Lancaster Teens C.D. Project

“Rock and Roll Summer Camp”
The Lancaster Teens CD Project
July 24-29, 2006

Presenter: Arnett Howard

I always wanted to have a “rock and roll summer camp.” For years I have envisioned a camp to mentor teenaged musicians, share my vast experience at being a working musician for nearly forty years.

I got the chance to fulfill my desires in the summer of 2006, thanks to Gary Sheldon, maestro and artistic director of the Lancaster Festival, who is an educator at heart. As I was thinking out loud at a winter Lancaster Festival Artistic Committee meeting, he quickly liked the idea as a week long extension of Majors for Minors.

Twenty teenagers participated in the first Lancaster Festival Teen Song Writing CD Project. Using group theme ideas and rhyming dictionaries, we composed on Monday and Tuesday, recorded on Wednesday and Thursday and produced the discs, labels and inserts on Friday.

To write and record ten songs in eight hours is unheard in the “industry”, where artists spend months, if not years, fine tuning their releases. I hope this workshop gives kids a taste of the work involved with developing their craft of songwriters and recording artists.

Day One: Monday, July 24, 2006, 10am. First Presbyterian Church, Lancaster, Ohio

We introduced ourselves, I sang a couple of songs that I had written with kids in previous years. I distributed blank paper, rhyming dictionaries, writing instruments and said, “Well what do you wanna’ write a song about?”

After quizzing everyone and getting a unanimous head shake, “I don’t know,” one of the young men read aloud the tee shirt he was wearing. Music Is The Art became our first theme.

Music is the art of what?; the art of thinking. We opened our rhyming dictionaries and spent the next hour creating (OK, the presenter demonstrated the process by doing 90 percent of the first song).

A1. Music is the art of thinking. An overflow of emotions linking.
It helps to keep the soul from spinning out of control,
When you see sharks circling round.

A2. Music is the art of dance. A spirit tool that will enhance
The freedom to prance in any circumstance,
When your feet hardly touch the ground.

B. Music can assert, remind the world of hurt.
When injustices oppress a people.
Music can move hearts, bring couples to new starts.
Words that sing of joy and pain
Can do much more than entertain.

A3. Music is the art of expression,
A spirit tool to cure one’s depression.
Composers moved in song, reflections right or wrong.
Music is the art of life.

Our first song is completed. To finish the morning I asked the students if any of them had original songs that they wanted to share and two students stepped forward to present. Jillian Taylor was accompanied by her brother Buddy and she sang Won’t Let You Go. Next, Jesse Warner leafed through a full notebook of his song ideas and introduce a pencil sketch called Opinions. He stayed after class and played the song again so I could get an idea of how I could make his song sound better.

Day Two: After passing out blank paper, dictionaries and pens, I played a new melody that I had awoken with the previous week entitled Did You Ever? The creative exercise that I gave the kids wasn’t too demanding; Give me four lines-Did you ever_____________________.

After twenty minutes, I collected their pages. I read a few pages aloud and commented on the more imaginative lines, I intended to take the work home and, in my solitude, put the best lines to work. The results;

A1. Did you ever throw a snowball on a hot summers day?
Did you ever ride to Pluto in a rocket?
Did you ever send you mother a rosy bouquet?
Did you ever stick your finger in a socket?
Did you ever find a rainbow with a big pot of gold?
Did you ever see an elephant dance?
Did the people ever laugh at you for doing what you’re told?
Did you ever see a tiger’s strange glance?

B1. Did ever find a feather in really rainy weather?
Ever run two thousand miles in one day?
Ever go down a mountain on a pair of ice skates?
Ever make friends with someone who’s gay?

A2. Did you ever find you staring in the face of a demon?
Ever do something shamefully bad?
Did you ever want a friend who never runs and never hides?
Did you ever? Did you ever?

B2. Did you ever comb your hair with a big garden rake?
Did you ever try to make up new words?
Did you ever, ever wish that you could touch the sky?
Do you think that idea sounds absurd?

A3. Did you ever run from having too much fun?
Ever wear your leather in hot weather?
Did you ever write a song without any rhymes?
Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever? Did you ever?

