WORDS Araceli Castro

I consider music my one true and loyal boyfriend. Which is why I was elated to hear I’d been assigned to do a story on Icon Collective, a music production school in Los Angeles. And what better way to conduct my story than to jump in the musical trenches by becoming a student for the day at Icon.

Finding my way to the entrance of Icon’s four-city block location was a typical L.A. adventure: the traffic, the one-way streets (oh the one way streets!). I got inside the building where I managed to get past security and into the elevator. As the elevator doors opened, I immediately felt a rush of creativity flowing in the air. The oddly figured furniture and lighting in the lobby were different, but very inspiring and fresh. Four flat screen TVs also decorated the lobby area flashing images of music videos.

Seconds after I approached the receptionist’s desk, David Alexander, co-founder of Icon, popped his head out of his office.

“Araceli! Come on in,” he said.

So in I walked. I don’t know if beautiful is the way to describe the studio, but it is beautiful! The mixing board, the recording booth—it was awesome.

“…and right over there is where the Foo Fighters had their concert,” said Alexander as he pointed out the studio’s window to the quad area. He talked about Foo Fighter’s free concert at the school quite nonchalantly. Just another day at Icon Collective I suppose.

“Co-founder Christopher Wight and I wanted to create a school where we could teach students to become artists, not technical engineers like some of these other schools,” said Alexander. Being an artist himself, Alexander understands the lifestyle.

“In order to be successful, it’s something that you have to live everyday, it’s a lifestyle. Most schools don’t know that lifestyle,” says Alexander, who is described as a genius by some of the students.

I got to hear Christopher Wight talk more about that lifestyle when I sat in on his class, Art of Flow. I sat in the lecture hall nodding like a bobblehead in approval of everything Wight said. He talked about following your intuition, letting go of egos and appreciating everything in your life in order to be able to create artistically. Despite being the only girl in the class, I was able to keep my focus. It wasn’t like a boring lecture where the students have to take notes. It was very real and inspiring. In fact, I was so inspired that I was ready to get my Timbaland on and create some beats!

That feeling quickly died when I saw how complicated it is.

I walked into the sound booth to sit in on a private lesson with producer/remixer Brian Matrix and a student. They were working on a new beat. I was literally watching music being created before my eyes, which was an amazing feeling. Also in the booth was another student who I found out was having boy problems. She was using those emotions to write a song. Boy bashing? Sounds like something I’d be great at, I thought to myself right before I offered to help her. We talked about the boy problems and the creative juices just started flowing—and boiling. Our song started something like this: “I know holding my hand gave you an ego, but now you’re just an average Joe!” Okay, so maybe those won’t be lyrics to the next Top 40 hit, but it was so much fun writing them!

Looking back on my day as a student at Icon Collective I can say that not only was it a great experience but I have a new-found respect for those that write and produce music. It’s tremendously invigorating just being around artistic people who are following their dreams. I might not be the next Amy Winehouse, but for a minute there, that thought didn’t seem too far away. For now, I’ll stick to boy bashing.

For more information on Icon Collective visit learn2produce.com

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