Our seventh grade recently finished a creative writing block, designed especially for this class. Creative writing was taught as a songwriting block and experts from our community were brought in to assist the middle school teachers. Over the course of three weeks, the students learned about storytelling, poetry writing, wordplay, and musical composition. Putting it all together, the class co-wrote and produced a song to which everyone contributed lyrics and musical ideas.
Over the course of two days, the students recorded, layered and edited their own composition at Lane Gibson Studio. The studio space was beautiful, professional, and well equipped. The students had a dream team helping them, including teacher/producer Pete Sutherland, sound engineer Jeremy Mendicino, Mr. Foster, and LCWS high school alum Zachary Mills, now a sophomore at American University majoring in audio engineering.
The students all agreed, it was the best day of school, ever.
Vocabulary from the day:
Console
Lines
Mikes
Electric vs. Acoustic (not just guitars)
Editing
Sequencing
Overdubbing
Punching in
Layers
Scratch track or guide track or reference track
Click track
Riff
Chord chart
Engineer
Producer
Fader
Thank you to musician and songwriter Pete Sutherland and sound engineer Jeremy Mendicino for sharing your talents and teaching these students. And special thanks also to our alumnus Zachary Mills for donating his time to assist.