Many technology-using music educators train for and advocate the use of technology in school music programs but few could be accurately called gurus. Dennis Mauricio is an exception. A music teacher at Hilltop High in Chula Vista, California, Mauricio is widely acknowledged as an music-education technology guru — and rightly so.

One of the early adopters of technology in music, Mauricio has advanced degrees in music education and computers. He has taught music technology almost exclusively for 18 years, with a few forays into traditional school music. He is published in the field, coauthoring The Fundamentals of Music Technology (Dennis Mauricio, 1999) and The Music Mentor Series (Roland Corporation U.S., 2000). One of the first to found an electronic performance ensemble, Mauricio is a certified instructor with the Technology Institute for Music Educators (TI:ME; www.ti-me.org), serves as the technology representative for California MEA, and trains teachers all over the country.

FIG. 1: The guru of Hilltop High School: Dennis Mauricio in action.

For Mauricio (see Fig. 1), music technology is an essential component of a comprehensive music education, not just something teachers pick up in their spare time in order to write pep-tune charts. He believes that music technology is a necessity if school music programs are to help students succeed in school and beyond, and that ignoring it is a disservice to students. It's that combination of passion, knowledge, experience, and generosity with his time that qualifies Mauricio as a guru. (Speaking of generosity, Mauricio provided MET with a lesson plan from the Hilltop program; see the sidebar “Lesson Plan: Sonic Collage Composition.”)

Late to join the teaching profession, Mauricio began at age 32, having worked in another field during the day and played music on the weekends. In college, he found little acceptance for musicians with a jazz or commercial-music background. “I was out in the real world earning a living playing, while my college piano professor was telling me that I had no business being a piano major,” he says. He went on to earn a masters in educational technology and a degree in music education.

Mauricio got his first teaching job at Southwest High School in San Diego, which was a technology magnet at the time. In addition to directing the marching band, he taught three periods of math, a period of drill team, and tall flags. “All I could think about was how I could get out of that,” he jokes. He especially did not want to teach math again, so he put together a proposal for a music-technology class. His timing was excellent, because his principal was looking for innovative ideas to help grow the school's technology track. Dennis remembers going with his principal on Halloween — his proposal in hand — to meet with a district administrator.

FIG. 2: Mauricio began his teaching career at Southwest High School, where he built this keyboard lab. He had the school woodworking shop modify cafeteria tables to make the workstations.

The district gave him seed money to buy a 4-track cassette recorder, a keyboard, and an amplifier. The following spring semester, 90 kids enrolled. “I wound up with three full classes based on that little bit of gear,” he says. The logical next step was to take advantage of that enrollment to get more money. He got approval to buy eight more “really cheap” keyboards, and had the school woodworking shop modify cafeteria tables for use as workstations. That was his first keyboard lab (see Fig. 2).

As a result of his music-technology classes, Mauricio discovered that many of the kids taking band class were also piano players. With this in mind, he brought in synthesizers to augment Southwest's pep band, and the department grew from there. “One of the best things I did was to start an after-school electronic performance ensemble that first year,” he explains. At the time, the Axel Foley song from the movie Beverly Hills Cop was very popular, and it was the first piece the ensemble tackled. “Band wasn't growing, but kids were pouring into music tech as a result of the ensemble,” Mauricio notes. The following year, he taught three classes of Introduction to Music Technology, the Music Tech Ensemble, and marching band. “I was making it up as I went along,” he laughs, adding that no one knew exactly what he was doing — just that there were lots of kids who wanted in.

It was an exciting time, filled with train wrecks that were learning experiences in disguise. The kids played on stage with all the keyboards plugged in to one amp until Mauricio scrounged up enough money for a P.A. system. It was not unusual for the Music Tech Ensemble to go hat in hand into the community, play a few songs, and ask for money to help buy equipment.

Two of those early purchases were a drum machine and a multipad percussion controller. One student tapped out percussion parts on the drum machine pads while the other played a part on the percussion controller. Using electronic percussion controllers in 1987 was way ahead of the curve for musicians in general, much less for a public-school band. But the band's willingness to innovate helped it earn its reputation and set a precedent that led to an entire complement of music-technology classes, a music-engineering class, and a music-business class. Soon music technology was Mauricio's entire focus.

“A group of students started that tech ensemble between 1987 and 1993,” he says fondly. “Now those kids are working professionals, some working in music, with families of their own. Dennis knows that most of those students would not have participated in music at all without the music-tech option.

Recently one of those former students organized a reunion. The former students brought videotapes of their past shows and discussed what music technology meant to them. “One student's wife came up to me and said, ‘My husband still talks about your class and what a difference it made in his life.’ As a teacher, those are the moments you live for.”

