Crunchy Kids Composer Collective:
Music written by kids, for kids to play! What a concept!
This collective is not an active project, but I am leaving on the website - who knows, it may return.
In my experience as a composer and improviser, the successful folks are those who learn to team up with their musician friends as collaborators. One good working model for this is to have a collective, in which the players perform each other's compositions.
I lead the group, conduct the pieces, and supervise the organizational and compositional issues (inside and outside of rehearsal). The students learn what it feels like to offer a piece to an ensemble, how to address many problems of instrumentation, and how to work with a musical group in rehearsal of their piece.
My students are composing using Finale Notepad, a free software download available from MakeMusic.com, linked below. Check it out - it is intriguing and fun.
Students need to have the ability to sightread for an instrument. If that instrument is piano, I have several keyboards which can be utilized in rehearsal.
Students love see their pieces realized this way. Performers like to play the pieces of someone they know.
In the 2012-2013 school year, our group met a number of times to rehearse and play each others music, and then we decided to audition for the Malcolm X Elementary Talent show (since these kids were all students there). We voted on which piece to play, and Nicholas Reifenstein's piece, "Otter Elite", was chosen by the group. We auditioned, were accepted, and performed at the talent show. The instrumentation for the piece was synthesizer, cello (amplified), two flutes, trumpet, two trombones, and a drum kit.
In my experience as a composer and improviser, the successful folks are those who learn to team up with their musician friends as collaborators. One good working model for this is to have a collective, in which the players perform each other's compositions.
I lead the group, conduct the pieces, and supervise the organizational and compositional issues (inside and outside of rehearsal). The students learn what it feels like to offer a piece to an ensemble, how to address many problems of instrumentation, and how to work with a musical group in rehearsal of their piece.
My students are composing using Finale Notepad, a free software download available from MakeMusic.com, linked below. Check it out - it is intriguing and fun.
Students need to have the ability to sightread for an instrument. If that instrument is piano, I have several keyboards which can be utilized in rehearsal.
Students love see their pieces realized this way. Performers like to play the pieces of someone they know.
In the 2012-2013 school year, our group met a number of times to rehearse and play each others music, and then we decided to audition for the Malcolm X Elementary Talent show (since these kids were all students there). We voted on which piece to play, and Nicholas Reifenstein's piece, "Otter Elite", was chosen by the group. We auditioned, were accepted, and performed at the talent show. The instrumentation for the piece was synthesizer, cello (amplified), two flutes, trumpet, two trombones, and a drum kit.
http://www.finalemusic.com/products/finale-notepad/