Electronic Music 411 - Bay Brook Elementary School (repost)

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Bay Brook Elementary School (repost)

StoreTags: ableton, teaching, kids, school

Author: populus on September 07 2006

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--> **I posted this story in October 2004 on ye olde em411. zander recently asked me to dig it up and repost it, and I was only too happy to comply! enjoy.**

I got an email a few weeks ago from a friend of mine from college who
is now doing Teach For America in Baltimore. This friend of mine
(Annie) was placed as a music teacher in an elementary school in
Baltimore Maryland. In this email she asked if I could come in and
give a little electronic music demonstration to her class (since I
live nearby), and I agreed immediately.

My plan was to play some pieces of music for the kids, then sample
parts of the music and turn them into beats in
Ableton Live, so they could hear how sampling works – a process nearly
everyone hears every day without knowing how it is accomplished.

So I arrived at the school at about 1:25. I was going to do my little
demonstration to two 45 minute classes, starting at 1:40. I met up
with Annie and took a look at the classroom. They didn't have a stereo
that I could hook my computer up to, so I used some decent sized
computer speakers (and subwoofer). I was all set.

At 1:40 the first class came in, about 15 Third Graders (eight year
olds) dressed in adorable white and blue uniforms. Almost entirely
African-American, which reflects the neighborhood, and right away I
could tell that about half were quiet, well behaved children and the
other half were pretty wild - making a point of doing the opposite of
everything they were asked. This was right after lunch for them, which
I'm sure contributed to their mood.

After a brief introduction, I played them "Get Out My Life Woman" by
Allan Toussaint. They thought it was pretty funny and burst out
laughing. I was sort of dissapointed but moved on. I sampled the drums
at the beginning, which sparked some interest. I did the same process
with a couple other songs and soon I had a bona fide beat going, which
made them giggle. They asked if I did "hip hop", which I soon realized
meant 50 Cent. These beats sounded pretty silly and old-fashioned to
them, so I decided to try something else.

I dropped another beat, using some dub bass lines and cool pads, and
all together they started nodding their heads and smiling - it worked!
This got them going and some of them got up and started dancing. It
was a little rowdy, but worth it, I think. I had a sample of a bird
singing that I dropped on top of this beat, with great success. When I
stopped it, one of the kinds said "Hey! Can you drop that beat with
the bird getting down again?"

They got a little bored of this beat after a while, although some of
them tried to do some rapping over it, with varying degrees of
success. They asked me if I could rap, and I told them that I could
rap in French, if they wanted! This piqued their interest and they
crowded around to hear my cheesy French rap. It was a big hit…they
were begging for more when Annie called a halt to the proceedings in
order to teach them a song that is part of their required curriculum.
So that was the end of that class. Next up was the Special Education
class (although they had some nice-sounding acronym that I don't
remember). There were 5 or 6 kids in the class, ranging from one or
two who could barely talk (I'm not sure what their conditions were) to
one or two who could talk fairly well but who had very serious
physical and mental handicaps.

They were extremely kind and well behaved despite these problems,
especially to each other, it was quite touching. They clearly related
quite well to each other, particularly since they were in the same
classroom all day with only one teacher. Music, Art, and Lunch are
probably the only times they leave their Special Ed classroom…

They sat down in front of me and I started my little demonstration.
They all looked pretty bored and confused until the first beat
dropped, at which point their eyes all opened wide, they smiled, and
they all started bobbing their heads in perfect time to the beat. I
could already tell that I had gotten through. I showed them a couple
other samples, mixing them all together and putting some filters and
delay on them to play with the sounds. This was unbelievably exciting
for them, they were smiling and laughing and having so much fun…I
couldn't believe that the beats were having this much effect.

I continued this for about 15 minutes, showing them different kinds of
beats and sampling and stuff. I then got the idea to use the built in
mic on my ibook to sample their voices. One at a time they got up and
recorded a little snippet of their voices (usually saying "hi!" or
something similar). Even the ones who could barely talk were able to
say something audible that I sampled and played back to them, over a
beat. When they heard their voices for the first time, all of their
faces lit up with huge grins and laughs of excitement. This continued
when I put some delay, filters, pitch change, and other effects on
their voices, combined with the beats I had made earlier.

At that point they couldn't help it any more, and all of them just
started dancing around the room while I made beats from their voices.
They were showing their happiness so clearly, I couldn't help but feel
immensely happy myself.

Eventually their teacher came back, signalling the end of our little
dance party. They left (after a big "Thank You!") and Annie and I sat
contemplating what we had just experienced.

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Comments

09/07/06 + zander

Yay!
Thanks Populus