Today's Future Sound

At Today’s Future Sound, we believe in the power of music to transform and inspire youth to create positive change in their lives and communities. We view our work as having educational, therapeutic and social components that can empower individuals to build confidence, inspire creativity, and create change. Today’s Future Sound (TFS) has a team of volunteers ready to bring our mobile music production and DJ’ing center to you—schools, community centers and events. We are rapid-deploying, fully mobile, and can teach all ages groups with no previous experience required. Aside from direct services, we also provide consultation and professional development around culturally relevant use of music technology and media arts, and common core-aligned STEM/STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and Arts) curriculum development. Our work is informed by our founder, Elliot Gann, Psy.D.’s research and decade of clinical experience using Hip Hop and electronic music production and DJ”ing in school as well as community settings in Oakland and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Today’s Future Sound (TFS) is a fiscal project of Friends of Oakland Parks and Recreation, a 501c3 based in Oakland, CA. TFS teaches music production, beat making, and DJ’ing to youth and the general public in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. These services are offered in schools during the school day, after school, and in community settings, both in Oakland/the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as on national basis in the United States (New York, Mississippi, Louisiana, and your city!) and internationally. Such activities are used as educational, artistic and therapeutic/wellness interventions primarily targeting under-served populations. As an Oakland-based organization, TFS focuses on uplifting, inspiring and empowering the youth of Oakland.

Mission: Today’s Future Sound uses music production and media arts as vehicles through which to empower youth as artists and community members while fostering their well-being as individuals.

We do workshops and ongoing classes in both community settings (community and youth centers) and in Oakland/Berkeley Unified School Districts at schools such as Hoover, Lafayette, Prescott, Grass Valley, Greeleaf Elementary Schools, and West Oakland and James Madison Middle Schools, among other sites throughout the Bay Area. This includes current collaborative work being done with Science, Math, Computer and Technology teachers at Hoover Elementary and West Oakland Middle School to find innovative ways of delivering STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math) curriculum. TFS also has taught at several summer camps throughout the Bay Area and on campuses such as Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, as well as community centers in Jackson, Mississippi. TFS has had the chance to present its work at various conferences such as the “One Mic, One Movement” conference at Fordham University in NYC, the “Rock the School Bells” conference at Skyline College in San Bruno, Central Oklahoma State University, and the Hip Hop Education Think Tank at the Schomburg Center in NYC