My name is Miles Blumenthal, and I’ve loved music for as long as I can remember. I started drumming at age seven, when I found a rusty drum kit in the basement of my family’s vacation rental home. After I refused to leave the throne for the duration of the trip, my parents signed me up for lessons. I played classic rock, jazz, funk, fusion, punk, and whatever else I could get my hands on. My passion only grew as I entered into high school, and I began considering how music fit into my career path. As much as freshman me wanted to chase the dream of being a full time touring drummer, I was hesitant to put all my chips into one part of the music industry. I dreaded nothing more than being the washed up musician who couldn’t get a gig. To remedy this worry, I began looking into after production. I spent hours researching everything that goes on behind the scenes of making a track, specifically the recording, mixing and mastering. I figured that regardless of how the drumming thing worked out, having those skills would help me find my place in the industry. To my surprise, what started simply as a backup plan turned into real interest. I ended up working at two music studios and interacting with professional musicians every day but given my status as a high school student, the extent of my access ended with working the live sound boards. Through this project I hope to dive deeper into the process of producing recorded music. 

Over the course of these few weeks I will intern at Slumbo Labs in Downtown Brooklyn. Slumbo Labs is a music studio and label that is a joint venture with RCA Records and Jake Ottmann, Senior Vice President of A&R. Slumbo serves a wide range of talent, mainly focusing on up-and-coming artists. During the week I will aid in production and run sessions under the advisory of a professional sound engineer. During the recording process I’ll work with artists to create arrangements, edit vocals and instrumental parts, and use production techniques to add depth and dimension to the sound of the song. I’ll also improve my skills in Ableton and learn more about how to utilize plugins, panning, and EQs to form a final mix. By the end of the study I aim to be able to confidently produce a session in entirety. The experience will also serve as a prime opportunity to network with musicians and other professionals. I’ll not only spend time recording, but hanging out and talking with people pursuing my path. It’s my hope that I can apply their wisdom to my own work and potentially collaborate with them as a drummer. I’ll be recording my updates in the form of weekly vlogs, explaining projects I’ve worked on and areas of improvement with my technical skill. 

For my service I’ll be driving groceries around New York for Grassroots Grocery. It’s always been my belief that supplying clean healthy food to those without access is one of the biggest differences any individual can make. When I was younger my dad used to take me to volunteer at a homeless shelter downtown. After setting up the cots and tables, he and I would collect the assigned grocery money and go out to get the food. There was never quite enough to buy good products so my dad would always take some from his own pocket. As we gave out plates I could see the difference that extra bit made. Although I can’t provide service as a producer, I hope that I can still feed a mouth that would’ve gone hungry otherwise.