Grammy nominee Pierce Freelon teaches Sioux Falls students about music production

Grammy-nominated musician Pierce Freelon gave a few workshops this week in Sioux Falls, preceding his concerts with Levitt at the Falls this weekend.

The workshops included classes at Experience Augustana, a podcast-focused summer camp, where Freelon showed students how to create music from voice memos. He also taught them how to find inspiration in more mundane things, and demonstrated some of his skills in beat making. The campus was hosted by Augustana University and Promising Futures Fund, a local educational nonprofit.

“It was to teach the kids about music production and give them a hands-on opportunity to make some music with me,” Freelon said.

Frank Cook, director of multimedia entrepreneurship and innovative practices at Augustana University and one of the camp instructors, said Freelon joined the camp to provide prompts for the students to get them to create stories about themselves and their backgrounds, as well as to share his experience in music creation and storytelling.

“He's going to show our students how they can create music using their own creative instincts,” Cook said.

Freelon's secrets of music making included sharing the voice memos he recorded with his children, such as when his daughter did not want to go to bed, and Freelon later created a song called “Tuck Me In” based on that voice recording.

“The inspiration for the song was drawn from a real-life experience,” Freelon said.

The musician also showed participants how to use a device called a looper to create music from voice memos and other audios, or just from a human voice, combining it with harmony (creating a choir effect) and metronome (pacing the sound) effects.

“Voice is my primary instrument, and it really inspires how I compose,” Freelon said.

The students of the camp said they greatly benefitted from Freelon’s workshops. Sean Skaff, 15, who was recommended to the camp by his computer science teacher, said he learned about making music, doing things that inspire, and what tools can be used for that.

Benji White, 16, said it was his second year in the camp, and he decided to participate because he liked it last year. He said he learned how to apply different sound effects, make music and use a looper pedal.

Seeya Amin, 14, said she was also recommended for the program by one of her teachers. Amin said she was interested in technology and wanted to become a pilot, and that was why she decided to participate. Amin said in the future he hoped to create a podcast about airplane anxiety.

Ten children participate in the audio storytelling camp learning about audio recording and production, editing and storytelling for two weeks, Roehl said.

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The purpose of the camp is to allow some exposure for middle school and high school students to audio recording experiences and associated software, Cook said.

“We're exposing them to storytelling techniques and letting them record their own podcasts complete with music and sound effects,” Cook said.

Assistant Professor of English and Journalism at Augustana University Emily Roehl, who was one of the camp instructors, said Freelon also gave some feedback on music making to the camp participants.

Freelon said the kids were very engaged. They created a few songs together, and did some writing.

“They were amazing,” Freelon said.

Along with giving workshops at the camp before the Juneteenth events this weekend, Freelon also participated in an Edison Middle School ESL program, beat-making workshop at YMCA Community Youth Center, and other events.

This article originally appeared on Sioux Falls Argus Leader: How Pierce Freelon is helping Sioux Falls students learn music