Regent Park Focus

Since October we’ve been in the middle of another semester of the music recording program. Back again with Logic Pro X. This year started with three fresh faces, and a fourth joining in the middle of November. The three that started with us this year were all at different points in their musical growth and highlighted the different parts of the program. The student who was the furthest along and had the most extensive musical background was there to finish projects. She had a catalog of beats that she had been working on and began coming to the program as she was preparing to embark on the final stage of her creative process: mixing and mastering. After doing a couple sessions of tweaks, she is preparing a list of songs she wants to begin mixing that will begin in the new year. The second student who joined had some musical background. He had been writing songs for a little over a year, and already had some in-studio experience, doing some recording. He came to the program to cont...

    Today was the first day I had the pleasure of working with The Diva Girls. Up until this week students had been coming in and working on their own projects but the girls had something else in mind. They wanted to prepare two songs for a showcase they were putting on. After spending some time showing them the ins and outs of Logic, and the capabilities it has as a recording program, they informed me they had chosen to record "Girl On Fire" by Alicia Keys.     Right off the bat I was impressed at how self confident these young women were. For students who had never recorded professionally or spent any substantial amount of time in a recording studio they were undaunted by the task at hand. Rather they approached recording vocals with such joy and enthusiasm, laughing during takes, and encouraging one another to do more, and push themselves further. They took turns singing choruses and verses, carefully practicing their parts to themselves before it was...

This session the Divas continued working on their music with the help of Glama. The girls divided themselves unto groups, 2 decided to do music production while the other girls decided they would like to create videos. After some contemplating the girls decided they would like to change the song they were going to sing. They had 3 songs in mind and ended up choosing "Girl On Fire" by Alicia Keys, due to the very empowering lyrics. The girls got through most of the song but will continue the rest next week. The other group of girls decided they would create their own song which they will record on the 29th. The Divas who were working on the video were having a harder time on discovering what they wanted to film, after some talking they decided they would be making instructional videos, some examples being: hijab tutorials, clothing hacks, dances, etc.  The session on the 29th was done with the assistance of John, he talked to the girls about creating audi...

This session was used to brainstorm future project ideas. The girls talked about projects they would like to work on, this being podcasts and videos while also taking the radio into consideration. The girls then worked on creating a playlist they would like to play in the background during the showcase, some even asked if they would be allowed to film their own music video/record something. Some ideas they had for podcasts revolved around mental health, gender-based discrimination, Islamophobia, the media and its impacts, and identity. The following week (April 22nd) the girls worked on creating their own music with the help of John, the music producer at Focus. Working with logic they not only made their own beat, but some of them also sang some covers of songs they picked. These will be on display during the showcase. Amna Quaid Azam 

Since February 14th, RPF has been offering free access to our fantastic digital music recording studios. Youth community members (ages 15 - 30) can come and use our Logic Pro X-equipped work stations for audio projects or sign up for training in composition, keyboard skills and basic recording technique. Classes run weekly, Monday and Thursday afternoons. So far, participants have been experimenting with songwriting, beat-making and immersing themselves in the amazing world of computer-based recording. If you or someone you know is interested in participating in the program, please contact David Wall at: david@regentparkforcus.com Or call 416 863 1074

    I am still getting used to the students schedule here. There are some familiar faces that I am learning but every now and then someone will come in who I've never met. Today I had the pleasure of meeting a new student who spent time talking with me about her experiences in the city recording music. Unfortunately it hasn't all been easy. We began by introducing ourselves, and she asked about my history as a musician and what experience I had recording music, and producing.     I asked her about her journey as a musician and she sighed and then told me that's it's been hard. She described her trials and tribulations when it came to finding a qualified producer to work with who sees her as an artist first, not a woman. I could tell how passionate this student is because of how emotional she got when describing how hard it's been for her to find someone to work with. She described going from one "producer" to another and just meeting people who weren'...

Nothing makes an instructor happier than students coming in to do work all on their own - which has been happening more and more at Regent Park Focus's music production program. Students have been working on bed tracks for their friends to try rapping over and some students have even started to record themselves rapping in our class! No finished projects yet - perfectionism is every artist's greatest motivator and hurdle.

Every day students come to class, they leave learning one more important lesson about music production. At this point, students have gone beyond learning just the basics of backbeats, software instruments and moved on to bigger production elements including: - The conventions of structuring pop music - Understanding sequencer automations (adjusting the sounds of instruments based on time) One of my favroites parts of this class has been listening to the different genres of music that students listen to and focusing on different composition strategies that are used in different genres. I'm learning that extremely different genres of music have a lot more in common than you might think!

I’ve just finished month two of the music production program and I’m past the growing pains stages of the program and am finding a flow with the students that regularly return to the program. I’m really grateful for all of the regular students because it means that we get to move past the introductory elements of using music production software. As the students develop familiarity with the program’s foundation, students are able to ask questions involving more advanced elements as the songs that the students work on find their sound. Some students have asked to come in on off hours, which is great news for me as it suggests the students have found their own drive and motivation to create with this powerful software. And other students have asked for copies of their compositions so they could show their friends which means they’re really proud of their work! This has been a really exciting program to work - especially as students develop the faculty to hone and develop their cr...

