Week 7

This week, we’ve seen the lyrics finally take shape over the song. I had spent the first few weeks crafting a beat with a homemade sample, and my teammates (students and youth) had been working together on inspired, poetic lyrics to fit the song. This week, though, it was time to set those lyrics to rhythm.

We went around trying to figure out who should rap the lyrics, if they should be spoken, sung, or shouted—I ended up as the vocalist, and the tone was subdued. Each time I went through the song, the youth coached me on how best to work on the lyrics, a process that will undoubtedly take me a while to master, but that I’m working on every day!

It has been challenging to know whether or not we’ll be able to work with the youth each week, since the cohort of youth at the center is ever-changing, but I’m determined to bring the lyrics that they’ve made to a fruitful end. Whether I’ve been working in the group I’m in, floating to offer musical/technical advice to other groups, or just socializing with the youth, I’ve enjoyed every visit of the project.

The themes of psychoanalysis, empathy, and ethnography in our class discussions carefully intertwined with the work we’ve done on the project so far. Reading about another time that this exact experience has been replicated, we also considered how the body integrates itself with musical and rhythmic understanding of the world. All in all, relating the reflections and analysis from the texts—how we define “music,” for example—to the experiences we’ve had at the youth center has been extremely valuable.

I’m incredibly excited to see our songs shared at the end of the project, and will work my hardest to make sure we achieve our shared artistic vision!

Spencer