I had had enough of dynamics and so forth to understand how sound can transfer through a wood floor. I wrote it on an electric piano in my fourth floor apartment. You wrote that when you were a junior at MIT? SCHOLZ: It’s an instrumental called Foreplay. That’s probably something of a record for a first composition. I actually wrote my first piece of music my junior year and it ended up on my first album, which sold 20 million copies. I can’t say I enjoyed it, but it was one of the best things that ever could have happened to me.ĬAMERON FLETCHER (CHF): Where does your music fit into this? Were you playing guitar and doing other kinds of musical pursuits while you were at MIT? MIT was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done, getting through those five years. But that last year was so tough I haven’t gone back to school for anything else. And I taught myself Spanish from books-nobody does that anymore, it was sort of a challenge. I took physical flying lessons but I didn’t go to ground school or any of that.
#Boston debut album mit how to#
I taught myself how to become a pilot so I could pass both the written and practical tests. I decided from that point on if I was going to learn something I was going to do it on my own. I never took another class of any type after that. I did fine scholastically, but by the end of those five years that was pretty much it for me for scholastic endeavors. They offered sort of a “special” for a few students-a scholarship for the tuition, some living expenses, and you could collect your master’s in one additional year.
SCHOLZ: They refer to it as a master of science, although it was in the mechanical engineering curriculum. RML: And you went on to earn a master’s degree in mechanical engineering? Then I got my first report card and I had a 4.8 average. I was so shell shocked by the end of my first semester that I had already decided-and actually applied-to transfer out because I thought there’s just no way I was going to be able to make the grade at this school. MIT lost only a very, very small percentage of people who just couldn’t make the grade. Some schools would report how many people they got rid of after the first year, but I don’t know if that’s something to make public, because if you’ve chosen them you should be able to teach them. The good thing is that they were very thorough and careful about how they vetted their new students. It was just a smooth curve that rose up to the righthand side of a perfect score. For the English scores there was a bell curve like you’d expect-it was skewed very far up the scale, and I thought, ‘well, that’s all right, I got in the high 700s in English so I fit in here.’ Then they put up the math scores and it wasn’t a bell curve. They sat us all in a large assembly area and put up a chart showing everyone’s SAT scores. I found out just how bad those odds were when I showed up for my freshman orientation. I always did well in math and science in high school but I knew that the competition to get accepted at MIT was phenomenal. I was a little shocked that I was accepted, to tell you the truth. I couldn’t afford a good car so it was an excellent outlet, because if I wanted a decent car that ran I was going to have to put it back together myself.įrom the engineering standpoint, MIT had a reputation even back then when I was out of high school-which now seems like a really long time ago.
#Boston debut album mit license#
When I got old enough to get a driver’s license in high school, I dropped all of those hobbies and started rebuilding cars. So I guess I had an aptitude for mechanical devices, if for no other reason than because I had dabbled in so many different ones as a child. I was really fascinated with anything that moved or flew. I was a designer and builder and small-time inventor from my earliest childhood years, which took the forms you might expect-building model airplanes and boats and cars and anything else. SCHOLZ: Well, the short answer would be my father, but in reality it was sort of an obvious choice. Tell us about your choice of mechanical engineering and what led you to MIT. Music is certainly part of our social fabric that everyone appreciates, so Cameron and I are grateful to have this opportunity to talk with you. RON LATANISION (RML): We are delighted to speak with someone who is both a mechanical engineering student from MIT and a rock icon. Tom Scholz is a musician, inventor, engineer, philanthropist, and founder of the band Boston.
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