Two-time Grammy-award-winning producer DJ Jazzy Jeff has officially launched his debut online music-producing program called Command Central: Making Beats.
The intensive six-week online program will provide students with the resources to build the core foundational skills for music production. Each week will sharpen participants’ beat-making skills through intricate video module lessons ranging from drums, melody, arrangements, mixing, and sampling which participants will then apply to their own produced tracks. DJ Jazzy Jeff will be joined by award-winning colleagues and other surprise guests for live sessions and one-on-one feedback throughout the program.
Tell us about Command Central.
I did a DJ course about a year and a half ago because I wanted to give people who were potentially interested in deejaying, the ability to teach them the basics. That way they can figure out if they wanted to go farther. We had a lot of success with that, so I ended up flipping it. There are a lot of people that enjoy music and there are a lot of people that are curious about making music. I wanted to design a course for people just to find out if this is something that you really want to do. Not everybody plays basketball to go to the pros, and not everybody makes music because they’re trying to win a Grammy. Some people just love music and want the ability to make what they want to make and see where it goes from there. We designed a course that kind of takes you from step one on up. Hopefully, by the end of this course, you’ll be able to sit and ask yourself, “Is this something that I really want to do?”
Why do you think DJ courses are becoming more popular?
We don’t have music programs in schools anymore and a lot of times those band programs were the entrance to figuring out if this is something that you wanted to do. Right now, the only thing that we have that people can tap into their musical taste would be the church. It’s the church musicians, drummers, and keyboard players. We are knee-deep in the social media era and there are a lot of creatives that are online that are showing their process, which is making people understand that you don’t have to be the superstar producer and have all of these accolades to make music. I applaud anybody who steps out on a limb to try to teach a group of people who may not know. You don’t know if you want to do it unless you try it, so I want to make it fun for you to try. Who knows, you may get the next Timbaland out of this.
