Week 9

As we approach the music celebration for week 10 many of the students at the center and
including us are wrapping up our final creations. The process has been exciting and unknown at the same
time at least for me and some of the students in my group who haven’t also formally made a song before.
Our group specifically wanted to redefine what a ‘song’ meant. We played around, had fun and enjoyed
curating our student’s vision of what felt authentic to them. Authenticity and freedom were key in not
only dreaming of what this song would be but the various personal touches and likings our students added
like auto-tone to sound like what they said ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ to the voice layovers of comments
and emphasis on certain words/verses. After all, the goal of this project was for everyone to have fun and
be themselves rebelling against norms from what a ‘song’ is to who we should be in society.

Within my group this week, we were pretty much done with our song. Last week we had the
chance to get in the studio and actually record the rapping sessions of our two rappers and combine it with the beat our group member Zhihan put together based on our students’ favorite beats we browsed together. This week I also finalized our groups ‘song cover’. We wanted to also have a graphic that had some insight into what our song was about but in a fun, silly, and creative way. The playful act of putting the song and cover together encompassed our journeys together. This week we got a chance to also chat more with our students and they shared how excited they are in continuing their music journeys. They had
lyrics and ideas for future song ideas which was great to see that this project has allowed them to continue to explore their musical creativity they already have. I am excited for them to continue growing as
musicians and the creative people they are.

I hope that they continue to be silly and authentic in their creative journeys and continue to be
curious and adventurous like the exploration of new instruments they haven’t used before!

Airin