It hurt making this under three minutes. Seriously. Also, the “call to action” thing is semi-awkward, but Johanna said to include one in her e-mail. So there you are, folks.

Hi, I’m Anna. I’m fifteen and I’m a harpist. Nash and I make up the tiniest CDAL team – it’s just the two of us – but what we lack in size we make up for in enthusiasm! We’ve been friends for ages and we’re really passionate about our project this year. Nash and I are partnered with MusiConnects, a nonprofit organization whose mission is social change through chamber music – they’re dedicated to providing completely accessible and inclusive programs, and to building communities through music. They’re centered at the James Chittick Elementary School in Mattapan, Boston. Mattapan has one of the lowest per capita income rates in the greater Boston area, and Chittick has no music program other than what MusiConnects volunteers. MusiConnects works with around 30 students there, first through fourth graders, providing string instruments and instruction through private lessons and chamber ensembles.

Nash and I have been working with MusiConnects in a lot of areas. We’ve been assisting and teaching, we’ve done publicity, and we recently hosted a benefit concert. One of the first ideas that we brainstormed as a team was to extend the reach of music within the school. MusiConnects is only able to serve a certain number of Chittick students while maintaining its quality, but the waiting list is long, and it’s heartbreaking to have kids come up to us and ask why they can’t have music lessons too. Since the beginning of this school year, we’ve been working toward that goal by planning and executing a series of introduction to music lessons for two classes of kindergarten students who are not able to be enrolled in MusiConnects. We’re also doing a series of additional lessons for MusiConnects students, which will culminate in our final project – a fieldtrip for all of the MusiConnects students, to see the From the Top taping in Jordan Hall on February 4th.

MusiConnects is about so much more than elementary school kids learning to play string instruments. Within the organization, there exists a community of students and teachers, friends and role models to look to for support and encouragement. They’re learning from us, but we’re learning so much from them in return! And working with these kids, we’ve seen how unfamiliar and how amazing it is for them to have a way to express themselves, and a place where those expressions are valued. They can have that because of a few people who believe that everyone has a right to music. That’s the idea that started MusiConnects, that fueled our original CDAL project plan, and that inspires Nash and me as we continue every day. If you believe that too, come learn more – about MusiConnects, and music education, and the experiences we’ve had. Talk to us. Let yourself be connected. I promise it will change everything.

Sorry this is late… :/

My name is Lillian Hexter. I joined CDAL in January of my junior year of high school with little knowledge of what this program really is. Seventh months later I have a much better idea! CDAL brings young musicians like myself together and equips us with the ideas and concepts of using music in our communinities to meet a particular identified need. It is up to us to determine how to do this. My group is made of up five musicians who range in age, musical background and just about everything else. I think this unique blend of people has helped us to think creatively and work off of each other’s ideas.

My team volunteers at the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge, a residency for out of town cancer patients who are receiving out-patient treatment inBoston. We learned that one of the main challenges of cancer patients is that their worlds are turned completely upside down. Every assumption they once had about the rest of their lives is basically shattered. They are going through not only physical pain and struggle, but also social and emotional changes and anxieties. According to an article about music therapy, music therapy has shown “significant effects of music on anxiety, mood, and comfort during different medical procedures” as well as “quality of life, spirituality, mood, relaxation, energy level, comfort, response to treatment, and pain relief.”

Karl Paulnack accurately stated that musicians were “here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul.” That is what I believe we are doing at Hope Lodge. We can’t make the guests’ cancer go away and we can’t completely erase their stress and anxiety about what they’re going through. But we can make the entire experience a little more bearable. If we can bring a sense of peace and contentment to the guests of Hope Lodge, I think that we can feel satisfied with what we’ve accomplished.

Hello! We are five young arts leaders who are currently serving the guests at the AstraZeneca Hope Lodge for cancer patients in Boston. Our goal there is to provide meaningful musical experiences for the guests staying at the Lodge. We do this by playing music for their listening, but the special thing that we offer that other volunteer groups do not is that we are conversationalists. We provide a listening ear to their own stories as well as deep musical discussions about the music we play for them because we believe music therapy is a powerful tool for recovery. Another thing we do other volunteer groups generally do not is we have interactive musical pieces so that the guests can have the joy of making music themselves.

The authentic need was the lack of community between the guests of the hope lodge and the fact that they don’t have opportunities to play music. We are trying to solve this mainly with one activity: the interactive musical pieces. This is a fun, positive way for the guests to occupy themselves mentally and physically. Also, we have a lot music “discussions” where we pause in the making of music and really explore what music is with the guests and also what it means to the guests. Reflection on what music really is and why it is so powerful is something the guests have seemed to enjoyed immensely. This also allows us to develop personal relationships with the guests so we aren’t just faces making music to them.

We believe music therapy is a very important thing. It can heal very deep wounds, and still sound beautiful and be fun at the same time. We want to us it to create a community of hope among the guests by providing these fun interactive musical nights. We realize that these people are going through a really rough time and we want to provide memorable experiences that they can draw on even when we aren’t there. Hopefully at the end of our time at the lodge we will have touched many lives and showed the guests the healing power of music and how to use it.

Ok I know the closer sucked but I can’t think of anything else right now. I’ll see if I think of anything else good later in the week.

I timed it! It’s exactly 2:56. Also, I won’t lie, a lot of it is just a play on the other blog post, but there is some added stuff and some stuff ommitted. Cool.

