Many students at the high school write and record their own music, learning skills such as using a variety of equipment, music programs and song-writing. SoundCloud is the main music platform students at the high school use to share their music with the community and beyond.

Junior Owen Saki said that his first time recording was fun and scary at the same time because it was the first time he had heard his recorded voice.

“The first song that I wrote and recorded wasn’t really that good at the time because I kind of rushed the whole process,” Saki said. “I just wanted to get it out there, so that whole feeling was kind of surreal, and I just kept on thinking, ‘Wow I’m in a studio, this is kind of cool.’”

Senior Danny Levitov said he learned to use recording tools from past experience in studios and working with other artists. Levitov records music at junior Carson Murphy’s house. Levitov and Murphy have a collective together called Golden Boys, which they funded themselves.

“I worked during the summer, and [Carson Murphy] worked during the summer and we put some money together for some equipment,” Levitov said. “We bought a microphone, a preamp, some cords, a filter and we got the program Logic Pro X. We also took this class called digital music production and learned the basics for music editing.”

According to Levitov, creating the rhythm of the song is the most important part, but creative intuition plays an important role as well.

“Sometimes I really delve deep and think about what’s important to say and how to go about the rhythm. Then I come up with the melody if there’s going to be one,” Levitov said. “I also see how the instrumental makes me feel with what I’m thinking about. I jot down some notes on what I want the song to be about, and I go from there and try to switch things up so it stays interesting.”

Junior Evan Legere said most people who come into the Brookline Teen Center to record songs know what beat they want.

“What I’m usually there for is to record [the song], make it sound good and give it to them,” Legere said. “But especially with teens, we get a lot of artists who come in and they’re not sure exactly how their song should sound. They’ll have their lyrics and beat, but they just don’t know how to really make it work together. That’s where I can kind of help them most of the time.”

Saki said that when he is in the recording studio, he tries to stay focused and get in as much time as possible.

“Every artist has their own scheduled time, so a day or two before we go in we put down the time that we’re going to work for. Say it’s like two hours, I put that down, come in, and I rehearse without being recorded,” Saki said. “As soon as I’m ready, we start to record it, and that’s when the whole process of recording and fixing certain little parts to make it perfect starts because I’m a bit of a perfectionist. I take my time.”

Legere said that there are a lot of nuances when it comes to recording. According to Legere, recording someone’s voice is different from recording an instrument.

“When you’re recording an instrument you’re recording the main source of sound, but that’s not always the sound you want to hear,” Legere said.

According to Legere, it is also possible to change the mood of the piece during the recording process.

“For a guitar, when you usually record it you point the microphone near the hole in the frame of the guitar, but sometimes we’ll want to hear, especially for an acoustic guitar, you get like a little screeching sound when you slide tune to record with your hand,” Legere said. “You can almost completely change the genre or the feeling of a song just by moving the microphone over a foot.”

Levitov said that he plans to continue making music after high school, and potentially pursue it as a career as he is going to study management in college.

“I’m hoping to focus on entrepreneurship, and I’m going to learn more about how to make this into a business,” Levitov said. “[Carson Murphy] and I have put in a lot of work in terms of networking, to get our names out there, and we have a show on May 30th at a really big venue for us…Ultimately, it’s about having fun and making money off doing something that I love.”