Sharing student popular music online
February 13th, 2006 by mabramo
For those of us who work with student rock bands or provide opportunities for students to create popular music in school, the traditional school music program provides little opportunity to showcase such student work. � I am often looking to create spaces for students other than those in the concert band, orchestra and choir, to share their work and musical creations. � If you are looking to go beyond school performances or local performance venues, there are several sites that provide space for students in rock bands to share their music and receive feedback.� Garagespin.com provides “audio recording and music promotion techonology for unsigned bands�? and gives information on the range of internet options for young artists.
My students often use myspace.com to provide samples of their music, and interestingly myspace.com has just created their own record label in conjunction with Interscope records.� American Idol just launched American Idol Undergound, a place (capitalizing on the American Idol brand name) for young artists to promote their music, although not without a pricey fee of $25 per song.� Check out garagespin.com for more opportunities (some free of brand names and fees, and some not) for students to showcase and promote their popular music creations, outside the limits of the spaces traditionally provided in the school music curriculum.�
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I really wish that all schools had the ability and time to look into children’s music. It was give the children a chance to express themselves individually, and then maybe more students would enjoy music, and the programs in high school would increase. In my senior year of high school, my music theory class, all last quarter my teacher had each of us compose a song, using whatever instruments we wanted. At the end we would perform it to the class. My whole class really enjoyed this, because it gave all of us a chance to use our own talents, that we could also put our name on it.
[…] There is an interesting comment on Melissa’s post regarding sharing student popular music online. Mallory writes “I really wish that all schools had the ability and time to look into children’s music. It was give the children a chance to express themselves individually, and then maybe more students would enjoy music, and the programs in high school would increase.” I found Mallory’s optimism refreshing. I too hope that we can create spaces for students to engage music in a way that creates authentic musical experiences. I agree that attention needs to be paid to creativity. Can we find new ways of engaging music creatively with our students? Evan and I have discussed ways in which technology might play a role in facilitating the creative process. However, each time I work with students in composition projects (I work with 6th graders after-school) I find myself with a lack of viable pedagogies. I’d love to hear of your successes in student composition projects! Has anyone tried incorporating compositional processes into instrumental programs or large ensembles? […]