AMPLIFY THIS :: XLab

(CREATIVE EXPANSION LAB)

SEPT - March, 2022

AWAKEN, EQUIP, AND TRANSFORM YOUR ARTISTRY

WITH RENOWNED VIOLINIST, COMPOSER & HYBRID ELECTRONIC ARTIST TODD REYNOLDS

IN A ##-WEEK VIRTUAL CREATIVE LAB FOR MUSICIANS.

design a new way of being a musician in the world.

IF YOU ARE…

A MUSICIAN ITCHING TO EXPLORE THE WORLD OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC TO EXPAND YOUR MUSICAL VOICE,

you’ve mastered your instrument, be it a violin, a clarinet, a guitar, your voice, and you realize there are tools that can take your sound to the next level and help you achieve the sound you want to perform with… THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.

IF YOU HAVE…

DIPPED YOUR TOE IN ELECTRONIC MUSIC BUT FIND YOURSELF STUCK

and want a mentor and peer community to work with to learn and experience how to work with these programs in a fun and organized way…THEN XLAB IS FOR YOU.

Imagine unleashing your creative potential, investing your time and energy into developing the tools, techniques, and connections you need in order to achieve the flexibility expected from today’s musician.

The tools to expand your musical voice are available to you and I am here to help you navigate the complexities of the systems and show you how to piece them together in order to create your own, unique performance and producing rig.

You will:

• Work with people who are of like mind, and through reflection, conversation, inspiration, and coaching from those who are already ‘in it’

• Get instruction and hands-on experience working in Ableton Live, the foundational software we will be learning about in this program

• Be introduced to using other software programs like Logic and ProTools, hardware such as effects pedals and midi controllers, modular synthesizers

• Learn how to communicate and work with your sound engineer at a venue to make sure all these new tools sound well balanced and just as you want it

• Know how to troubleshoot the myrad ways your system might crash and burn and ways to keep your cool and carry on - it happens to the best of us and will probably happen to you, don’t be scared, be prepared!

• Think of your music career as a holistic practice, where you create a sustainable life that you love

Who AM I?

Hi, I’m Todd Reynolds, Artistic Director and Lead Coach for Amplify This.

Here is where my bio should be. There are tons of lovely colleagues to cite working with, and wonderful places played, countries toured to, and opportunities I feel so fortunate to have been granted. Feel free to read all about them in my ‘About’ page. But those things don’t tell you all that much about who I am.

Here’s what might be more helpful to know:

I started out on a violin made of a standard elementary school ruler taped onto a Grape Nuts box and grew up playing all the sonatas and concertos that all the other kids did.

I played in church by my father’s side for what seemed like an eternal adolescence, and by some stroke of good fortune, found myself in one of the last classes of the great Jascha Heifetz where he counseled me to sell insurance for the sake of my own happiness on my way out the door.

In college, I became enamored with playing the music of living composers - it got me hooked on non-historic ways of thinking about music, stretching me beyond my planned trajectory in classical music.

But then I accepted a position playing Principal Second Violin in the Rochester Philharmonic. After my third year in a coveted, stable job, I realized it wasn’t going to be enough for me. Since the very moment I quit my job, I’ve reinvented myself four times, at least. First as a Broadway musician, then as a founder of ETHEL, a cutting edge amplified string quartet, then as a ‘solitary composer in the woods’ recording artist, and finally, refocusing as an educator - not that that’s anywhere near the end of things.

I’m what I call a hybrid musician. I play with some of my long time idols - singer/songwriters, Broadway musicians, global musicians, minimalists, electronica artists, rock stars, New Music heroes, Classical Music heroes - I count them all my friends, colleagues and collaborators.

I record, teach, and perform with my studio onstage and off, study Indian music, jazz, music programming, psychology, and mindfulness to varying degrees as disciplines. I’m as much a student as a teacher. That will never change.

In 2016, I felt the industry changing yet again. CDs - gone, Broadway jobs - gone, commercial work - gone. My partner, Isabelle, and I moved to a beautiful place in the country to build a community for teaching and creating, to develop more tools for reinvention and expansion, and to delve ever deeper into what it means to be a holistic musician today.

You see, we musicians are not our instrument, we’re not the music we studied, we are fully human. We are creators through and through, whatever form that expression takes. It is with the questions that we slay the dragon, not with our virtuosity. The Hero’s Journey exists for us as it does for everyone else, and we need only to walk forward with eyes open and a backpack full of good questions (and great gear), and with that - we’ll face our next dragon.

I’ve created XLab for Amplify This, our online academy, for fellow musicians who feel that same nagging suspicion that ‘the box’ they currently inhabit is too small to contain them, that the times we’re living in are calling them forth to something larger, that they too want to think of themselves as creators, as storytellers, as activists, and agents of change.

WHAT HAPPENS IN XLAB? 

Training sessions

STUDIO :: PROCESS :: COMMUNITY

Bi-Monthly training sessions delve into technical applications that can enhance your music making toolkit, leaving you proficient and ready to make and think about music in new ways. The foundational tool we will be working with is Ableton Live and we will survey other electronic music software and hardware available to work with.

Group COACHING Sessions 

INVESTIGATE :: SPACE :: COLLABORATE

Monthly open sessions designed for open discussion and to answer your questions. There will be no agenda here, this is time for you to come, ask, and participate. You may have a question, you may have an answer. These sessions are wonderful opportunities for the group to have the space to interact and learn from each other.

SOLUTION SERIES

INFORM :: EQUIP :: DEMYSTIFY

The Solution Series is a program of prerecorded courses available online. These courses will help get you up and running if you are working with Ableton for the first time, in Leveling Up Your Virtual Presence, and working with Ableton’s Push 2 controller.

These classes are open to the public, and XLab participants have full access to any workshop they desire.

1::1 COACHING 

INDIVIDUALIZE :: SEEK :: CONNECT

Personalized strategy sessions are available for channeling energy and intention effectively. In these sessions you are the absolute focus - your dreams, your goals, and your challenges. My regular coaching fee will be reduced for all XLab participants during the dates of the program.

SCHEDULE & FEES

This ## month program includes:

• Two Training Sessions each month

• Monthly Group Coaching Sessions with Todd & Isabelle

• Discounted 1 on 1 Coaching Sessions with Todd

• Full access to our Solution Series programs designed to set you up with tools and practical applications in a variety of topics

• A built in community and tools for support and accountability

COST: $3000

*Partial & full scholarships and payment plans available

Ready to register? Still have questions? Give us a call!