When Brian Funk first filmed an Ableton tutorial in his basement five years ago, he wanted to maintain a sense of anonymity. So the Long Island-based high school English teacher put on a pair of shades and dubbed himself AfroDJMac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFor a while I never even attached my name to anything I did,\u201d he says, \u201cbut the kids still figured it out somehow. One day someone shows up in class, and they’re like, \u2018So, I’ve been listening to this AfroDJMac guy.\u2019 I’m like, \u2018Oh, here we go.\u2019 It’s inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding his pseudonym of choice, he says it has nothing to do with his preference for Mac computers. He does use Apple products, but they do not particularly turn him on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI would hate for people to think that,\u201d he laughs. \u201cIt was just like a joke, honestly. The first time I ever put anything out under that name, I didn’t really expect anyone to listen to it or pay attention. I was putting out Ableton packs to download, I was surprised how many people were downloading them. I’d never gotten that sort of attention for anything before. \u2026 Maybe it was two months in and I was like, \u2018I don’t want to change my name now! Two hundred people are watching my video!\u2019 Had I done it then, it would have made a lot more sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funk now has almost 6,000 subscribers and the videos he makes in his basement boast more than 1.3 million views. His tutorials and his status as an Ableton Certified Trainer are also part of what got him a job as an instructor for Berklee Online, the online arm of Berklee College of Music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main reason why he spreads himself a little thin to make so many musical commitments: \u201cIt\u2019s easy to sit on the couch and be like, \u2018I\u2019ll do it later,\u2019 but when I put these self-imposed goals on my plate, even the Berklee ones, it forces me to work. \u2026 It\u2019s just like, \u2018I HAVE to do this! I can\u2019t NOT do it!\u2019 It gets me thinking, it gets me working, it gets me trying to figure out something new and interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the new and interesting sounds that Funk has recently figured out how to incorporate into song include wine glasses clinking at a family gathering, reclaimed toy synths from the 1980s, and something that is decidedly less new, but certainly qualifies as interesting: the sound of two black holes colliding in outer space about a billion years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
See the video he created for Berklee Online about using these sounds below, and download the pack here.