Student Musicians Share their Talents

Upper School singer-songwriters and musicians in Alec Synakowski’s Songwriting and Music Production class recently shared highlights of their work from the first semester in a Music Elective Morning Ex.

Since the beginning of the year, students in the class have been learning how to create their own music and share it with the world. Through the study of classic and contemporary music techniques, students have honed their skills in songwriting, practical music theory and modern recording techniques. Their peers in Justin de la Cruz’s Vocal Studio class have been performing for one another throughout the year as they develop their technique, tone quality, connection to the lyrics and expression as performers.

In this gathering, Songwriting and Music Production students shared the process of learning to use the GarageBand software to develop multi-track recordings and alter elements of sound, including a homework assignment for each student to produce a recording of the ABC song after originally recoding it out of order and using the software to edit and alter their voice. One student spoke about developing original lyrics, showing the evolution of a single song throughout the process. A student demonstrated he importance of improvement with time and practice by playing excerpts of her original music at the onset, middle and end of the semester. Students also related their culminating experience with a visit to Rax Trax Recording, where they spent five hours recording their work in a professional studio setting with experienced audio engineers. Vocal Studio students then took to the stage, where each performed a song that they had been working on as part of class.

Following the learning and performances, the presenters fielded questions from their peers related to their experience throughout the semester, and all left with a better understanding of and appreciation for music.