Duxbury High School (Duxbury, MA, updated Feb 2025)
- Instructor: Joe Pondaco
- Location: Duxbury, MA
- School Profile: Public HS. 9-12, total 975 enrollment
- Class Title(s): Music Technology I & II, Advanced Projects in Music Technology, Piano
Lab I & II, Music Business, Music in Film, Music Theory - Grades Levels Included: 9-12
- Structure of NTM Class(es): All non-traditional music classes meet on a rotating schedule, which is usually 3 to 4 times a week. They are half year courses that run each term. Class size runs from 12 to 20 students.
- History: The original tech program was starting with a grant for one workstation many years again. Over time more stations were purchased or upgraded every year, usually one at a time. As the number of stations grew so did the enrollment. This allowed us a good part of the budget when they built a new high school and new technology room just last year.
- Software Used: Logic Pro, Finale (will soon switch to a different program due to Finale no longer being sold), Ableton 11, Fl Studio, Garageband, and Musescore.
- Hardware Used: iMacs, M-Audio Keystations, and Focusrite Scarlett Solo interfaces.
- Class NTM Activities: Music Tech I focuses on learning the software and basic music writing, Music Tech II incorperates advanced songwriting, harmony, audio production and audio/video sync. Music Tech III allows students to choose their own projects to work on though out the year. Piano Lab offers piano practice time with coaching. Music Business surveys historic and current trends in the industry for students interesting in pursuing this as a career.
- Success stories: These classes have helped the music department to reach so many other students that would not normally be in music class. The music business course especially has found a number of students with aspirations of going into the music industry that we otherwise would not have found.
- Advice to Others Starting NTM Project: Start small and use what you have. If the kids are interested they will enroll and more enrollment = more resources.
- Data: There are 975 students in the school. There are a lot of students in performing groups, about 200 students. This year we have 90 students taking NTM classes.
- Date Submitted: March 2015, Updated by Jacob Eisentraut (MTLA Intern 2025)