June 2010

The Home Stretch

Shiloh House - Longmont

Week Ten - Lesson Nine

June 28, 2010

This was the week that we were focusing on the home stretch of the student's projects. This meant recording bass lines, scratches, and keyboards, if the student's so desired. This also meant final arrangement and mastering of the project as a whole. We are very pleased at the quality of the music in the class and the pace of the student's work. Not surprisingly, students have shown interest and aptitude in different areas, and in general, we are pleased to find with this group, that we have been able to offer something to everyone.

The students were all very well behaved and left the class encouraged!

Making Beats From Scratch

Devereaux Cleo Wallace

Week Three, Lesson Five

June 28, 2010

It was a simply a nice day to be in the music making business. We began with a quick film about the drum set, the different parts and their names, and what each sounded like. We then viewed each of the different drums as wave files so that the students would be able to distinguish each in relation to others, in an Acid file, visually. The objective of the day was to make an original drum beat using one shots.

Aphex Twin was the inspirational video of the day, and although there was no footage of him playing live, it premised the lesson on drum beats very well because of his unorthodox drum patterns. We are always reinforcing the idea that originality should be respected and developed through music- the idea supporting our belief that the originality is interesting and the practice of this exploration, as an artist, encourages self-development.

What happened was so exciting. The amount of originality in the student's work has always abundantly present in the student's work, no matter the age, and always in amounts that mandate an encouraging comment or two; but with the students encouraged to make a beat from scratch, this originality glistened next to the faint echoes of repetitive radio and mundane generalizations about the current state of affairs, regardless whether the topic is youth psychology or artistic decadence. What we also noticed was that the students, while offering an intensely original musical experience, were also expressing themselves characteristically, in relation to their earlier music.

The students shared their music at the end of class without exception. There were a lot of hi-fives and smiles!


Controlled Chaos

Shiloh House – Adams County

Week Nine,  Lesson eight

June 29, 2010

As we develop new ideas and techniques for the younger students we keep in mind the goals for an 18 year old student greatly differ from a 9 year old student. Music vocation and practical use for the tools being taught to them could not be further from their minds. With this in our minds we have been trying to approach the young students of Adams County with the basis of fun, fast paced classes and lots of hands on gear such as keyboards, bass guitar , turntables and condenser-mics for vocal recording. As the students entered class they were excited and full of questions. Keeping the students organized was our biggest task besides initial setup. In order to achieve organization we had each student  sign up for various stations which contained the instruments and gear for them to record or just jam out. With the exception of boys being boys the class went smoothly and every student was able to express themselves in some way during our class.

Showing the Scope of Their Potential

Devereux Cleo Wallace

Week Two, Lesson Three and Four

June 21 and 23, 2010


We opened up the week with an inspirational video, an example of musical performance meant to inspire the students. Ani DiFranco played her song "Little Plastic Castles" and it was cool for all of us to share in the energy that such a great musician can generate. We then briefly reviewed the aspects of the program that have been covered up to this point and then turned them loose to work with the program on their own.

We are finding a maturity with this group's approach to music making- they are expressing themselves in ways that are exceptionally independent. We are looking forward to seeing what these students can do with the resources we are going to help provide!

One of the students is leaving at the end of next week, so the class collectively decided that we are going to support her efforts towards the completion of her project. This means that we will spend the second half of next week in the music room recording her lyrics. It will give the class experience working with a deadline and offer an opportunity for the student to fulfill a desire premised on focus and hard work. We'll see!!!