I came to Freestyle Academy in search of a place to expand my music production. Before I came to Freestyle, I had been making music on my laptop for about 4 years. But even before that, I had always been playing around with Garageband on my mom’s desktop ever since I can remember. Once I was fortunate enough to get my own laptop, I started using Garageband again. I started out by teaching myself how to make beats and then I started to write songs to these beats. Then during the summer of 2015, I saved up enough money for my job as a soccer camp counselor to buy a mic, a better audio program (Logic Pro X) and other recording equipment. Soon, it evolved into me not only producing and writing my songs, but recording, engineering, mixing, and then mastering these songs.
Not only has my production of songs served as a creative outlet, but it has also served as an emotional outlet. If I am having a bad day or I am upset about something, I could power up Logic Pro X and get lost in the program. Soon whatever had me upset, has faded away into the sound waves of the music that I have just created. Having both a creative and emotional outlet readily available for me to use helped me get through rough times and also helped keep me out of trouble.
Coming into Freestyle, I was extremely excited to learn new music production skills and to also expand my current skills. In my opinion, this has been achieved and has even exceeded what I expected. My music production and my experience at Freestyle has made my overall high school experience much more enjoyable and also unique.
-Benjamin Shell