At Regent Park Focus throughout these weeks, Hopeton has imparted workshops imparted collaborative songwriting, writing help, harmonizing. Youth explored ideas, shared stories found commonalities with their peers, and converted these experiences into song form. That process generated a few original songs that the participants helped to mould from start to finish. The technical knowledge acquisitions that happened during some of these sessions were sampling from online audio sources, sampling instruments, learning the difference between generating sound from internal program sounds and external audio inputs, and synchronizing rhythms. Every participant got an introduction to basic music theory in order to input melodies with the piano keyboard as their input device. An understanding of why certain notes are "harmonic" vs. "dissonant" made their note selection to all the audio works more delightful to the ear. If melody hiccups were still made, the participant wa...

For the past month the participants in the Audio Production program learned to Open a new project in Logic Pro X, Insert sounds on tempo, Record using the microphone, loop their audio composition and add parts in real time otherwise known as "punch record". Few participants came in with no prior knowledge of the digital audio workstation, while others had basic knowledge of the program. It is anticipated that as the participants continue to attend, they will showcase what they have learned over the past weeks while continuing to create new instrumentals and songs... By: Hopeton LaTouche Date: October 2017

In the second week of the Audio Production class, we touched on some basic composition and musical modes, but the practicality and interest level of the topic was lower than moving forward with mixing and focussing on sound rather than theory. In week three, we looked at more functionalities of basic recording knowledge, such as internally recording audio and sampling, and simulating space around a sound source with digital reverbs and EQ. This led us to discussion of editing audio for film and TV, and how a background in improving or manipulating sound quality for basic effects such as nearness or space is also beneficial in mixing music. Also in the third week, the students began working on audio replacement for minute-long segments of film. They were asked to find pieces of film which included foley, scoring, live sound, and dialogue. This tasked them with a holistic approach to the DAW by requiring them to work with both audio and midi, to record and to mix, to create auxilia...

The students of RPF’s 2-month audio production program initially came in once a week for 3 hours. Class began with 1 - 2 hours of discussion, instruction and demonstration before students would independently work and practice the content of the day’s lesson. Because we had 3 workstations and 6 regular students, at first we staggered the days on which some students would work on a computer, while the others were taken into another, separate lesson for the remainder of class; then in our third week we added one more day of class, so that when the students began their personal projects, they could spend more in-school hours working on them. The course content was presented under terms of self-direction and personal musical desires. The curriculum was drafted as a branching map of possible chronological creative and academic routes. When each student enrolled, they were interviewed one-on-one by the instructor on their previous experience with music and sound, what they wanted to ...

This week our main focus is getting up to speed with all of our editing projects. All the other participants that are not editing are working on their radio show topics. Either editing their audio or researching more about their topic to add to their show. We have a guy that comes in every so often, his name is Andrew he’s the director of the music program. He started to teach us more about Garage Band, and how to create our own music. We learnt how to add different instruments that already have a certain rhythm and also how to create our own rhythm with certain instruments. The goal in the end is to create our own piece of music for our radio show to make it more fun and exciting.

The diva girls participated in a music session with Andrew and Will, they got the chance to remix original songs which included Clocks by Cold Play and Telephone by Lady GaGa. Over the last few weeks the girls have really enjoyed working with Andrew and Will and have found a new love for both music and creating music. The girls have become amazing at using Garage Band and over all have learned so much from this experience. Getting the chance to be apart of building and creating has really encouraged them to continue to use their creativity in a positive, safe outlet. We at Regent Park Focus would like to thank William and Andrew so much for all of their hard work, we had so much fun participating and learning!!!! By: Mellissa Hum

This past Wednesday's show was great. We still are still working on a name for it, because the content of the show is different than Tuesday's Catch Da Flava Radio. So a new name is in the works. We had a great time talking to Chiptune artist, Jeff the World, who came in and answered a few questions from us avid gamers and music fans. Jeff also played some new songs! OnetwoTres also played his chiptune influenced tracks and the discussion went from Jeff's do-it-yourself rise to fame as well as explaining how he made his tracks with only a few gameboys and old atari computers! We thank Jeff again for taking the time to come down to the studio to perform and chat! Listen Here for Part 1 of Jeff The World on Catch da Flava Radio! Listen Here for Part 2 of Jeff The World on Catch da Flava Radio!

Our Wednesdays are getting to be really fun. Last week we talked about the gaming industry, and how the music of videogames are such a recognizable medium! These video game theme songs don't even have to be made with video sounds for people to recognize it, as we also listened to a version of the Legend of Zelda as interpreted with an electric guitar! The main focus of Wednesday's show was to introduce some of our youth and listeners to a new genre called "Chiptunes". Chiptunes take the sounds of early 8-bit video games and use them to make dance music tracks! It is a relatively new scene, being a few years old. But it has steadily gotten more popular within the last few years. Even at Nuit Blanche, two years ago, there was a free outdoor concert in front of city hall. One artist who has been the driving force in Toronto's Chiptune scene is Jeff the World, of whom we played tracks from his first album.

In the first week of summer programming we had some youths from K-club in the studio learning how to make beats by using software called Reason. The youths were shown some basic steps in making an instrumental beat, time structure/count and how to use different devices for various sounds. The following week we had both youths from SEAS and from K-club becoming more familiar with making beats or tracks using the software while experimenting with the keyboards. We also have been integrating some discussions around life skills (decision making, team building, goal setting, ethics and collaboration). This week the youths are continuing to work on their beats in order to complete their tracks as a final project for the summer program. Some youth have been working on lyrics as well, while exploring collaboration possibilities with other youth artists/beat makers. We have been encouraging youth to bring instruments from home in order to record their own music into the beat making software, th...