Boise Music Retreat
Testimonial - By Matt Vander Boegh: Boise Music Retreat Founder
The first-ever Boise Music Retreat took place from April 23-26 at two locations in Boise, including the PLAY Studio of the JUMP Building.
The retreat was primarily focused on a branch of the music industry commonly called “sync music”, which is music written primarily for usage on TV shows, movies, and media. It’s a path of the music world that many musicians are unfamiliar with, and some have no idea it even exists at all. And so this retreat focused on not only what the “sync” world is, but how to achieve success within it by writing music that is usable by TV show editors and wanted by music supervisors.
The biggest hurdle we had to overcome when putting this retreat on was location. We knew we wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of 20-30 people to attend, but we didn’t have space for those types of numbers. Luckily someone suggested that we check into the JUMP Building.
After looking at the parameters for usage of the various JUMP Building rooms, it was apparent that our music retreat checked all the boxes. We put in an application and were approved for the PLAY Studio, which was the perfect location to host the majority of this retreat.
We configured the seating into a rainbow shape around the projector screen, and hosted a handful of interviews and panels over Zoom. The internal camera was able to show the entirety of our attendees, and the microphone allowed people to ask questions of our panelists. The audio of everything was crystal clear, and fit our needs in this space perfectly.
With this seating arrangement, we were also able to conduct many “class sessions” with an in-person teacher at the front of the room.
When not learning via classes or panels, the attendees broke into six small groups of 3-4 to write music together. We made use of the “segmentable” space in the PLAY Studio, so that each group could work on a song without being distracted by other groups. The PLAY Studio has a variety of rooms within it, which we used for
isolation. And at one point, a group was even working outside in the parking lot because the weather was beautiful that weekend.
We spent two solid days at the JUMP Building (Friday April 24 & Saturday April 25), and everyone at the retreat felt that this was the absolute perfect location to host an event like this.
Paul and the staff in the building (and the PLAY Studio specifically) were amazingly helpful and on-site to help us troubleshoot issues and make sure things were running smoothly.
“The space itself just lends itself to learning and creativity.”
This first retreat went so well, that we’re already planning our next one!
