Episode 4: Dr. Adam Patrick Bell & the Dawn of the DAW

My guest for this episode is Dr. Adam Patrick Bell. Dr. Bell is an Assistant Professor of Music Education in the School of Creative and Performing Arts at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. ​His current courses include: Music and Popular Culture, Popular Music Pedagogy, and Introduction to Music Technology. His primary areas of research are: ​DIY (do-it-yourself) music making and learning in home/project studio recording, music software/instrument design impact on learning, and (dis)ability in music. In addition to numerous articles written for professional and educational journals, he has shared his research and presented professional learning sessions around the globe. He also serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Music, Technology & Education and Visions of Research in Music Education.

He writes in the preface of his book Dawn of the DAW, “the dividing line between the traditional roles of musicians and recording professionals has eroded, inadvertently inaugurating a new music education paradigm… Dawn of the DAW illuminates the centrality and criticality of digital recording technologies in the learning and music-making processes of DIY-ers.”

This episode of Mu Tech Teacher Talk is part 1 of our discussion about his book Dawn of the DAW and the implications of the studio as a musical instrument in the rapidly growing field of music technology education.