Music Program

In the first week of summer programming we had some youths from K-club in the studio learning how to make beats by using software called Reason. The youths were shown some basic steps in making an instrumental beat, time structure/count and how to use different devices for various sounds. The following week we had both youths from SEAS and from K-club becoming more familiar with making beats or tracks using the software while experimenting with the keyboards. We also have been integrating some discussions around life skills (decision making, team building, goal setting, ethics and collaboration). This week the youths are continuing to work on their beats in order to complete their tracks as a final project for the summer program. Some youth have been working on lyrics as well, while exploring collaboration possibilities with other youth artists/beat makers. We have been encouraging youth to bring instruments from home in order to record their own music into the beat making software, this way they can incorporate these samples within their existing tracks.

As a peer facilitator, I have also completed a track entitled “I know” and through the process of making this track I learned a lot more about how to build up a musical piece. Jamie and Matthew have been great facilitators in really taking the time to explain how things work while providing us with helpful guidance and useful tips around producing music. In addition I was introduced to some new music software (Acid and Ozone) which really assisted in the editing, mixing and mastering process. I’m excited to see what the youth complete for their final projects, many of the youth have learned a lot in such a short time so it will be interesting to listen to all their tracks and to see how far they have come within the summer programming.

By Angela