there's a lot of different music out there, but the idea of music being created by fellow classmates at my own school to help create outros and intros for a podcast that I know me and Patrick have worked really hard on for the past four to five years. So to get the opportunity to be able to hear what my classmates are making and to get to hear what creative ideas came to them that we got the chance to go through and listen to all of it and have a say in picking some of those for our podcast and getting to hear multiple different intros and outros, I just know that for me personally, it was a very awesome opportunity. Each podcast that we've done presents a different tone, all of you guys did a really good job on presenting us with different intros and outros that can match those tones. 

Patrick 
Diving into the questions a little bit. There's more of my a broader question, but what brought you to music in the first place? 

Roman 
All right, so this is Roman talking. Actually back in 10th grade, I actually tried to make music myself. I would record an over at a friend's house, and I would go there after school a lot, take his bus and all that, and he actually he taught me a lot of the mixing stuff on our laptops. We use an app called Logic Pro, so I'm like, I was not really good with it, but I was familiar with what I was seeing on the app. So it was really cool how what I was learning last year about making music. I actually liked the more engineering part, like making the beats and what we do in this class. That's like a lot more fun. I would be down to make it for like anyone else. I really enjoy making the beats. You know, this class is really brought a side in me that I didn't think I would be able to do because I did not know what to do, but now I know like mixing all that. My teacher really taught me a lot. I appreciate that, you know, this music class as soon as I saw it as an elective, I was right on it because it's something I never tried before, and I want to take all the opportunities and let that I can take, so that's really what brought me here. 

Patrick 
Thanks. That's awesome. What brought you to music in the first place? 

Liam 
This is Liam. I was growing up, I was with my mom's side a lot, and I would always try to play my grandmom's piano, and, or like, my uncle would got me this broken guitar, and I'd put it on my lap and trying, like just doing random things with it. They would always have simply piano or simply guitar software like that that I would use. But I started getting like, my music started when I was in 5th grade, and that's when I started to like teach myself guitar and learn a little bit of songs on piano. My uncle taught me chords and like songs, and then from there, I just kind of went on YouTube and looked at things up, trying to learn how to play it. And then I started taking lessons around 8th grade. But with free music production, in middle school, I would always use a sound trap, and I always like try to be creative or try to use loops or something like that, to make something that I would enjoy listening to. Try and like grab a guitar and then trying to like make songs with that too. 

Patrick 
Nice. I like it

Michelle 
My name is Michelle. We've brought me to music throughout elementary school and middle school and high school. I'm in 10th grade right now. I've been in choir and in middle school I started writing music. It just came out of nowhere because I always like to write and it wasn't until 9th grade, December. My sister got me my first guitar, and it was an acoustic. And I taught myself how to play it since then. And when I could afford to get another guitar, I bought one. I've been making a lot of music on it. I've been writing as much as I can. I even try to produce music by myself and I have a lot of songs right now, but I still need to learn a lot about music before I can publish them. 

Patrick 
Thank you for sharing that. I really like that a lot

Mr. Detweiler 
'Sup, Heavan. So I know the other people don't know this, but I know you personally have come a long way this year in music production. I want to say because I'm really proud of you for like beginning this year, you were very shy. You hadn't done really anything when it comes to like music producing or making music. Of course you listen to music, you know what it is. I think this was like a great challenge for you this year and to see you thrive was like awesome to see. I'm really proud of how far you've come, but I want to hear more so from your perspective on how you overcame those obstacles and how you got to where you are today

Heaven 
First off, thank you for that. Second, well, really like this class, I do want to say I am happy that I did end up going this route because it was challenging. I'm not really good with technology even though I'm young and I should be, but I just kind of got used to like because I feel like there's a lot of things that we did in this class that we re-did even if it was kind of different with every project. So I got used to learning how to work logic and stuff. I do appreciate that we stuck with like really one app. First it was Garage Band, then it was Logic. I didn't have to get used to learning a whole new app each week or each month. I feel like the more you work with the app and we're on the computers every day, the more you just get used to everything that comes app. 

Mr. Detweiler 
Yeah, it's not easy. It's a program that I'm still learning how to use as well, what I'm teaching you guys. So I'm super glad that you guys also have taught me a lot because there's still so many features and so many shortcuts in that program that a lot of people don't know about, including you, including me, helping each other out has been tremendous as well. So I appreciate y'all. 

Patrick 
Thank you so much for your time. This was a really good experience that we had and I just want to say once again, thank you so much for what you've done for us and we really do appreciate it, and I think it's really going to help our podcast in a long run. So thank you. 

Brianna 
We also hope that you guys had as much fun with this as we did because I know we had fun listening, but I know it's a whole different level with creating. So we really do hope that you guys had just as much fun with it. That's it for this episode. Thank you for listening to Giving Youth a Voice. Any questions about this podcast or our coalition can be emailed to podcast@nc4youth. org. That's podcast@nc4youth. org. Make sure to follow us on your favorite podcasting app and sign up to our email list on nc4youth. org so you don't miss our next episode. This project is made possible by funding from the Drug Free Communities Grant. I'm Brianna wishing you a happy and healthy future. See you next episode.