The words "summer camp" might make you think of overnights under the stars, mystery meat in the dining hall and marshmallows roasted around a glowing campfire. But there are no sappy singalongs at one unique Carbondale summer camp. At Carbondale Arts' DJ Camp, young musicians are using computers and turntables to write their own summer soundtracks.
Myker Hentschel is already pretty into music. He’s in fifth grade, and he plays three instruments.
"Keyboard and drums...and then, now, I’m going to play the trumpet," he said.
At DJ camp earlier this summer, Hentschel wasn’t just playing other people’s songs. He was learning to compose his own. The computer program he was working with had an unlimited number of instruments for him to blend together.
"What I wanted to do was put at the beginning like a kick drum that goes like, 'boom, boom,' and then it comes back in later, so people don’t just get bored of the same thing going on," Hentschel explained.
Spending the week inside during summer break was just fine by these campers, because, many of them said, music is one of the most important things in their lives.
"Well, it gets your emotions out and it just feels good to be listening to music. I think I couldn’t live without it," said Hentschel.
Diego Felix is the cool camp counselor that any kid would want. He’s funny and encouraging.
The thing is, he goes by the stage name DJ Full Metal. And instead of leading his campers, four boys and two girls, on a group hike, he’s teaching them to scratch on turntables.
Felix is from Denver; he first came to Carbondale to teach music workshops for students as a part of Colorado’s Detour program in 2017, which pairs musicians with schools. He said now he’s able to give kids in his classes a chance that he didn’t have when he was younger.
"I always liked music. I didn’t know how I was going to be involved with it. I remember taking guitar lessons when I was 12, but when I was 13, my guitar teacher quit. And I was, like, heartbroken, and I thought music was never going to be for me," he said.
But a few years later, Felix took the money he made from a summer job building fences and bought his first turntable. He’s been DJing for about five years now.
Now, not everyone is an electronic music fan. Don’t DJs just hold their headphones to one ear and bop their head along to a song that, OK, they may have remixed, but that other people actually wrote? But Felix told me that there’s a lot more to it.
“You learn timing, you learn pitch, you learn phrasing. In the grander scheme of a band, you learn pitch, you learn arrangement,” he said.
He said his campers were creating their own tunes that blend what they've learned at school, and the perhaps slightly cooler music they listening to on Spotify.
“The cool factor is, is that it’s something that kids don’t see in their band room, but they might see on You Tube, or they might see if they’re old enough to go to a show,” said Felix.
Edger Aulik said he’s always listening to, playing and even dancing to music. He had sheet music spread out in front of him, and was mixing bass and saxophone into his own songs. And this kid was not interested in learning how to look cool on stage; the song he was working on was pushing him to learn new technical piano skills.
“You have to go into subdominant, dominant A position, and many other positions, to get the right placing,” he said.
For his part, Felix marveled at his young campers. He said they were creating music that’s just as good as he made when he was 20.
"And they’re half that age, and they’re getting these tracks done and creating all these sonic landscapes. It’s so awesome. And it makes me really proud to be the one to kind of show them that,” he said.
Anyone who’s gone to summer camp remembers how sad it is to leave at the end. And this was no different.
“I don’t want to leave DJ camp. It’s super fun,” said Aulik.
But these campers would be leaving with a lot more than itchy legs from mosquito bites and a woven friendship bracelet. They would have a little musical inspiration and a song of their own.
