Last Wednesday, I had the pleasure of meeting again with Mr. Koperas Music Composition class at Boyd Arthurs Middle School in Trenton, MI. Its always exciting being asked back there, not only because its such an honor and its so much fun, but also because thats the same school (of course, my class called it Monguagon Middle School) where I wrote my first song. Most times when I talk with the BAMS students about songwriting, I prepare a new and different program. This year I decided to re-work one of my previous topics, since all the students who were there when I first presented it have already graduated. That idea, which may have been suggested by Mr. K., was to have the entire class write a song together in a single class period. That went pretty well the first time, when the students wrote a song called Snow Day. Unfortunately, I found that most of the participation came from only a few students who were werent afraid to share their ideas and had had experience writing songs or poetry outside of class. That bugged me, because I felt sure that there were more students with good ideas who were too shy to contribute or who werent confident that their suggestions were good enough. This year, I was convinced that my new plan would engage everyone in the class. But that part of the story will have to wait. Because first, Mr. Kopera asked me to show up one hour early for his Drum class. Having played snare in the drum line of the THS marching band, I jumped at the chance. After signing in and getting my visitor pass at the front office, I walked the familiar path to the band room, on the lower level, across from the locker bays. Soon after I arrived, Mr. Kopera handed me a pair of claves (those varnished dowel-like sticks you strike together, which you can hear in The Beatles song, And I Love Her). He assigned me a two-measure pattern of one TWO THREE four | ONE two AND three FOUR, and soon I was playing along with the class on Santanas Oye Como Va. In addition to drums of many different sizes, pitches and colors, some kids played brass instruments and a glockenspiel to carry the melody. They sounded pretty good, so after a few run-throughs, we all grabbed our instruments, left the band room and headed down the hallway to stop by some classrooms and perform our song for the other students. The school has changed a lot since I went there, but its open, multi-level structure is still familiar, and it still has an area below the locker bays with even more classrooms, which we called the shelter. That was our first stop. As we all reached the doorway of our first classroom, we were interrupted and surprised by the sudden screech of a fire alarm. Everyone put their drums down wherever they stood and we all headed outside. On the way out, I ran into my friend, Christina Grooms, who is another teacher there. At some distance from the school, every teacher held up a sign displaying their last name, with their students gathering in lines behind them or huddling around them. A woman with a walkie-talkie communicated with someone who presumably was inside the building. Eventually, the drill was over, we got the all clear and we went back inside. We played our song in that first classroom and then ran out of time, since several kids from the drum class had to leave at 2pm for a sporting event. So we returned to the band room and the rest of us finished out the class hour there. That gave me time to set up and test a few audio items I had brought along for my talk. At this point, I should describe the songwriting experience of my audience. As an entertainer, you learn pretty quickly that the better you know your audience, the better you can engage them. A number of the kids in this course signed on for a fun elective credit. For a few, this is their first brush with a music class, but most are also enrolled in band or choir. A good number of them may never write a song outside of this class. But with the right mix of education, inspiration and opportunity, who knows? Soon it was time for the Music Composition class. The students filed in and took their seats. Mr. Kopera introduced me and after telling them a little bit about myself, I began working my plan for what I hoped would be total engagement. First, I held up my new album and told everyone that I had brought just a few copies to give away. That got everyones attention and even a few smiles, because people like free stuff, even if they dont know exactly what it is. Then I told them Id like everyone to participate today, and Im going to make sure everyone gets an opportunity. The students who participated the most thoughtfully and didnt talk out of turn would get a free CD. Seeing that I had about 25 kids, I had them sound off from one to five, until everyone in the class was assigned one of those numbers. Then I asked all of the ones to stand up. You are Songwriting Team #1, I told them. They beamed as if they liked the sound of that. I had each of the other teams stand up and I announced their songwriting team number. I continued, telling the students that Id like us all to write a song together, within one class period. I asked if they liked that idea and they smiled and nodded. I explained that in order to do anything well, you have to really break it down and understand what youre trying to do. A song is no different. You should know exactly what kind of song youre writing before you begin. Then I began naming some important considerations of a song, one at a time, first by having Team 1 stand and asking help us choose a topic. I read off a long list of topics and asked which ones they remembered and liked. The winning two were Space Travel and Sports. I had them sit down. Then I had the whole class raise their hands to choose one of the two topics. Sports won. I asked Team 2 to stand and told them that we need to be more specific. I named as many sports as I could, including school sports, racing, surfing, skating, and more. Using the same voting method, the class chose Volleyball. We continued like that, having each team vote on a mood or attitude (they chose determined), an audience for their song (they decided on school kids) and more. Then we started writing the lyric. Because our time was short, I asked them to write a 2-line verse and a 1-line chorus. The verse they wrote: Pass the ball. Set it up. The chorus was something like: Team work wins the game. I asked them to choose a music style or genre. I offered them Classic Rock, Pop, Country, or Hip Hop. Hip Hop won. I played a few Hip Hop beats on the drum machine I bought with me and one team agreed on a beat and the class voted on a tempo. I asked someone to volunteer to sing a rhythm for our new lyrics. The classmates listened and nodded their approval, so I asked Mr. Kopera to suggest a few chords by playing them on the piano. One of the kids volunteered to sing a melody to the words. We sang the melody over the chords while the drum machine played the rhythm. Everyone was grinning as if to say, Hey, this was actually working. Then I told them we were going to write an expedient bridge, (I made that up) which meant that we dont have time to write an actual bridge with lyrics, so our bridge will be either wo-wo, oh__, ooh__, ba-ba, or yeah-yeah. They got a kick out of that and chose Yeah-yeah. Proud of our finished song, I handed out the free CDs and in our last few minutes of class time, Mr. Kopera asked me a few questions about songwriting and recording. I also took one of the songs from the album and played different versions of it, demonstrating how it had evolved from a simple piano part to a more modern piano arrangement, to a vocal and band arrangement, and finally to the finished version. I was happy to see that everyone in the class really did participate and the kids were extremely well-behaved. Thanks to my good friend, Peter Kopera, for the opportunity. I hope I can do it again sometime!
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 18:22:01 +0000
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