Bulldog News
Songwriting workshops inspire creativity
Friday, April 17, 2009
Hillside’s Tracy Gym doubled as a rehearsal studio during the weeks of April 6 and 13 as students collaborated with the Adam Ezra Group, a Boston-based folk rock outfit, to explore their inner musical muses.
Adam Ezra and his band provided Hillside classes with an insider’s view of the creative process as they worked with students on writing and performing their own songs. The final product will be a song to be debuted by the Adam Ezra Group at a private school event in May.
The project was the result of connections between the Hillside Parent and Family Association (HPFA) and the band itself.
The process began on a high note with classes choosing song topics. Subjects ranged from “boarding school life” for eighth and ninth graders to “trying to fit in” for seventh graders to simply “girls” for the fifth and sixth grade students.
Would their music be happy or sad, fast or slow, Ezra quizzed his pupils. At the same time, the Hillside boys selected a primary instrument to convey their melodic messages.
Here, too, the students differed largely by age with older students favoring heavy percussion with a slow or medium beat, while the youngest ones chose fast tempo keyboards.
Regardless of their choices, Ezra emphasized the importance of creative expression. “You don’t need to think about your song one way or another,” he stressed. “Just focus on what you want to express with your art.”
The students responded enthusiastically. Among them, Chris Coughlin ’11 suggested that the seventh grade song convey “finding our school comfort zone with classes and friends.”
Coughlin’s classmate, Kendall DeSouza ’11, further suggested that major and minor chords be used to express the “happy and sad parts of the song,” respectively.
“That’s a great way to put music to emotions,” agreed Ezra.
The project was further refined with students choosing band members’ performance styles. The funky “wa wa” riffs of Josh Gold’s keyboard proved to be popular with all grades – including Noah Lawson ’13 who gave it a very strong “two thumbs up.” Meanwhile percussionist Jeff “Turtle” Goulert and his djembe, a type of West African drum, was a hit with the eighth and ninth grades.
The final ingredient to this ambitious musical stew had students composing song lyrics. “There are no rules to writing words,” advised Ezra to the students.
The ninth graders created rap rhymes. Many lyrics had a personal twist. Tomas Alvarez ’10, a native of Mexico, wrote about going away to school far from home while, on a lighter note, Dominic Casamassima praised midnight snacks.
On the fifth and sixth graders’ topic of “girls,” one student poignantly penned the soon to be immortal words, “I love you like a guy loves cake.”
Harry Worrall, Hillside’s dean of parents, deemed the songwriting project a success. “Hopefully, it will inspire our students to further try their hand at creative writing – a talent and skill that is always worth developing.”
Tim Matthews '10 (right), drummer in the Hillside School Band, tries his hand at percussion with assistance from Jeff Goulert of the Adam Ezra Group.
Adam Ezra (left) improvises on guitar as Tomas Alvarez ' 10 (right) reads his song lyrics.
Collaborating on their song's lyrics are (clockwise from left): Chris Holt '12, Napoleon Sylvester '13, Noah Lawson '13 and Matthew Mori '13.