Hello! We are Molly, Kieth, Ryan, Lillian and Rachel and we are the Hope Lodge group of From the Top’s Center for the Development of Arts Leaders. The five of us (plus our great mentor, Kassie) started volunteering at Hope Lodge last January. Hope Lodge is a residential center where people who come to Boston for outpatient cancer treatment can stay free of charge. We have been working there to create meaningful musical experiences for the residents, and ultimately creating a community of music within the already existing Hope Lodge community. So, last winter, as we set about planning what exactly it was that we wanted to do, one major challenge presented itself: Each time we visited, we met new residents that usually were not there the next time we came, which was a good thing because they would get better and go home. But, we had a dilemma: how do we create a “community of hope” and design a comprehensive, interactive musical program, when each time we come, we can’t build on what we did last time? I’m not going to lie, we’re still working on this. Last year, we started these themed concerts, such as classical or world music where the residents were encouraged to get up and dance or sing along. This was fun and the residents enjoyed it, but we realized that we were just playing for them. We wanted to do more. So, this fall/winter, we have been focusing on programs that combine us performing and interactivity with the residents. To start, we have been holding programs that mix performances with singalongs and chalk-talks. Some other things that we did this year were organizing a drum circle and recording a “CD of Hope”, a CD designed by the residents and made by us that every resident, for long after we end our time at Hope Lodge, can take home with them. Something that we have been struggling with throughout our process, tough is, the why? We know why we want to do this– because we understand the power of music to bring about positive change– but why is it that music has the power to do that? Since the beginning, we have explored the idea of musical therapy. Obviously none of us are professional musical therapists, but we thought that pursuing activities that resembled what musical therapists do might be an effective way to connect with residents, especially since many are very sick.  We hope that what we have done so far has started to create a community of music that future CDAL’s can take and build upon. Sorry to be cheesy, but I know that what we have done at Hope Lodge has taught us a lot, from the learning about the clinical side of cancer and seeing residents that are really affected by this disease, to how much just the littlest bit of music really can improve someone’s mood, if only for a night. We set out to take music beyond the concert hall and show others what we get out of music everyday. We can only hope that we succeeded.

Hey guys, this is sort of random but I saw 50/50 on Friday which is a movie about a 27 year old man who finds out he has a serious form of spinal cancer and after starting to learn about what it’s like to live with cancer, it was really interesting to make connections with the things that we talked about with Bryan! In addition, it was just a fabulous movie. I really enjoyed it (: so if anyone’s looking for a good movie, I highly recommend it!

Here’s the trailer:

Reflection

 

 

Two things I learned today (10/18 and 10/20, 2011) are….

 

     Working with the first and second graders, I learned, is an ENTIRELY different experience from working with kindergarteners.  Each group requires a different approach and presentation in order to keep their attention and the discussion moving.  Secondly, I learned a couple things about myself: I like working with the younger grades and my skills have come far over the past year.  

 

I wish I would have….   

     I wish I could have spent more time with the kindergarteners, as this was a lot of fun and they seemed to be really getting into it.  I also wish that I had more time with the Radio Circle Group activity. 

 

 

One question I have is……

 Is there something we can do to support practice and music in their homes….information to parents?  Reinforcements/awards/etc. for practicing??

 

Next time I will……

     I plan on pushing myself to interact even more with the kids and to make sure I’m doing everything I can to engage them.

So, when I was very small, I read Harry Potter for the first time. As odd as it is, Harry Potter means a lot to me. Not stay up till midnight a lot, but reserve a copy and get to the bookstore at six a lot. All throughout my child hood, Harry Potter was always there. I didn’t go home and read it every day after school or anything, but it was the first real book I ever read. So it has a special place in my heart, so I figured it would be fitting to do a song from the movie. I settled on Hedwig’s theme because it is the most distinctive piece of Harry Potter  music there is.

So, I will be performing the song “Butterfly Nets” by Bishop Allen on Monday! I chose this song for a couple of reasons. First, it was the first song that I found fun/ challenging to play on ukulele. It branches out from the four chords that I had originally learned so I taught myself a bunch of new chords for this song that I now feel confident with! Secondly, it is just a cute song and a cute concept. It’s symbolic too (yes… AP Lit coming in handy…). The butterfly in the song is representative of that special someone (;  and how once you find them, you can “face the world alone and never be lonely.” Yay.

 

Now… *drum roll*… your order for Monday evening:

1. Lillian– Butterfly Nets
2. Molly– Hedwig’s Theme
3. Ryan– Meditation from Massenet’s Thais on Violin
4. Nora– Someone Like You
5. Kassie– Hallelujah
6. Rachel– In My Life

So, after griping for an excruciating 20 seconds about not being able to do the Chaconne (yes I DID look it up!) I’ve decided to take a leaf from the Beppu Book and do the Meditation from Massenet’s Thais on Violin for Monday’s concert.

This is one of the first pieces when I was younger that I remember realizing exactly how beautiful music can be, and the violin especially laugh, but it’s true . I also remember with this piece really realizing that people really enjoyed it when I played, at least when I played this piece

 

Ok! See you soon!! All of you

In My Life by The Beatles

There are places I’ll remember

All my life though some have changed

Some forever not for better

Some have gone and some remain

All these places had their moments

With lovers and friends I still can recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I’ve loved them all

 

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

And these memories lose their meaning

When I think of love as something new

Though I know I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life I love you more

 

Though I know I’ll never lose affection

For people and things that went before

I know I’ll often stop and think about them

In my life I love you more

In my life I love you more

 

So, I don’t really have that great of a story. Coming up with a song for this, the only thing I could think about was my earliest connection to music, which was the lullabies my mom would sing to me. There were a few. One was called shluphy time. Shluphy means sleep in yiddish. And she would sing it to the tune of edelweiss. Another one was shenendoah. And then one in yiddish called Donah Donah about these cows that go to slaughter and the wind laughs with all it’s might. Anyways, this is one that she sang to me, one that is fairly normal…you’ve all heard it