Week 8

At this point in our 10 weeks together, everyone is well-established with their groups. We all look forward to seeing each other and spending an hour making music together. One student this week even pointed out that the introductory group exercises take away from our individual project time and he wanted to get straight back to the creation process, so we all dove right in!

This week, we started the first round of official recording sessions. It was really cool seeing the youth direct their own songs in a “recording studio” setting. This seemed like a very unique and valuable exercise in giving the students autonomy over their creative ideas and embracing a leadership role in our projects. I believe we are collectively anticipating the final song celebration in excitement and working to wrap up any loose ends on our songs over the next couple weeks, now that we have incorporated instruments and established rhythms and lyrics. 

My group definitely can see the finish line clearly! The student we collaborate with has been our main artistic director and last week she let us know that she felt the lyrics were complete and the foundational beat fit well but that we needed to add a greater bass drop to empower the song. One of my teammates tried out a really cool bass riff and this was unanimously approved as a great addition to the song. This week, we were attempting to integrate more emotional depth into the rapping of our song by experimenting with vocal cadences and tones in order to pull our final project together. 

In seminar, we discussed Freud’s analysis of the individual psyche in a social setting, how structured social norms which are meant to regulate human behavior for the overall well-being and institutional functioning of the whole actually end up backfiring and provoking repressed displeasure among individuals. As students, I think we often feel this sentiment towards our educational institutions when they prioritize economic gain or research output over student development or mental health. 

Isabella