Mr. DeMoura has a multitude of different music courses that he offers for students to take as electives. As student feature editors of The Oakmonitor, Abby and I sat in on Mr. DeMoura’s D block Music Production class. The class consists of group discussions, projects, and lessons which all tie into each other

On Friday, December 11th, DeMoura had student presentations taking place during the first half of the class. The idea of the project was to take 8 musical samples (made by teacher aide, Sam Flannery) and incorporate them into each student’s own piece. The project was assigned for 2-3 days for them to come up with about a 20-30 second long song.

While we sat in and listened to these projects we could hear how many different styles and genres there were amongst the class. After each presentation, DeMoura first asks the presenter what they thought of their work, what they did well vs what they could improve on. Next, he welcomes polite constructive criticism and compliments on each piece from their classmates.

Sitting in on the class we were able to see how much of a fun and welcoming environment Mr. DeMoura makes his classroom. He keeps the class entertained the whole time, tying in each lesson to the next. He builds connections with his students while also keeping them all engaged. He keeps up to date on their lives and how it affects or goes along with the topics in class. The way he teaches makes everyone feel welcome not just people who absolutely know everything about music.