A Flowering Tree
Phase Two: The Tenderloin Community School
The Beats Club (BeatNation) at the Tenderloin Community School is designed to provide an artistic voice for young people as they learn the grammar and structure of a musical language that many of them already listen to with great fluency. Club meetings begin by having students bring in their favorite songs and tell us what they like about the music and the lyrics, and how these two elements come together to make an artistic whole. We then begin composing by teaching students how to organize and layer pre-existing rhythms, loops and samples to create fun, new and exciting textures. As we continue to meet we attempt to break down the music to determine what makes it interesting and successful. We also ask what kind of lyrics they imagine fitting to their newly-formed beats.
A crucial shift takes place as we invite them to take recording devices into their homes and lives and sample sounds from personal experience. When they return with tapes full of sound and life, they process them, create samples, and compose beats for use as a foundation for their own songs. So, the foot-stomping of the upstairs neighbor becomes a bass beat, the sirens outside become the melodic hook, and the homeless person on the corner the repeated chorus. This process helps young people find ways to take control of their world and make it an object of artistic creation.
Perhaps the most significant stage of this club’s activities is the school-wide assembly at the end of the year in which club members perform their works. And while it is important to provide a venue for their pieces to be seen and heard, and crucial that these young people receive acknowledgement for a performance “well-done!”, it is absolutely vital that their life experiences, told in a language that holds so much meaning for them, is recognized as worthy and deserving applause.
Club members meet after school each week for 90 minutes
Needs for 2008-09
Four Mac Mini Desktop computers at $628 per unit. Four iPod Nanos at $149 per unit. Four Griffin Technology iTalk Pro recording devices The total cost for this project is: |
$2,512 |
Funding for 2008-09
Grant proposed to Bay Area Women’s and Children’s Center (www.bawcc.org): $1,256
Grant proposed by A Flowering Tree and received from o'Shea: $2,018
Needs and Funding for 2009-10
We are pleased to announce that this program will continue during the 2009-10 school year and requires NO additional funding!
