(hooves clopping) - Since I was a kid, I've always loved the idea of being in a band and making something.

And seeing these kids coming here to Austin and coming together in this band, why am I just now hearing about it?

(upbeat synth music) This is "The Story."

(chuckles) - [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by... - [Announcer] At H-E-B, we're proud to offer over 6,000 products grown, harvested, or made by our fellow Texans.

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(dramatic music) (keyboard clicking) - There's a really great story about Bruce Springsteen back in 1973 or something, and one of the lines was, "I've seen the future of rock and roll and its name is Bruce Springsteen."

And that was like the beginning of Springsteen mania.

So one of the headlines I thought was, I've seen the future of synthesizer rock and roll and its name is The Semi-Modulars.

But only I would get that.

(upbeat synth music) My name is Mike Hall.

I'm a staff writer at Texas Monthly.

And for the last year, I've been working on a story about a group of synthesizer players out of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

So in April of 2024, a friend of mine invited me up to Billy's on Burnet, which is a bar up in North Austin, and there were some flyers on the wall.

(ambient synth music) And these flyers were for a group called The Semi-Modulars.

And I asked my friend, "Who are these guys?"

And he said, "You gotta come see this."

This is a bunch of kids from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired who have a synth band.

So, a week later, I came up to Billy's on Burnet and was just blown away by The Semi-Modulars.

If you love rock and roll, if you love seeing young people play music, and see how enthusiastic they get, to see these kids was really exciting.

Kids learning to express themselves with music, and they were doing it together as a unit with other kids who were like them.

It was one of the most exciting things I've ever seen.

At a certain point while watching this show, I was like, this is a story.

(chuckles) And the way in obviously was the guy who was their leader.

And so I reached out to Dan Butler.

One of the first classes I went to, pulled into the parking lot, Dan came out and met me, and walked me back to the class.

He had on Billy's on Burnet cap.

Dan's always wearing a ball cap.

So I'm learning that TSBVI is a state-run school for the blind and visually impaired.

It's a giant campus, it includes dormitories.

And so there are kids from all over the state of Texas.

And with The Semi-Modulars, every year is different.

It's an extracurricular class, the kids aren't forced to take it, but every year there's new kids in The Semi-Modulars.

(student laughs) They start writing, recording, and then ultimately practice to do a show.

And almost every year, going back to 2018, they'd been putting out these CDs.

The Semi-Modulars Bandcamp page is full of records.

One of their first ones was "Cute Blasting Table Lab."

So the kids come up with with the names for these albums and the names of the songs.

One of my favorites is "Humongous Modulating Oscillator."

(upbeat synth music) "Funky's Tacos."

(upbeat synth music) This is one of their most popular songs.

"Do You Like Cheese?"

(upbeat synth music) I mean, as a journalist, you're always looking for unusual stories, emotional stories that show us something about humans, who we are.

And so when you stumble into a story that seems to be so unusual, a bunch of kids at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired learning to play synthesizers from a guy who is also visually impaired, and then recording albums and releasing them successfully, it's like those are the best kinds of stories at all.

How do you get from here to here?

So what I saw for this story was I need to follow these kids through a school year.

Dan's class is every Wednesday night for an hour and a half all through the school year.

It starts like it does with most recording sessions with the drums.

(drum beating) - [Dan] That's good.

(drum beating) Yeah.

Do you like it?

- Yeah.

- [Dan] What do you guys think?

- Yes.

- Yeah!

- [Dan] All right.

- [Mike] Once they get the rhythm, then he'll ask somebody, "Who wants to do the baseline?"

And Dan will say, "Well, do you want to have that a big fat sound?

Do you want it to sound kind of gnarly?

How do you wanna do it?"

And the kids will play around with the synth sounds.

- [Dan] Good starting place.

- And then he'll say, "Okay, who wants to put down a melody line?"

- Go for it.

(upbeat music) I like where that's going.

(upbeat music) Yeah.

- He'll like suggest things, but for the most part, he just goes with what the kids come up with.

I started to get a sense of who these kids were.

Each of them had their own musical ideas.

(students laughing) - [Dan] I like that, Alex.

- [Mike] Their personalities became much more clear.

It wasn't just six kids, it was six individuals.

(upbeat synth music) One of the kids this year is Nathan.

Dan almost treats him like a TA.

- I've been in this class for four years, and I've loved all the time that I've done it.

- There's Kailee.

Kailee can really sing.

Sometimes in the class, she sounded like a gospel singer.

And it was like, where is this coming from?

