Eva's Interview

Date and approximate length of interview: 02/26/24, 40 minutes

Interview questions:

What does a creative aging program mean to you?

Creative aging means to me a course focused on the needs of older adults, whether music or non-music related. There are not many courses focused on lifelong learning.

What made you want to create this course? 

I wanted to create this course because OLLI has not had many music courses focused on adults with perhaps no prior music engagement. 

What made you want to propose that this course be created?

I wanted to propose something from LexPhil to represent our music courses and representations for older adults. 

Do you see this course as something to be implemented beyond our OLLI program?

This program could be implemented throughout many different programs whether focused on creative learning or not.

Would you consider a further course beyond this one in the future?

Absolutely, this program could be expanded in a number of ways. For example, you could look at other DAWs except Soundtrap and focus on musical interests straight from participants. 

The focus of this project is to propose a music technology course for this summer through LexPhil and Lifelong Learning Institute. This course will explore multiple Digital Audio Workstations and touch on beginner music theory.

The general needs of the community include not only a place for older adults to learn, but access and support as well. It is their observation that there is an intimidation factor when technology is involved. However, the community has many instrumental learning opportunities through OLLI. 

This course provides the opportunity to develop digital literacy skills while giving older adults a place to come together. These courses are something any person would look forward to, and music making needs to be more easily accessible. Students will be able to share creations and work with peers regularly if they choose to. 

I plan to address these needs through teaching the students how to login and use Soundtrap first. In my opinion, Soundtrap is the easiest digital audio workstation to use, so I think this is the best place to start. I will use demonstrations, tutorial videos, and individual help with this. The first class will mostly consist of program exploration. 

Products will include completed compositions and sharing creations with one another. I will mostly do a lot of observation throughout class to check progress. Next, I will need to explore more into the Lifelong Learning program and make sure my proposed course meets all of their requirements. I will also be making a survey for my current students to check their current interests and suggestions.