During the day, Matt Black wears a suit and tie and instructs a band class full of teenagers at Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Ill.

At night, Black, an Eastern graduate who majored in music, leaves the dress attire and textbooks behind, switching them for a pair of giant headphones and less formal wear.

Black said he then heads into nightclubs to enliven listeners with his blend of dubstep, which he sewed together with the use of a computer that weaves together a collection of beats and sounds.

He said he took an interest in the genre—a genre that he used to mock, calling it a bunch of noise—while looking for a way to combine a love of computers and music during his first year of college.

“It’s kind of ironic that I ended up working with this kind of music, after making fun of it for so long,” Black said. “I’ve expanded my idea of what music is.

While attending Eastern, he said music majors approached him and told him they did not consider dubstep real music, a criticism that has plagued the genre since it picked up and went mainstream.

“My response to that was usually ‘I spend more time composing a song than you spend practicing for a concert.’”

He said that remark usually earned him respect from his classmates.

But Black has not been deterred by the criticism about the music he produces.

At Friends & Co., the Charleston bar that hosts Dubclub, he found an audience among people who “enjoyed the genre.”

“You’re not just music in the background there.”

At this point in his career, Black said he’s comfortable with his body of work.

“That’s something that takes a while,” he said.

Black described the process of making music through a computer and keyboards as time-consuming, not easy, but acknowledged that some of the criticism the genre receives is partly true.

“See, there is some really bad dubstep out there, and that happens when artists don’t push the boundaries, don’t push the envelope,” Black said. “Dubstep for the sake of dubstep.”

The better dubstep, he said, arises when artists find ways to incorporate different genres and subgenres into a song that can feature everything from classical to modern rock.

And building a song that features music from composers like Bach and artists like Britney Spears can be quite challenging, he said.

Some of the music Black made borrowed elements of jazz and house and techno, and he said oftentimes he believes that is what goes unnoticed.

“People don’t notice what goes into the music,” Black said. “They sometimes think it’s easy.The trick is turning an idea into a song.”

Black said he prerecorded music when he first started, but after sharpening his abilities to craft sounds, Black began to make music while he was performing.

Audiences at parties and clubs help him decide what turn the music will take.

“You can bring the crowd down with different songs and beats,” Black said.

Black said dubstep is a new genre and that people enjoy it because old songs and new songs are combined to create a new experience for listeners.

While Black said he has a newfound love for dubstep, he still enjoys traditional music, something he grew up on, with his parents and grandparents all having some involvement in music.

Right now, he leads a double life—one as a schoolteacher, the other as a DJ.

Black said both of his jobs have found a way to cross over into the other.

“They sort of bleed into each other,” Black said. “I find myself incorporating electronic music into the lessons, and my students are becoming better players and learning more about music.”

He said he wants to teach his students to keep an open mind about what music can be, and advised that all listeners should keep their ears open.

Jaime Lopez can be reached 581-2812 or jlopez2@eiu.edu.