(laughs) ♪ There are places ♪ - [Mike] Alex is this boy from Honduras who grew up playing the piano, has a real musical sense, and likes to come up with beats with his friend William, who is also in the class who is also from Honduras.

♪ Yo, cinnamon roll ♪ ♪ (sings in foreign language) Cinnamon roll, yo ♪ (lively synth music) - [Mike] There's a kid named Josh.

Josh would stand at the back of the class.

And then Drake spent a lot of time listening to something on his phone.

I mean, I don't know if he was listening to music or TikToks or whatever.

(upbeat synth music) Some of these kids are very musical, and some of 'em have no experience with music at all.

But Dan was very sympathetic to all of 'em.

(synthesizer buzzing) (people laugh) (synthesizer buzzing) - Oh, my God.

- Gee.

(people laugh) Do you wanna just make noise over the song?

You can.

Here.

(synthesizer buzzing) - And so they're basically creating something as they go, coming up with verses, "How are we gonna do the chorus?"

- You like that one?

- Yeah.

- Ooh.

Ooh, I like that.

(lively synth music) - [Mike] While they're doing this, Dan is recording it digitally.

(lively synth music) - That's good.

You know one thing that I try to impart on the students is that, you know, synthesizers, a lot of times you just get these happy accidents.

Like if you're just turning a knob, you hit that sweet spot and you're like, "Right there, let's record it really quick."

Man, I'm hyped now, you guys.

This is awesome.

(laughs) All right.

- [Mike] It was so cool.

By the end of the lesson, the kids are hearing what they've been putting together piece by piece.

And all of a sudden, it's a song.

(upbeat synth music) And it was really obvious to me that Dan was a big part of this story.

(person laughs) (cat meows) (Dan chuckles) - [Dan] Come here, Willie D. You wanna be the star of the show.

- [Mike] Dan's a really interesting guy.

He is super enthusiastic about synthesizers.

He has a tattoo of a classic Casio on his forearm.

- When I was like 9 or 10, it was around that time that a band called Europe released a single called "The Final Countdown," which is like a pretty famous song with like a really distinctive synth lead.

("The Final Countdown") (chuckles) I was just like, "Man, whatever's making that sound, that's what I wanna learn how to play."

So I saved my allowance, and I bought like the cheapest, like $30 Yamaha, like toy keyboard, and I was hooked.

♪ A bunch of people standing 'round ♪ ♪ It's time to get this party started ♪ - [Dan] I moved to Austin in 2006.

It wasn't until around 2008 or '9 that I got my first synthesizer, and that was just like a game changer.

I was like, "Whoa, I can program my own sounds, and like shape them."

I think everything that I have now is a synthesizer.

I like the fact that you just have like an endless variety of options, especially if you start delving into semi-modular or modular stuff.

We actually have two of these in the classroom.

We use 'em for live gigs.

(synthesizer whirring) (upbeat music) In 2011, I went out and did like a two and a half month tour.

And towards the end of that tour, I realized like I didn't have any job prospects when I got back to Austin, I should probably start looking for something.

And I looked online and saw a position posted for the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

I was interviewed by one of the former department heads and we talked about Devo for like 30 minutes.

And then he was like, "Your orientation's on September," whatever.

And so I got hired because I'm a Devo fan, basically.

- [Mike] Initially, he had actually got a job as a substitute teacher.

- [Dan] In doing that, I was kind of getting to meet a lot of the different kids, and learn a lot about the different departments at the school.

- [Mike] One day, he's walking across campus, and one of the administrators saw the tattoo on his arm.

- The sub-coordinator was like, "Oh, you probably know a lot about music."

And so he started plugging me in a lot to sub in the music classes.

And so that was kind of my first experience getting to do like hands-on music education.

- Dan was not your typical teacher.

He was a guy who just loved music and knew how to impart his enthusiasm to other people.

One day, he was sitting at home and he was thinking how tactile synthesizers are.

And he realized that for a lot of his kids who couldn't see and who were not very musical in the first place, this was a way for them to make music.

- I've always kind of thought of myself as less a teacher and more a facilitator in that regard.

I can kind of like introduce them to the equipment and then just kind of facilitate their creative journey.

One, two.

(person clucks) That's pretty good.

One, two.

(Kailee clucks) That was pretty good.

(Kailee chuckles) (Kailee chuckles) That's great, Kailee.

That one will work.

(Kailee chuckles) Perfect.

(student vocalizes) (recording vocalizes) (Dan chuckles) (Dan speaks in foreign language) (student vocalizes) (recording vocalizes) I like that.

(recording vocalizes) That's good, man.