Because of administrative changes and a lack of resources, much of the initial vision didn't survive, and after seven years, the program dissolved. Again, Mauricio had a synchronous experience: at about the same time, the district had received a large grant to implement a variety of technology and school-to-career programs. Mauricio's vision fit well with that concept, and in 1994 the superintendent relocated him and the music-tech program to Hilltop High in nearby Chula Vista (in the southwestern corner of California, just north of the Mexican border), where he had the opportunity to design a new program from the ground up.

At Hilltop, Mauricio converted a large classroom into a real lab, built to his specifications. When the lab opened in the fall of 1994, the program started with a full class schedule of multimedia, music technology, music business, music engineering (including a recording studio), and a tech ensemble.

FIG. 3: Hilltop High School lab features 16 stations, each equipped with an iMac and a 61-note synthesizer. Each station can be shared by two students.

The district isn't a wealthy one, yet the music lab is better equipped than most tech labs in the country. There are 16 stations, each with an iMac and a 61-note synthesizer (see Fig. 3). Each station is shared by two students. A closet was repurposed as a small recording studio/sound booth, enabling the music-tech students to record CDs to raise funds. The building was designed so that it could function as a technology- and staff-development training facility for music teachers.

That is not the normal progression; most teachers begin with a modest lab setup and venture into the world of live electronic performance much later. But opportunities for pianists are few in traditional music departments, and Mauricio felt it was important for students to learn to play as an ensemble. He therefore drew on his experience as a professional musician to create a real-world example for his music students.

FIG. 4: The Hilltop High Tech Ensemble in rehearsal.

The Hilltop High Tech Ensemble (see Fig. 4) continued to play, inspiring many other electronically driven groups throughout the United States. At the band's peak, its members played 30 gigs a year, including major events like the MENC Conference and a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “Traveling with that much electronic gear is a real experience,” observes Mauricio, “but it's one that kids need to have.”

That complement of classes lasted for seven years. “I don't know why it is, but every seven years, everything changes,” Mauricio laughs. Science and college entrance requirements changed in California, and the music program was devastated. Once again, synchronicity occurred — Mauricio was hired to work for a year as a music-technology education consultant for the Berklee College of Music's Music Education department, which partners with the Boston Public Schools. Marching-band director Kathleen Hansen kept the music-tech ensemble going in his absence.

The current emphasis on standardized testing has caused arts teachers to increasingly stand together, jointly providing the evidence of success needed to ensure their programs' survival. Mauricio's music-technology classes and music-tech ensemble are two elements in a larger arts community that he and his peers are building at Hilltop High. The arts team is working on cross-departmental projects and is building a cross-curricular arts program that combines digital and traditional media. “I have been energized by this new spirit of cooperation among all the arts teachers here at Hilltop,” Mauricio explains.

It's even more crucial to foster a spirit of cooperation within the school's music department. That increases the growth opportunities for the faculty and students. For example, Kathleen Hansen was a brand-new music teacher when she went to work at Hilltop High. A year later, her position was not evaluated as a full-time position. “They had to give me something else to do.” she says. With Mauricio on leave, she took over the tech ensemble. Until that time, she was happy with the split between electronics and acoustic music and had the traditional band-director mentality of “That's your stuff over there and my stuff over here, and never the twain shall meet.” The split was evident to the students, who, in the best cases, did not mingle. In the worst cases, there was antagonism.

Taking over the technology classes and the tech ensemble was a trial by fire for the new teacher, and it changed the atmosphere of Hilltop High for the better. “Until that time, I'd seen electronics in field shows done well and done badly. I knew the difference,” recalls Hansen. “Once I started understanding the gear and learned how to use it properly, it was a new world.”

FIG. 5: A key part of the Hilltop philosophy is integration between the traditional music program and the musictechnology program. Here a brass section from the band belts it out with the aid of mics from the tech crew.

Hansen started bringing a synth into the pit, followed by bass guitar. “We don't have a guitar yet, but that's next,” she promises. The ensemble kids began working with the band, and the band kids began using the tech lab for theory and drill. Hansen sees marching band, drum-line, and winter-guard organizations moving in a whole new direction, as technology is increasingly used by even the most traditional groups. “This year, DCI [Drum Corp International, which allowed electronics on the field for the first time only a year ago] had winning corps using amplification, including students chanting African drum parts into wireless microphones. It was amazing!”

Now it is routine to see the same students in band and in tech classes. The tech ensemble often uses vocal students from the choir and a horn section provided by the band (see Fig. 5). The music-tech students send keyboardists to help out in the pit, along with recording and sound technicians.

