Musician, composer, educator, and producer, John Churchville and I discuss his discovery and use of the music recording, production, and collaboration program “Soundtrap” to teach his students how to record, mix, and produce music.

John currently teaches in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. At its heart Soundtrap is effectively a digital audio workstation (a “DAW”, i.e. Pro Tools, CuBase, Reaper, et al) but with enhancements that support collaboration between musicians around the globe.

In the front half of the episode (0:00:00 - 0:31:05) we discuss how John first became aware of Soundtrap, back in 2016 at an IMPACT Conference at the Music Experience Design Lab at New York University. John had just finished his presentation on how he and his students had been using technology to learn and record music over the past ten years at Go Like the Wind School, and how evolving technology had changed the processes and workflow for them. After the presentation John was approached by Frederik Posse and Ashkan Fardost (of Soundtrap) who were in the audience for John's presentation. At the time, Soundtrap was just “gaining traction” in the market, but Messrs. Posse and Ashkan enabled John and his students to almost immediately start using Soundtrap back at Go Like The Wind School in Ann Arbor, Mi., where John was then teaching. Soundtrap is now owned by Spotify.

The second half of this episode (0:31:05 - 0:48:05) features an instructional segment about the tabla and baya drums and how technically varied and challenging they can be; John’s been playing and teaching tabla for many years, to people of all ages. Also featured in the back half is a short improvised tabla performance by John, recorded in The Subterranean Playground.

Part 2 of this interview will post at a later date as there were simply too many great observations and insights made by John to fit into this episode. Keep your eyes open for that (date TBD).