For the next creative exercise, I called on a track that I had prepared for my charter school music class called I Am Only One, But I Am Not The Only One! This time I wanted eight lines from each student. Yeah, right!

Of the twenty teens that participated I would guess that seven or eight gave that old college try, ten tried to write but couldn’t make much come out and just doodled. Three kids never lifted a finger to follow directions and were no more than observers, eventually vanishing during a break period.

I took the results back to my solitude to assemble the makings of lyric and pray that something miraculously magical would emerge.

Since Days One and Two were devoted to creativity, Day Three was the first of my two recording days. I got to class hours early to assemble the keyboard, amp, monitor speakers, digital recorder, mikes and a PowerBook computer. As the first folks arrived, I was sequencing Music Is The Art in the keyboard.

I distributed the lyric, we rehearsed to the track several times and then the recording began. After we tripled the voices (recorded three times), I was faced with the task of recording the backup band, which included no less that six or eight guitars, bass, keyboards and drums.

After rehearsing and trying to synchronize young musicians and a keyboard track, I placed two mikes amid the chaos of rhythms and strings and pressed record. I knew the futility of the effort, however all of the kids brought their instruments so I faked it and no one was any wiser.

I continued recording for three hours after class was officially over. It took thirty minutes to record Won’t Let You Go with Jillian and Buddy and to have her overdub some harmony vocals.

John Honaker had an original solo guitar song that he called Jezebel and it was recorded in fifteen minutes. But the next trio, Hidgz, was a big challenge. They were a metal trio; guitar, bass and drums, with a lead vocal song called Appletree.

Drums are impossible to record, so we chose a digital drumbeat from the keyboard’s database, assigned the right tempo and the drummer simply operated the start/stop button as the guitarists played and did a dummy vocal. We redid a second vocal and Hingz was finished. Whew!

Jesse Warner was the lone keyboardist and a songwriting geek. His original, Opinions, was well organized and the recording went smooth. Again, we decided on a drum pattern, recorded keyboard bass and rhythm guitar in one pass. Next we added organ, lead guitar, lead vocals and I sang harmony. By three o’clock, I was heading home to rest from an intense day.

Day Four: Students began arriving with their instruments a full half hour before class time, excited that something special was in store. I was putting the finishing touches on the track, Did You Ever? The lyric was distributed and singers were assembled around the mikes (few of the men wanted to join the group singing process, more comfortable in the guitar world). We knocked off the first tune’s vocals, added band accompaniment and proceeded to complete, I am Only One....!

And then the magic that we all wished for, began to happen. John and Buddy rehearse in the kitchen and emerge to record one of John’s impromptu guitar songs, Slide, in one take. Clarinetist Andrew Compton stepped before the microphone and created an improv of his warm instrument.

Cassandra Diley and Christina Hsu took their violins upstairs to the church sanctuary and when they came down they performed a Bach minuet in two takes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an example of the ability that most of the teens gained during the week; to overcome fear and peer pressure, make good use of their time, talent and contribute to a group effort.

During some free time, I encouraged the visual artists to create art for the disc and there were several good examples to choose from for label art.

Day Five: Production Day involved printing the labels, j cards and sleeves, writing liner notes, burning the discs on two Apple computers and an Epson printer. Carol Abbott came in and shot a number of digital pictures that we downloaded into the computer immediately.

Three of us worked overtime to complete the assembly line that produce fifty compact discs, but many of the students came back at 3 pm. and picked up their discs. Many of the parents that had dropped in during the week were encouraging in their appreciation of what their teens were able to experience during the “rock and roll summer camp.”

Overview: We got lucky and the first event of this kind turned out close to perfect on several fronts. No one got frustrated or behaved out of line (except the three who didn’t lift a finger, however they weren’t distracting). Kids got to create new work, perform their own compositions and overall, except for I Am Only One..., the result sound OK.

Thanks to a hard working and trusting group of Lancaster area teens, I was able to realize my dream. It was a long week, but let’s do it again. I don’t think I’d change a thing, other than bringing two printers on production day.