Heaps Decent is an Australian organisation empowering young people through skills building, cultural access and creativity.
Working with underrepresented and marginalised youth, our participatory program of music and visual media activities provides a pathway to discovery, personal growth and agency through self-expression.Heaps Decent were lucky enough to have been invited to talk at the Producers Conference in Melbourne a couple of weeks back, about what we do and how we do it. As the name may suggest, the Producers Conference is a conference for producers that delves into the technical side of computer music production, as well as showcasing a number of different products and some extremely thorough demonstrational lessons on software such as Ableton Live (which we use as our go to production and recording software at Heaps Decent).
I was invited to speak buy Nick de Friez from a like-minded non-profit organisation called Jazz Crimes who are responsible for running the Producers Conference among other things. Nick presented a couple of tech sessions on the day and also (excellently!) hosted the event. Jazz Crimes are a Melbourne based organisation that scout talented local young producers and invite them to their regular “beat invitationals”, seminars with established producers that help with the development of their production skills and offer them insights into the music industry and the world of music production. What they are doing is such a well-focussed initiative and Heaps Decent really sees eye to eye with their organisation.
I was devastated that I had to leave to get back to Sydney, as after the conference they threw a party with the likes of Mt Kimbie and Lorn playing live in an incredible new venue, the same building that the conference was held in, that was a converted factory! Thanks to Nick and the guys for having me, we really appreciate the opportunity to spread Heaps Decent word!
– Charlie