Re: Decoded song using chord progressions

Sean wrote:
RichL wrote:
Sean <sean@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

It varies from year to year, of course. This year there are 10 kids
involved. It's fun, but also quite exhausting. The girls (it's an all
girls school) get way more out of it than just learning the rock
stuff. There's the whole thing about working as a team, everyone
helping set up and put stuff away at the end, taking responsibility
for your own part, figuring out technical problems ("There's no sound
coming out of the P.A.!" "Follow the signal." "Oh, the speaker cables
aren't plugged in!") and so on. Not to mention the courage it takes
to let it all hang out in front of their peers. Sometimes they're
rewarded with cheers and prestige, sometimes not.

Do many of them form real bands as a result?



Uh, it IS a real band. (I mean, it exists in time and space and they collectively produce more or less organized noise, sometimes in a public setting.) But no, generally these kids don't start up their own bands while they're still in school. Their lives are usually crammed with study, dance lessons, sports, blah blah blah. Over-planned and over-organized sometimes, leaving little room for as complex an unsupervised activity as starting their own bands. Some of them may do so after graduating, but generally I don't know much about what they are doing after they've been gone for a year or so. A few have kept in touch and have mentioned that they're so busy at university, and that it's very hard to find anyone reliable enough and willing to commit the time it takes to organize a band.
I taught for a while at a tough public school, as different from my present school as it could be. I was impressed by a talent show the kids organized. There were several bands and a couple of dance troupes organized by the kids without any adult supervision. These kids had the advantage of being neglected by their parents, I guess.

I was asked to do something like this at our local junior college - a sort of "rock club" that was being formed to give the students something outside of and in addition to their formal classwork. They were not only interested in my playing ability, but also in the fact that I maintain my own project recording studio. They have a pretty good media arts program (or they did...) and were interested in getting the music folks involved with what they might be able to do with the tech side of things.

Unfortunately I didn't have the time to get as far into it as I might have liked to to make it worthwhile for both myself and the students, but the idea is a great one.

--
- Rufus
.

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