Friday, April 5, 2002
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Friday, April 5, 2002 |
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Kedron Elementary students record CD Some young vocal artists in Peachtree City are getting ready to record their first music compact disk. Students in grades K-5 at Kedron Elementary are participating in a special program where they are learning the lyrics to traditional American heritage songs and recording them live at the school with the help of Eric Litwin, a professional musician and storyteller. Litwin is currently in residence at the school as a guest artist. Sponsored by the school's PTO, Litwin's program, "I Hear America Singing," integrates three curriculum connections music, technology and history. Through the program, students are exposed to various blues, folk, bluegrass, country and patriotic songs. While learning the lyrics to each song, Litwin tells students about the history of the piece. He also takes time to teach students about computer music software, computer language, flow of data, microphones and mixing boards. "There are great opportunities available in this business that I want to share with these students. There is a great deal of employment potential out there that they might not be familiar with," said Litwin. When the project is finished, the PTO plans to provide each student with his or her own CD. Last year, Kedron was awarded a grant from the Georgia Council of the Arts Young Audiences, Inc. to assist with the funding of the project. All students are spending at least one session with the artist during his one-week, two-day stay at the school, but the entire fifth grade will have the opportunity to participate in a second class where they have the opportunity to learn more in-depth information about music recording technology. During the second session, fifth graders get to hear how they originally sounded when the music was first recorded and then listen to the final version with added special effects. Students watch the applications being applied as the music software is projected onto a large screen in the classroom. "You will be amazed at how it sounds the same but yet different," Litwin told fifth-graders in Cathy Carlton's and Mary Elizabeth Mendenhall's class as they listen to themselves singing America the Beautiful both before and after special effects were added. In addition to recording music, students in each classroom will also design their own CD jackets. At the beginning of school, the classrooms selected an animal as their theme for the year. Each room will be given a cow, designed by art teacher Connie Ewing, and every student will take part in drawing the image of their classroom animal inside of the cow. "We selected the cow because it is very much an American animal. Our theme is American heritage so we want to keep everything as American as possible," said parent organizer Joan Perry. In April, the school will host another artist in residence, Felton Eaddy, who will work with the students to create patriotic poetry that will grace the inside panel of the CD cover. Each classroom will work collaboratively to create both the artwork and poetry so that individual classes can have ownership of their CD. When students complete the project, appropriately titled "Celebrating America," they will have combined music, visual arts and language arts to create a professional looking and sounding CD they can call their own. "Collaboration is always an exciting experience. We have noticed that students will do collaboratively what they wouldn't feel comfortable doing on their own. We think children become extremely empowered by creating and having a tangible product to show for their efforts," said Perry. The school has created a web site, www.stormpages.com/douthard, for parents who would like to get a sneak preview of the songs and poems that will be featured on each class' CD. Clips of previously recorded songs are also being aired each day on the school's closed-circuit morning broadcast.
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