Hansen splits her schedule between Hilltop and an area middle school, so Mauricio occasionally takes over the direction of the band. And Hansen is now well equipped to handle music-tech classes. The two teachers recently decided to pool their individual budgets and purchase a Roland VS-2480CD 24-track portable digital studio. The recorder's portability makes recording the large ensembles possible outside of the stationary setup in the music-tech room. The tech students bring this device to the band room to record the band (see Fig. 6). “The first recording we did was of the school song and the school fight song so that they could be played at pep assemblies and school events when we weren't able to bring the band. Next, we did all the pep songs for the cheer squad.”

FIG. 6: Hilltop’s Kathleen Hansen and Dennis Mauricio pooled their department budgets to buy a Roland VS-2480CD 24-track portable digital studio (lower right), enabling the tech students to record the school band and other musical events.

Having the students sit in the stands and hear themselves as everyone else does has been an invaluable teaching tool. But beyond that, the collaborative spirit has revitalized the Hilltop High Visual and Performing Arts Department. (See the school's music-tech Web site at http://hhs.suhsd.k12.ca.us/~musictech/pages/prgoramhistory.html.)

One difficulty that technology-oriented music teachers face in California is getting the California State University system to recognize music-technology-related courses as valid for meeting college entrance requirements. The traditionalists in the university system see music tech as vocational music, rather than academic. Mauricio has had to fight to get his students' work recognized as legitimate music. “One board member told me, ‘It's not real music; they're really only pushing buttons.’” Mauricio asked the board member to come down and hear the students and then say that they weren't really playing, but his offer was rebuffed. “It was a closed door,” he explains. He says this attitude is prevalent in many areas of higher learning in which educators are reluctant to embrace the digital age.

Much of Mauricio's program is indeed vocational. “That's what makes it work,” he explains. “The students have to have jobs one day.” A major part of his mission is to let his students know how to make a career from music, and the traditional avenues for most music students are very narrow: teaching or performing in the symphony. “It's not fair to give them only those options when there are so many other options,” he says, adding, “The tech world is a big place!”

Several of Mauricio's students are working in the field of music, notably in live sound, music production, multimedia, theater, and so on. In some cases, they went in directions they never anticipated before studying music technology with Mauricio. For example, Robin Whitehouse did not plan to be part of the tech ensemble; he was interested in classical piano, and he intended to compose. “I only got in this group because I needed a sixth period class,” he says. The first day in the group, he thought, “I'm outta here.” But the second day, he started to see what it was like to play together as a group, rather than as one person practicing alone.

FIG. 7: Pianist Robin Whitehouse had no interest in technology before joining the Tech Ensemble to fill in his schedule. That changed everything. Today, he holds a part-time job servicing the music-tech lab’s electronics and has a second job as the sound engineer for a local college theater.

That experience changed his direction. Whitehouse graduated two years ago and went on to major in composition at Southwestern College, with an eye toward moving to Berklee College of Music. He has two part-time jobs: one is as a lab tech with the music-tech department at Hilltop High, where he repairs and maintains the lab's computers and electronic musical instruments (see Fig. 7). The other is as a live-sound engineer for the Southwestern Community College's theater. “All of that is because of Mr. Mauricio and the music-tech ensemble,” Whitehouse emphasizes.

As with any other music program, parent involvement was invaluable at the beginning, when Mauricio set up a booster program for the Tech Ensemble. He asserts that there is no excuse for not implementing some of those tools in music departments.

He's equally clear that technology should not be a single class but should be integrated into every area of music. The current wisdom at Hilltop High is that there shouldn't be two music departments, acting independently. Through synchronicity and the willingness of other instructors, the traditional hurdle has been crossed and all of the teachers are excited about the possibilities of working together.

Along the way, Mauricio has met many teachers who are attempting to integrate technology into their programs. Each of them is sure that they are the only ones out there doing this. Each is creating a program from the ground up because there are few materials and no established curriculum on which to base a music-technology component. The innovation among music-tech instructors is inspiring.

Mauricio is amazed that although MIDI technology has been around for more than 20 years, every MIDI 101 session he presents is filled with teachers who consider it new and cutting edge. “It feels like a mission to me,” he says. “The work I've done at Roland and at Berklee makes me want to communicate with and energize other instructors.”

In the past 18 years, Hilltop High has blazed a path for other tech labs and electronic ensembles. Here are some of the most important lessons that Mauricio has learned so far — most of them learned the hard way.

