This summer, graduate student Kevin Muldoon spent two weeks in ‘SUmmer at SUbCat,’ a new course created by professor James Abbott that incorporated a music program for local high school students with disabilities. As one of Abbott’s graduate assistants, Muldoon applied his expertise in electrical engineering and love for music in teaching studio recording to 14 local students inside SubCat Studios, a modern music recording facility in downtown Syracuse. He shares a slice of his time working with the students to create a studio album and put on a concert.  

When professor Abbott told me his plan for the class, I was really interested — it was one of a kind, no other university had done it before. I was also a little bit nervous. I taught guitar lessons to high school students for two years, so I had experience working with younger students but never with students with disabilities before.

There was a lot of preparation in learning about the high school students — we talked about what music they liked and the disabilities each one had. Few already had knowledge about computers and some liked to perform. We wanted them all to feel comfortable in the studio.

Recording music is all about working on the fly and managing unexpected problems that might come up. It took me nearly five years of working in a studio over and over again to feel confident, so I was curious to see how these students would handle being taught in that kind of situation.

On Monday, we all got together at SubCat. It was so easy to interact with these kids because they just had an internal, intrinsic motivation to learn this technology to express themselves. They got their feet wet in every part of studio.

At one point, we were all wrapping cables, and there’s a very specific way to wrap cables so they don’t get damaged or twisted. I teach it to students in my recording classes at SU and for some reason, almost all of them have trouble doing it.

But these kids, some with physical disabilities, watched me do it once and picked it up immediately. It proved that these kids may have disabilities, but they’re just as capable as other students.

We started recording music the first day. The musicians had a good sense of rhythm and there were minimal screw-ups. The backing track came together in just two takes. It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but if you’re a professional studio musician, a few takes is nothing. They didn’t sound like high school students, they sounded like professional musicians.

Then the Latino band, Grupo Pagan, came in to do two original songs and a cover of ‘Late in the Evening’ by Paul Simon. It was tricky because the first two days, we just had to worry about setting up the guitar and drums. Grupo had three congos, a pair of bongos, an organ and a sync and showed how their instruments should be miked. Usually, when you’re paying for studio time, you always think, ‘Go, go, go,’ but they put that mentality aside and let the kids take over and learn.

The day of the concert was the last day of class. There was a packed audience inside Red House Arts Center. All the seats were filled and there were people sitting in folding chairs or on the floor. I’ve played there a couple of times, and that room can be daunting.

There’s no stage — you’re not standing above everyone. There are people in stadium style seats just staring down at you.

From the backstage wing, I watched the kids sing their first song. Two graduate students had changed the lyrics to ‘Get Back’ by The Beatles, fitting in each student’s name. Instead of singing, ‘Get Back to where you all belong,’ they sang, ‘SubCat is where we all belong.’

None of them were shy — that was the best thing about it. You could just see from the students’ faces that there was just ease, no lack of self-assurance. They were so into the performance — there wasn’t any fear. Some of them were even kind of hamming it up.

Now that the class is over, we can reassess everything that happened. This program could be taught anywhere, not just at SubCat. For these students, who have unique perceptions of music and artistry, it’s all about leveling the playing field, not toning it down for them.

kkim40@syr.edu