Local Duo Opens Digital Music School

When these two local guys graduated from Berklee College of Music, Sean Killary and Sam Morgan said they wanted to create a place for young musicians to hangout.

So the duo went to work and opened a music-teaching studio in downtown Millburn with each room digitally infused so students can learn and more importantly record.

“It’s music education for the 21st century,” said co-owner Killary, 25, of Livingston. “This doesn’t exist anywhere else and that’s the most exciting thing about it.”

The digital learnng studio So I Heard Music is located on 10A East Willow Street across from the ShopRite. It officially opened its doors Tuesday with five lesson rooms, two live rooms and a control room for students to jam out and record in.

A Millburn High School grad and co-owner, the 24-year-old Morgan said he wanted to offer a supplemental music education to students — especially if they don’t make the cut for high school band.

 “It’s a complete and total music education,” Morgan added who heads the educational side while Killary handles more of the engineering.

The studio has 10 teachers, most of which are also Berklee grads, and $75 a week gets the student a lesson and as much jam or recording time is available. It also offers classes in production, composition and performance, which are discounted as members.

Consider it a Berklee College prep school.

“The teachers are all very professional and really excited to start teaching here,” Morgan said recently completed space.

On the digital side, instead of using windows like in standard music studio, the musical duo decided to create a digital window using Facetime on the iPads, which equipped in every room.

 “The idea is that every room is the live room,” Morgan said. He explained each room is wired to the control room so students can work together or just jam alone.

The two live rooms however create their digital windows with projectors hooked up to AppleTV so no matter how many are jamming they can still communicate.

And that is all the cheaper stuff. The studio also has tons of guitars, microphones, preamps, analog control board, amps, heads, speaker cabinets, digital pianos and pretty much everything an aspiring musician could dream up —all of which member can use.

Every room is also sound proofed as well as named after famous musicians.

Morgan explained he is also still close with the Millburn High School music department and starting in the fall will align the studio’s curriculum with the high school.

 “It’s a pretty neat concept,” Morgan’s dad Tom said. “They took the best of everything they learned at Berklee and boiled it down.”

So I Heard Music is open:

• Summer Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m 7 Days a week
• Fall Hours: 3 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday -Friday and 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and Sunday
• 973-602-7442