Samo musicians attend GRAMMY Camp

Over the summer, two of Samo’s very own students attended the GRAMMY Camp, a music education outreach program of The GRAMMY Museum. Miles Tobel (’22) and Jake Dreifort (’20) had the opportunity to learn about the music industry in the five day camp at USC. Tobel and Dreifort were selected after students from all over the world applied to the camp that ran mid-July. The camp has eight categories, including music business and audio engineering, in which students learn in workshops lead by experts in the fields. Because of the quality and reputation of the course, Tobel described the application process as rigorous.   “I had to send three videos of me playing my original songs. Then, I had to record a speech of myself explaining why I wanted to go there,” Tobel said.  He knew that the chances of him getting in were unlikely, after all, students had applied from all over the world. Dreifort on the other hand, did not know that it was such a highly regarded camp and thought that he had applied for a jazz course. To Tobel’s excitement, after two months of waiting, he received notice that he was accepted and that the camp started on July 23 at the USC Thornton School of Music. Tobel, who plays in Samo’s top jazz band and Samo’s concert band, applied in the Songwriting category, while Dreifort applied in the instrumental performance category as a trombone player. The two groups were closely intertwined, as the songwriting team would write songs for the performers who would then play them. For Tobel, renowned songwriters such as JoJo and the American rock band Head and The Heart would lead songwriting workshops where he wrote songs with others and was able to gain many tips such as making the beginning of a song memorable because most listeners judge a song by the first thirty seconds of it. Then, the song was handed off to Dreifort’s group who would rehearse it. On a few occasions, Dreifort even went to the studio to record songs. “We were recording the songs that the songwriters had written and the singers were singing, and it was my first time in a recording studio so it was really fun,” Dreifort said. A large part of the curriculum was also learning about how to make it in the industry. “The mentor I had was talking about how we can arrange parts [and] write [our] own music [or] invest in the business side of things.[He emphasized] to not just limit yourself to playing,” Dreifort explained. As a senior, he is now applying to colleges, including USC.  Tobel is currently producing a song he wrote during the camp.  “I like rock and I am probably most influenced by 60’s and 70’s bands such as The Beatles, The Doors and The Eagles, but I don’t limit myself to just that genre,” Tobel said.  So far he has released six songs on his Spotify platform “Miles Tobel”. “I was pretty pissed off that it wasn’t a jazz camp at first, but then I was like, this is actually really cool!” Dreifort said.  He encourages students to apply if they have an interest in a career in the music industry. Tobel and Dreifort both recommend starting the application process as early as possible and appearing confident in one’s audition videos in order to submit the best possible application.