Stories

Where Confidence Finds Its Sound

January 23, 2026

Step into Middle School music teacher Wes Lanich’s Studio Music class and you immediately feel it. This is not rows of students running scales. This is a room with big windows, mountain views, headphones on, Chromebooks open, guitars and keyboards within reach, and small groups leaning in close, recording a track, listening back, and saying, “Wait, try it again.”

Wes designed the class this way on purpose.

The engineering and production side of music is the doorway. With a Chromebook, a pair of headphones, and a digital audio workstation, students who never saw themselves as “music kids” realize they can build something remarkable from nothing. No years of lessons required. The entry point feels modern, accessible, and a little bit thrilling.

Of course, the part students call the “candy” is playing songs together. In September they pick up instruments and jump in. They move around the room. They trade places. They try something new just because it is there. A little theory is woven in, but the emphasis is on doing, together, as a band.

Then, just as they get comfortable, Wes pauses the playing.

This is where the deeper work begins.

Students start to understand what it means to record. They learn about microphones and gear, how to layer tracks, how to mix, and how to listen with patience and intention. Everyone starts from the same place, which levels the field for students with wildly different backgrounds. In this room, curiosity matters more than experience.

Early on, students stick to what feels familiar. Part of Wes’s gift is gently nudging them past that edge. A drummer tries a keyboard. A singer experiments with percussion. Someone who has never touched an instrument before volunteers to run the mix. Bit by bit, they become more willing to take creative risks.

“We’re not trying to create professional musicians,” Wes said. “I want students to feel brave enough to try, patient enough to listen, and proud of what they can build together.” The goal is to give them a memorable, joyful experience with music and a real understanding of what it means to create something as a community. They begin to see that music is not just performance. It is collaboration, experimentation, listening, and problem solving.

When schedules allow, that work travels off campus to Mad Dog Ranch Studios in Old Snowmass. Students step into a professional recording space to overdub, refine, and hear their classroom ideas come alive in a new way. What started as a rough, sample based track in the Ponds studio becomes a layered, polished recording in a place once used by legendary artists. The experience feels very real, because it is.

From start to finish, the class is hands on. Students are not waiting to be told what to do. They are trying, listening, adjusting, and learning from one another with Wes right there beside them, asking questions, offering suggestions, and letting them figure it out. Students leave with more than a finished recording. They leave knowing they can step into something unfamiliar, work through the discomfort of not knowing, and create something meaningful alongside their peers.

For many students, that confidence is the real hit record.