Since 2015, local teacher/musician/producer Kessler Cuffman has been finding ways to take his Dynamo Studios program to Hamilton County middle- and high school-aged students. Now, thanks to some financial help from the Les Paul Foundation, that task should be a little easier. Or at least better funded.
"We carry everything around in Pelican cases," he said in a telephone interview, referring to the hard-shelled, waterproof cases used to haul equipment. "This will help us get the equipment we need and go a long way to making the program better."
When Cuffman, who is now executive director, started the program, he was a history teacher at the Chattanooga High Center for Creative Arts, and he created Dynamo to teach students how to produce and engineer music. Later, he helped design and implement The Studio at the Chattanooga Public Library. It is a professional-quality space available to county residents with a library card interested in recording a song or a podcast or in learning how a studio works.
Elizabeth Orr is a veteran of the Dynamo program who started learning how to set up microphones, use the software, mix a live recording and handle people when she was 12 years old. Now 17, she just released her first record, "Seven Sisters," a 10-song collection she wrote, produced, engineered, sang and performed on.
"My experience with Dynamo Studios has changed my life," she said via text, "not just as a musician and producer but also as a human being. The organization is compassionately driven and focuses on the needs of the community, in which I am incredibly grateful for the generosity that they have shown me. Without them, I wouldn't have found my passion for music."
During part of the pandemic, Dynamo operated out of space in the Tivoli Center, but now has a studio inside the Department of Community Development's teen programming space on Watkins Street. The studio allows the program to operate year-round by hosting camps and after-school programs, and it is where the students get to work with industry professionals while making a recording.
Cuffman is joined by full-time employees Dominique Whitaker and Anthony Wiley and a team of volunteers who teach photography, videography and music production to the students. The program has added music journalism and is set to publish a digital edition of a music magazine.
Graphic designer Tessa Voccola with RVRB Agency in Chattanooga is working with the students on the project, Cuffman said.
Cuffman said he has developed his program over the years, and the key is that it tries to find ways to get the students to interact in a real way with industry professionals on actual projects such as a recording session or an ad or marketing campaign.
"Hands on is the secret sauce," he said. "That's what we do that is different. It's what gets everybody excited."
In addition to learning the difference between a dynamic microphone and a cardioid one, and which one is best for vocals and which is better to record drums, they learn to work with all types of people in creative and sometimes stressful situations.
Cuffman said issues such as mental health have been introduced into the curriculum.
Much of the actual teaching is done at several schools in the county system, including the Howard School, Howard Connect Academy, Chattanooga High School Center for Creative Arts, Chattanooga Prep and Brainerd High School. In all, Cuffman said the program will reach about 700 students this year and could reach more if it had the resources.
"It's growing like crazy," he said, "which is a good thing."
Most of the teaching is done on computers, microphones, headphones and other equipment that is carried to the various locations for each class.
"We go to the students," Kessler said.
"And the Les Paul Foundation grant will help with that," Cuffman said.
The foundation, which has awarded more than $4 million to nonprofit organizations to date, prohibits him from disclosing the amount, but Cuffman said he hopes the relationship will continue after this year.
He pointed out that Paul himself was an inventor interested in finding new ways to create music, and that fits with Dynamo's mission. Paul is best known perhaps for the guitars that bear his name, but he was also a prolific inventor who pioneered the solid-body guitar, multi-track tape machine, recording, sound on sound and other studio techniques that are commonplace today.
"They were interested in the creative part of what we do," Cuffman said.
And, Cuffman said, he has found no shortage of creativity when it comes to the young students.
"We have some crazy talented kids," he said.
Contact Barry Courter at bcourter@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6354. Follow him on Twitter @BarryJC.