Last week, Music Teacher Jono Howan hosted a virtual song writing workshop for 20 of his contemporary music students.

“I think that everyone is starting to go a little Google Meet-crazy at this point in lockdown, but last week’s meet was probably one of our best yet,” says Jono. “We were lucky enough to be joined by Jackson Wilcox; a student studying Popular Music at the University of Auckland. Jackson shared his screen and walked us through one of his most recent projects created on Ableton (a music production software that our students are also using this year). He dissected his song in great detail, providing insight into his musical decisions and his creativity as a producer.

“After showing his project and answering several questions from the class, the students then had an opportunity to show off their own projects in front of the class and receive feedback from Jackson. The show-and-tell was a great chance for the students to hear what their classmates had been working on, and Jackson’s insights left them with plenty of ideas for their next steps.

“Overall, the workshop was a great morale booster for our class and we look forward to similar workshops in the future!”

One of the students, Rashi Jain (pictured) said this:

“The workshop that we had was about music production. In the workshop we shared our work, helping and guiding others in regards to musical ideas, production and composition. Our guest Jackson, from the University of Auckland, talked us through a new piece that he had been working on and showed a few techniques he uses as a university student studying music production.

I shared a composition that I have been working on for my music internal. Seeing him enjoying it and then coming back with all the feedback was pretty helpful for me. I definitely look forward to attending more of these workshops in the future.”