(student claps) Okay guys, what we're gonna do now is load all this up on our sampler, and then we'll make a beat out of it, okay?

- Uh-huh.

- Uh-huh.

I love it, kiddo.

That's good.

(upbeat music) Yeah.

(students vocalizes) (student clucks) (upbeat music) (Kailee clucking) (recording clucking) Would that be all right?

- Yeah.

- Okay.

(student laughs) (upbeat synth music) Okay.

(singer vocalizes) (upbeat synth music) (singer vocalizes) (upbeat synth music) Alex, you're gonna need this.

- I know.

- There you go.

- I know - With all of these moving parts, all of these little victories that have to be won, the fact that they're all visually impaired, the fact that they're missing their homes, the fact that they're kids, you know, they're kids, and somehow they're coming together and creating something, something completely new.

(lively synth music) - We've done a lot of sequences on this thing.

It's very different.

It's very kind of weird, I should say.

It's very fast.

You hear how fast that is?

- [Mike] So by the end of 2024, they 13 semi-modular songs in the can.

Now, Dan has to mix them, put them all together, and get ready for the finished product, the CD, which will come out in the spring.

- It's kind of a meticulous process.

It'd be a lot easier if I dumped it all into a computer and could visually do it.

But (upbeat synth music) what's the fun in that?

(chuckles) If you can, you know, train your ear to do this stuff.

(upbeat synth music continues) - Now the band has to go back and practice, and learn these songs that they wrote four months before.

Creating is the fun part.

It's the easy part.

Actually coming up with the parts to play live is in some ways harder, and it's a lot more work for these kids.

- [Dan] Here we go.

(upbeat music) Guys, remember if you make a mistake, try not to fall off the horse.

Just play through it.

Okay?

Here we go.

(upbeat music) Josh and Nathan.

(tapping) (upbeat music) What are you at, Nathan?

- [Nathan] I don't know.

Sorry.

I don't know what happened there.

- [Dan] All right.

- [Mike] I went to a practice in February, and there were some really rough moments.

- [Dan] Okay, does everybody remember their parts for "Crispy Party Mix"?

- No.

(bright music) - Alex, find your keys.

(bright music) Up an octave, up an octave.

- It was really cold and the kids were really tired.

- [Dan] Buddy, what's wrong?

Hey.

- This will (indistinct), no.

- [Dan] We're doing, here.

Up here, guys.

Hold up.

Everybody, stop.

William, you all right?

What's going on?

- [Mike] He's been in school all day, and now he's just exhausted.

And then Kailee, who's this super empathetic kid goes, "Oh, William, don't cry.

Now I'm sad too."

- I'm sad now.

- Oh, no.

- [Kailee] William, it's okay.

- [Dan] It's okay, William.

(upbeat music) It starts with William and Kailee.

Here we go.

One, two, and go.

(upbeat music) - You know, there wasn't that much time before their first gig, so it was, you get this moment where you worry a little bit about, can we pull this together in time for the show?

And Dan and the kids were definitely in that place right then.

- [Dan] I think we're gonna call it a night, guys.

Did really good.

Okay.

William got a little sad.

It's okay.

He's better now.

He jumped- - I'm tired.

- I know.

Everybody is.

I think that's why we're cutting out a little early tonight, okay?

We're gonna get, have a nice long weekend to rest up.

Okay?

- Okay.

- Okay.

- I wanna go home.

- Oh, buddy.

Yeah, you get to go home tomorrow.

- Now you get to go to the dorm.

♪ Don't interrupt me ♪ ♪ That's rude ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Don't to interrupt me ♪ ♪ You are talking, I am talking ♪ - Some of these kids left home to come live at TSBVI.

But the school goes out of its way to make it a place where kids feel at home.

- It's okay.

- Decide to come.

- They want to make sure it's safe for the kids to walk on their walkways.

(wind chime chiming) There are wind chimes when you're walking in between the buildings.

These beautiful wind chimes, which help the kids know where they are.

(ambient music) I mean, it's hard for these kids.

These kids have already possibly being raised in a community that wasn't as tolerant of the disabilities you'd want them to be.

And so when they meet somebody like Dan, who is visually impaired himself and who is super enthusiastic about music and about helping them, you can see how these kids trust Dan Butler.

Every year, The Semi-Modulars do a handful of shows in Austin.

But the big show, the homecoming show is at Billy's on Burnet, which is the first place that I saw them the year before.

I got there early.

The band was already inside eating dinner.

The kids were excited, but they were nervous too.

- A little nerve-wracking, but it'll be all right.