• Be willing to learn, think, and teach differently. Modern technology provides us with tools and resources that can transform the way we teach and the way our students learn, explore, and create music. We all tend to teach the way we were taught. You need to have an open mind and the motivation to embrace change and try something new. It isn't a matter of throwing all the old methods away; it's more about integrating current methods and resources that can transform and improve our teaching and student learning.

• Implement what you learn as soon as possible. Mauricio has seen teachers return to the same music-technology workshop several times because they hadn't practiced or applied what they had learned from the previous workshop. As soon as you learn something new, try it out in the classroom. Mauricio jokingly tells his students that “This is either going to be very cool or just another embarrassing moment.” “I think my students respect that I'm always in learning mode as well,” he states. “Give yourself permission to make mistakes and have a few train wrecks; although frustrating, mistakes are among the best teachers. No one remembers the thousands of failures Thomas Edison had while attempting to invent the light bulb. We only remember and celebrate his success.”

• Make the most of what you already have. It's easy to look at large, successful programs and say “if only ….” Mauricio's teaching career has been a roller-coaster ride of successes and failures, of lean times and abundance. “Some of the most creative and synergistic moments I've had with my ensemble students have been when we created a successful solution to what seemed like an insurmountable challenge. We stretched our resources to the limit and then some. We learned through the process of making do with what we had. Sometimes it isn't a fun or an easy way to learn. But we did learn.”

• Determine your instructional goals before making purchasing decisions. When you have a budget to purchase music technology projects, the tendency is to focus on what to buy. First focus on and determine your primary educational and instrumental goals: what you want the students to learn, how you want them to experience the learning process, and what outcomes you expect. There are so many technology resources on the market that once you set goals, you can then find the resources to help you achieve them.

• Maintain persistence and patience. Because most music teachers are active musicians, they already understand the discipline of practice and the value of patience and persistence. Those same traits are essential to learning and using music technology. As with practicing a major piece of music or learning a new instrument, you will make many mistakes when exploring new technology. If, however, you practice faithfully and stick with it, and keep in mind that learning any new skill takes time, you'll be able to reach your goals — and then some.

Although Mauricio openly admits he's a technoholic when it comes to computers and music, he still thinks that the point of the exercise is to make music and help students and teachers find and use the resources to make music. “I still love playing the piano as much as I enjoy making music in my studio. It shouldn't be a matter of acoustic versus electronic music or historical versus contemporary music,” he asserts.

That said, he feels that traditional departments are not doing all they could to prepare their students for a musical future. “Nearly all professional career areas expect their practitioners to stay current with the latest tools, methods, and best practices in their fields,” he says. In contrast, he states, “Most students who get music degrees today are really getting a music history degree.”

In particular, Mauricio is concerned about the chasm between school music programs and the way music is created and performed in most of the music industry. He insists that we must connect the two worlds by embracing the current methods and tools for making music while preserving our musical heritage and history. “Every music-education conference should have sessions that focus on stretching us and pushing us out of our comfort zone,” he explains. He feels strongly that teachers should encourage each other to participate in new types of sessions and musical performances in addition to attending more-traditional sessions and concerts.

As Dennis Mauricio sees it, we owe it to our students to make them aware of the possibilities and to equip them with some knowledge and experience so they have a choice. Even the vast majority of music students who won't directly pursue a career in music can learn about how music is made today; many of them will hopefully be inspired to continue making music for the rest of their lives.

Debra Barbre is the Music Education Specialist for Roland Corporation and sits on the executive board of TI:ME.

In this lesson plan from the Hilltop High School program, students create a composition by recording the sounds of ordinary objects found in and around the classroom. The composition must follow a basic predetermined form or plan. Each student should locate various objects that can produce a variety of relative sonic characteristics including:

• High- and low-pitched sounds
• Loud and soft sounds
• Bright and dark (dull) sounds

• Students should be familiar with the concept of song form.
• Students should be familiar with basic recording and track-editing functions with digital audio recording software or hardware.
• Students should be able to differentiate between loud and soft, bright and dark, and high- and low-pitched sounds.

Discuss and determine a basic form for the composition (for example, AB or ABA). With that set, have your students organize sounds to create rhythmic or pitched phrases and sections. This should include variations in loudness, rhythmic activity, and the selection and use of objects.

Next, they should record their compositions. When the basic recording is completed, they should use the track-editing functions to loop (repeat) phrases or sections of a track. They can overdub additional sounds on other tracks to create additional complexity and tension in the composition.

Assuming the composition consists of more than one track, the students should then mix down their completed composition.

Finally, have the students present their compositions to the class and discuss the objects and musical elements used to create their pieces.