While the students in K030 pick up pencils and Chromebooks to do their homework, right next door in K032, students plug into amplifiers to sing, strum, and drum for Comprehensive Music Technology. CMT is by no means an ordinary class, and it’s geared to produce extraordinary musicians.
In its own unique way, CMT is a year-long group collaboration, which has fostered an environment full of overwhelming friendliness, laughter, and creativity, before the students even pick up their instruments.
As if the energy already abuzz in the room wasn’t enough, once the students get to playing and singing, it’s impossible not to see the talent flowing through the room with every chord. Mr. Daniel Tumolo, their teacher, knew this talent was enough of a cause to call for a class like CMT.
“You get everybody. I had a kid that went to Curtis Institute, and I get kids who’d never played an instrument before. I had some really good musicians, and I thought it’d be great to do some performance with that,” Tumolo said.
Tumolo was inspired to cater directly towards performance to showcase the skills his students possessed. From there, Comprehensive Music Technology was born. When he came to North Penn in 1999, he began teaching music technology, which was still combined with audio engineering at the time.
“I kind of changed music tech, took out the audio engineering, and added a separate audio engineering class within a few years. Now, audio engineering is called music production,” Tumolo said.
In his time at North Penn, Tumolo has been helping students to carry out their musical aspirations through the class. This school year will be his last before retirement, and next year, the class will be renamed to Modern Band.
“CMT started out as a tech class with some elements of performance, and then that completely reversed; now, it’s primarily performance with some tech. Other schools do that and they call it Modern Band. We’re changing the name next year,” Tumolo said.
“The name Comprehensive Music Technology was suggested by a principal back then because he felt it would have a better chance of getting approved by the school board if it had a more academic name. He felt that would be a good move, and I agreed, and then it’s been shortened to CMT, but it’s not a great name. Modern band is a genre or a classification and is more in line with what everybody else is doing,” Tumolo explained.
Still, the class will remain largely the same. Tumolo hopes that the next teacher continues the tradition of allowing students to choose their own songs to perform, and that the song choices will appeal to the entire community of students, parents, and staff.
“Students have more fun with it if they’re singing songs and playing songs that they really like, and then I feel like other students will enjoy it more too,” Tumolo explained.
“I hope it gets to develop more. Somebody younger will come in and do more younger types of ideas for those classes. It’ll just be nice because all of my curriculum will be available and they can pick and choose and modernize it,” Tumolo continued.
The curriculum itself over time has changed into preparing for upcoming performances, similar to band, orchestra, or chorus classes. During the beginning of the year, students familiarize themselves with music technology, including software like Logic Pro. Following that, they jump right into preparation for events such as pep rallies and winter and spring concerts through a constant practice of their songs.
CMT promotes a better understanding of music through hands-on experiences; whether it’s vocally or instrumentally, hearing and performing music for yourself provides a strong learning space.
“Most music teachers in this type of thing tell you that the print music is valuable, but hearing the way that it was performed is equally, if not more, valuable. I encourage [students] to listen to the original recordings and try to emulate that. If you’re a singer and you have a good voice, listen to five and learn five other songs by five other singers. You’re not gonna sound like them. You’ll create your own thing by learning from the best,” Tumolo explained.
Tumolo also encourages learning instruments, rather than exclusively creating music through online software, something that has become increasingly accessible and common in modern music.
“It’s become more democratized. Back in the day, if you wanted to get a recording, you had to have the money to go into a recording studio. If you wanted to have the world hear it, you had to be with a record label,” Tumolo said.
“But, when you’re pressing a switch, there’s nothing. It’s not like when I play the guitar, or the bass, or the acoustic piano; I’m feeling. I’m causing the air to move from the instrument. I’m feeling the vibrations in my hand, my arms and all it’s just completely different. It’s a more organic feeling than just essentially flipping switches.”
“A lot of kids create music and don’t have instruments. It’s all sample based, and I’m amazed at how many kids have never played an instrument. I think it would be great if, when you’re sixth grade or fifth grade, you had a year of music where one semester, you played the violin, then you played the trumpet, then you played brass, then a little bit of chorus. Have a little bit of everything. I would like to see more people playing instruments particularly in schools; you learn about how music works,” Tumolo explained further.
For students, the class is a unique learning experience. For Tumolo, it’s a unique career path that he didn’t expect. 26 years ago, when he was just starting out with North Penn, Tumolo was a freelance musician who brought to the table experience with “most of the instruments, except for drums,” he explained. “I’ve been playing this type of music forever.”
“When I was looking for a job, I didn’t think I would find something that uses music and technology. I found this job was half time the first year, and then I volunteered for some other things and became full time. It just grew over the years, and it sounds cliche, but it’s true. I’ve been really fortunate to have this type of job doing what I love and to work with great musicians,” Tumolo said.
Though the class name will change, the legacy Mr. Tumolo is leaving behind North Penn with his evolution of CMT will not. In a class with constant collaboration, performance, and unique learning experiences, with an incredibly involved teacher, students leave the class with a stronger understanding of the music around them.
The next upcoming opportunity to see the talented CMT students perform will be May 9th, 2025 at the Spring Concert.