- The place was packed.

There were 125 people out there sitting at all the tables.

Their friends, their family, their teachers, they were all waiting to see them play.

There's always like this sense in any kind of performance that something could go wrong.

And it's Dan's biggest fear.

Dan starts leading the kids out one by one.

- All right.

- And the crowd starts clapping (crowd cheering) for all six students, walks them through the crowd, puts 'em at the table, and they're ready to play.

- [Dan] All right, y'all, Josh is gonna introduce our next song for us.

- This next song is "Jungle Beat."

- "Jungle Beat."

- All right.

(upbeat music) Nathan, Alex, Drake, and... (upbeat synth music) Nathan, Alex, Kailee, Josh!

(upbeat synth music) - Since the previous fall, and now into the spring, they've been creating, they've been putting all these things together.

And now we're actually hearing it in this refined form.

I mean, these kids have been coming in there for months and months, and they've been putting things together, and they're tired, and they're young, and they've got this teacher who's asking them to do all this stuff.

And then all of a sudden, months later, here they are at this picnic table, and they magically come together, and create these two and a half minute long, pounding, pulsating, creative moments of joy.

And The Semi-Modulars become a band.

(upbeat synth music) - Everybody, go!

- Yeah!

(crowd clapping) Yeah!

- Good job!

Good job!

(Alex vocalizes) (upbeat music) - Give it up again for The Semi-Modulars, everybody!

(crowd cheering and clapping) (bright music) - Yeah, go for it.

- Nice colors.

- Again, we have all four sing groups.

- Okay.

(people chattering) - Took a whole lot.

It's gonna be awesome.

Spend some evenings on this.

- [Dan] You did pretty good tonight, kiddo.

- [Kailee] I stayed on the horse.

- [Dan] You stayed on the horse.

- [Kailee] They'll believe me that I did it.

- [Dan] I'll tell my cat that you did it.

Congratulations, everyone, on a fantastic year.

So all said and done, after all those expenses were paid, each person in this room today is getting an envelope with $600 in cash.

(student gasps) All right?

Josh.

- [Student] Oh, my gosh.

- [Dan] Nathan, yours is really thick 'cause you get all the ones.

- [Dan] Drake, there you go.

William.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

- Now that.

- Alex.

- Oh.

- And Miss Kailee.

And Miss Kailee, we'll give this to Ms.

Maisie, and she'll make sure your mom gets it, okay?

I want everybody in this room to understand that what you guys do musically is really important to a lot of people.

The fact that you guys, just people wanna support you.

It's all because you guys work hard and create really cool music and it inspires people.

And I think you all should feel very, very proud of that.

So, (claps) on that note, shall we listen to some music and have some cake and soda?

- Sure.

Yeah.

- Cool.

- [Student] Been talking about birds.

(upbeat music) - Since I was a kid, I've always loved the idea of being in a band and making something.

And seeing these kids coming here to Austin, and coming together in this band, it brings out all of the reasons why I am so excited about rock and roll music, about synthesizer music, whatever you want to call it.

When you put kids together in a band and they make something special, that is one of the finest artistic things you can do in your life.

That, to me, is as exciting as anything.

These songs that they've created, the performances they give, those are forever.

And it never would've happened if they hadn't all gotten together in this tiny little classroom at TSBVI.

(upbeat music continues) - [Speaker] A restaurant review, it really is about the person who cares about the food.

- When I first listened to his story, it was sort of unbelievable.

- [Speaker] I like writing about adventure.

- This is it.

It's like a holy grail of medicine.

- Now they have a $25 million disaster on the mall.

- What does this place want to be and what's it all about?

- [Speaker] The idea of losing that connection, that is so terrifying to me.

- [Speaker] This is a part of my history that I didn't know.

♪ I love it ♪ - We're on the precipice of a great discovery.

(upbeat music) ♪ I love it ♪ - Fasten your your seatbelt.

(ambient music) - [Actress] As long as we're together, it's perfect.

- [Actress] Love is not as simple as you seem to think.

- [Actress] We're so close to cracking the case.

- Dreams do come true.

Hey, lad?

- [Announcer] Major funding for this program was provided by... - [Announcer] At H-E-B, we're proud to offer over 6,000 products grown, harvested, or made by our fellow Texans.

♪ I saw miles and miles of Texas ♪ - [Announcer] It's all part of our commitment to preserving the future of Texas and supporting our Texas neighbors.

♪ In the sky ♪ (upbeat guitar music) - [Announcer] Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation is dedicated to conserving the wild things and wild places in Texas.

Learn more at tpwf.org.