Among the Natives

Last night we had dinner with some friends whose 12-year-old son is true digital native. He brought with him his dad’s G-4 notebook, his i-Pod, and his wireless mouse, plopped himself down at our dining room table, and cranked up Garage Band. He played us a couple of his compositions, and promised to show us all how to create a new one after dinner.

Now, I knew Josh was ahead of the curve on most things technological, but I really thought that I could one up him with the whole Podcasting concept. Guess again. He’d already tried a couple using Garage Band, and I he promised to compose some intro music for me for my next Podcast (whenever that might be.) I did feel pretty proud of myself when I schooled him on how to get an RSS feed for his Podcasts, something he hadn’t been able to figure out. Oh yeah. Uh-huh. (He probably hadn’t been able to find the 30 seconds needed to go to Feedburner and do it.)

After we ate, Josh unfolded his laptop and got to work. And I just watched in amazement. Now I know that he’s not the only kid out there doing this, but I have to tell you, it was pretty obvious that he just gets this in ways that I will never get it, no matter how much work and practice I want to put into it. He laid a bass track, then drums, then guitar. Then he had us all do some voice riffs, did a little mixing and cutting, and before I knew it we were all snapping our fingers to this very cool, homemade music track that sounded pretty darn good.

The whole experience was just fun to watch. We were creating. We were learning. We were thinking hard about how to make it good. Very cool.

Now, when is someone going to create a Garage Band for PC? I mean c’mon, my daughter is seven. She’s ready to go!