Sliding his headphones on, hands gliding across the board, Matthew Rosales waits for the beat drop. Pressing a knob forward with two fingers, the senior completes yet another successful loop, nodding his head to the music. Rosales curates his playlist from scratch, mixing ‘80s song recommendations with personal choices to set a mood for the perfect birthday party.
Rosales began DJing six months ago as part of an 11-week capstone project in his Experiential, Project-based, Innovative Capstone (EPIC) class, a senior English class that allows students to design and experiment with long-term projects. With guidance from his friend, senior Max Chertov, and his father, a professional DJ, Rosales built a passion for DJing—a hobby he plans to continue after his senior year.
EPIC teacher Ben Berman said he watched Rosales’ growth with DJing not only in his talent but in his understanding of himself.
“His ability to write about [DJing] in a thoughtful way has shown tremendous growth to really engage with the , ‘Does this matter to me and why am I doing this?’” Berman said.
Chertov, Rosales’ EPIC classmate, reintroduced him to DJing after Rosales had struggled and given up learning the craft himself. Chertov said Rosales has now discovered and shared new skills with him, which have helped Chertov improve his own technique.
“It got to the point where he’s teaching me now,” Chertov said. “He showed me one of these features on the board that I never knew existed, and he would just play around with it.”
Rosales said his practice has helped him build up confidence and calm nerves during performances.
“I haven’t had many gigs yet, but the few times that I did, I definitely was nervous,” Rosales said. “It gets to a point where you kind of lose your anxiety, just because the space gets more comfortable, and then it doesn’t become a problem anymore.”
Rosales credits his father with having the greatest influence on his DJing style. He said he adapted his father’s technique to create his own.
“He taught me a lot about this thing called beat matching. He tells me to use my ears instead of my eyes,” Rosales said.
Berman said Rosales’ performance at the high school’s Lunar New Year celebration in February made him realize DJing was more than simply a class project for his student.
“He was going to go do an hour or two, but ended up doing a six-hour shift,” Berman said. “Watching him teach other people how to do it, seeing him create that opportunity, it was clear that it wasn’t just like, ‘I need to get hours in for the week,’ but, ‘here’s this opportunity to really liven up a place and bring energy and bring music and connect with people.’”
Rosales’ father runs a radio station, which allows users to stream their music on the app. Rosales said the first time he streamed his music, he received twenty dollars in donations, which inspired him to continue DJing.
“The little dopamine hit kind of had me chasing after it again. I just keep doing it,” Rosales said. “I’ve invested so much time and money into it, I don’t see how I would ever give it up.”
