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ReCap. Heads Up!

Good day friends! First and foremost, we at Youth On Record and Flobots.org would like to extend to anyone reading this a warm thank you for your interest in what we do. We have had an incredibly busy summer doing all the things that it takes to run a program such as ours. We are so inspired by those we serve and work and look forward to the future we are creating together.

We are so fortunate to share our lives with so many incredible people and the daily events that these folks inspire lead to experiences that shape who we are becoming as, not only as  individuals, but as productive members of our community. The connections we have made through Youth On Record affirm and support our mission to help others, and for this we are most grateful. Particularly, we are excited to navigate the logistics of a long term working relationship with each of the residential treatment centers with whom we are partnered. New times demand innovation and together we hope to exhibit the very characteristics we wish to instill in the students we serve.

Here are some of the highlights of the past month, as it has been a busy one:

  • This past week we exposed close to one-hundred youth to the world of music production at the Sunnyside Music Festival in the Highland’s area of North Denver. It was a fantastic event featuring local music, art, as well as many activities for the area’s young people. Youth On Record and Flobots.org is proud to be a beneficiary of one of the many charitable donations made by the Sunnyside Music Festival.
Sunnyside Music Festival
  • Youth On Record students are writing a monthly article in the Colorado Music Buzz Magazine. CMB is a Denver staple, informing the public on everything music related, while highlighting music's dynamic nature. Check out what our students  and other great minds have to say about how music effects our lives.
  • Flobots.org and Youth On Record are proud to announce the beginning of our first program outside the boarders of Colorado. Youth On Record-Alaska began programming this week at the Haven House in Homer, Alaska. Cody Davidson heads the ship in the mighty North and we look forward to the challenges and successes we will inevitably encounter. Go get ‘em Cody, we are so proud of you!
  • Devereux Cleo Wallace hosted the first ever Youth On Record “recording night” this past week. Recording night is an opportunity for students to record lyrics and reflects the ongoing attempts of us, and those with whom we work, to establish a working schedule that optimizes our student's chances of success in our program. This is also an opportunity for those not in the class, but who have shown consistent progress in their treatment, to partake in some of what Youth On Record has to offer.
Recording Night, Devereux Cleo Wallace
  • This month Youth On Record represented Flobots.org at the Green Route Festival in the Larimer district of Denver. This was an opportunity for us to showcase our program among many of the progressive, green businesses of this great city. Local music and food was also featured and contributed to the good times. Thank you to all our neighbors and we cherish the relationships that events like this reinforce.
  • The Shiloh House of Denver invited Youth On Record to present what we do with their students at the September all-campus assembly. It was an opportunity for us to highlight each of our Shiloh student’s music and explain our program. We have worked with three of the five Shiloh campuses, so it was also an opportunity to reunite with some folks from our recent past. Thank you to the Shiloh Home for their warm welcome and continuing commitment to helping us help their students.

We need to mention that part of the reality of working with our specific population is that all of those with whom we work leave our program. Although we often contribute to the success of their treatment and their leaving is frequently an indication of this success, it is never the less difficult to see them go and we very rarely have a chance to say good bye.  So, on behalf of all those with whom we work good-bye and congratulations.

Finally, the annual fundraiser of Flobots.org is rapidly approaching. This year the event will feature many of the best local musicians bowling and performing with members of our community. Check out all the details at our website!

Thanks again for everybody’s support over the past few months and we look forward to moving forward with all of you!

Beginning a New Program!

Rachel B. Noel Middle School

We began a new program today at a truly wonderful place, Rachel B. Noel Middle School in NE Denver! We are teaching there as part of an after school program that is sponsored by the flobots.org called Art to Action. We began the class explaining to the students who we are, as an organization, and what we do. We then gave a brief history of modern music production beginning with Duke Ellington, explained how modern sampling was born out of the New York boroughs with the dj, how it was furthered with the advancements in technology, all culminating in the modern production studio, the computer. We played examples of popular songs that used samples from songs written much earlier in order to demonstrate what sampling actually is. Then, we introduced music production software and demonstrated how to navigate it on a fundamental level.

We split the group into two with the intention of having the students pick samples, from our sample bank, in order that we might arrange them into a song together; the idea being that the following week the students would record lyrics over the song. We look forward to continuing our relationship with Rachel B. Noel Middle School, it is truly am amazing place. Check them out at noel.dpsk12.org.

Flobots.orgthanks to the Flobots.org for inviting us into their programming

Devereux Cleo Wallace

by Aaron

While these guys were out at Rachel B. Noel, I headed out to teach my first solo class at Devereux on Monday.  Since this was also a designated recording day, I asked Dylan to step up and run the recording room.  That freed me up to be with the students in the class, and I worked individually with everyone on their projects.  I got a nice sense of freedom from the responsibility resting solely on my shoulders, which may sound contradictory, but rising to any occasion in a way that satisfied one's self provides a sense of empowerment; I guess it felt like freedom to me (power/ability=freedom?).  I had a very fun day, and we even got some work done.  Justin recorded two out of three verses, and we'll finish that up and post in next week.  Dylan got a song done:

Dylan - The Devil and My Family

Tuesday, Nate joined me again, and we worked with everyone individually.  Dylan and Chad worked through the recording from Monday, adding effects and mixing the tracks, and we gave the rest of the students a new round of samples provided by Jeremy Irwin of Pushtank - Thank You Jeremy.  We have a month to go with this school term, and we've recently finished the entire set of fundamental lesson plans.  We are going back to the drawing board, so look for something interesting in terms of the content of our upcoming programming.  January will be the beginning of our advanced lessons format, and we're very excited: stay tuned.

Full Class, Full of Class


Devereux Cleo Wallace

Week Six Continued

July 21, 2010

We are very excited to welcome some new students at Cleo. They had heard about what we are doing and taken the right steps to ensure that they could participate in our program. For the last few weeks the students have been demonstrating their skills to us while we have been setting up for class, and all have an impressive desire to take what they are doing to the next level. The result of these students participating in Youth On Record is a general heightened sense of excitement and desire. The music they made today, all the students, was most impressive. There were breakthroughs on all levels from everyone.

We continued to work on the dj skills- one at a time the students are learning the "feel" of spinning a record and picking out samples from vinyl.

Learning MIDI

Devereux Cleo Wallace

Week Four, Lesson Six

July 5, 2010

We had a student transition out of residential treatment, so the class was feeling her absence, but we were met with some new interest from some young guys who had heard about what we do.  Our classes have certain behavior requirements, so we emphasized that they need to perform at those levels if they want to participate.  Hopefully we'll see them in the class shortly.

We began the class with an inspirational video :

Dub FX - 'Love Someone'

We learned that it's important for the lights to be out, computer monitors to be turned off, and to wait until after the opening lesson to distribute headphones to the students.  Today was the first time that we tried this, and it worked well to remove temptation to begin using the program before we were finished with the lesson.

Once the video was finished, we gave them a basic lesson on how to use MIDI and the Piano Roll Editor within Acid to make sounds ranging from pianos to wind instruments, etc.  It was a short lesson, since we're only working with these students for an hour at a time, and then we let them go off and make music on their own.  Everyone is progressing nicely, and we checked in with students one by one to make sure they were able to successfully apply the lesson.

Overall, we feel pretty good about the course at Devereux, and we would like to see the class attendance at capacity.  Because it's co-ed, and the students are older than our Shiloh kids, we look to them to catch on very quickly and hope to see them using the advanced tools and techniques that we are excited to share with them.  More on that shortly...

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!