This past Friday some of my students premiered a music video at the Museum of Contemporary Art. The kids had spent the last month or so, creating a music video from scratch. They wrote their own music with a program called Logic Pro for Mac. They came up with the beats and the melodies themselves, and recorded it via USB keyboard. They then wrote lyrics and created a seriously deep, and personal song about some of the problems in their neighborhood seen through their teenage eyes. That in it's self would be any music teachers dream but they didn't stop there. They story booked out different scenes and sequences and then performed a seriously professional video shoot. THEN, they took everything and edited it, discussed different artistic ideas, and created a high quality MUSIC VIDEO!
To be honest it hadn't really hit until the night they presented it at the MCA, but I found myself becoming witness to a total transformation in my students. They went from being nervous, shy, and apprehensive, to being well spoken, wide-eyed and eager to tell people about their video. Then all of a sudden it hit me. One of the greatest things that technology brings our students in the arts, is a sense of ownership. A pride in themselves to display their expressive ideas. One of the most enduring qualities that the arts has to offer us as humans is the sense of self that one can recieve by expressing our deepest and most sincere feelings to our fellow man. Technology now makes that possible on so many levels. Not only can it help you create an artifact, but then technology can be used to spread that artifact all over the world.
Today I attended the Eight grade graduation luncheon. I showed the music video the kids made to their parents, classmates, and staff. I was amazed at how many parents and students wanted copies of the music videos for themselves. One of my students was standing next to me when a parent asked for a copy. He smiled and said, " You better get that now, because the next one will cost you!" We all had a laugh, but I remember thinking to myself how right he was. I know that he has the confidence to do something like that on his own now, and maybe potentially a build a career. Technology does so many things for us, but maybe the most important is how it allows us to connect with each other. How it provides a vehicle for our expression, and how it can motivate us to continue to express our most intimate feelings.