Come Join the Band!

The University of Rochester presents a summer full of pre-college courses every year; offering a wide variety of subjects to give students a "taste of college." Many participants are from Rochester-area schools and some also travel internationally to take part, staying in the U of R's residence halls for the weeks that they are there.

In my second year instructing "Come Join the Band: Creative Music Making for Everyone", I was joined by multi-instrumentalist, singer/songwriter, and educator Alan Murphy for two weeks of work, play, and creative performance.  We had the fortune of working with 8 fantastic young adults (ages 14-17) with a variety of vocal and instrumental experiences.  All had some experience with instrumental or vocal music in school and brought great openness and enthusiasm in working together.

The goals of the class were to learn songs of the students choosing, utilize new instruments to facilitate performing the songs, and perform and record throughout the two weeks in a variety of settings.  Week one divided each 3-hour class into segments for Creativity (free-writing and team-building), Musical Skills (demonstration of different instruments and vocal arranging, incorporating free-play and informal sharing of songs), and Projects (presenting songs to the group, rehearsing these songs on new instruments with guidance from Alan and I).  The first week culminated with a trip to GFI Music, a premier professional recording studio in Rochester, where the students recorded a version of the song "Valerie" (originally written by the Zutons, we modeled an Amy Winehouse/Mark Ronson collaboration).  Here's some video shot at the studio by the students:

A great time had by all!  We hope to get back and do more next year.  We'll follow up with week two on "Come Join the Band" in our next installment... Stay tuned for more inspired music making...

CT