Song Kaleidoscope: Tunes with David & Friends!

High School Grade Project 4 weeks

Album Creation, Song Making, Senior Project

David G

Effective Communication

Collaboration

Academic Mindset

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Purpose

Deepen your understanding of music creation by mastering the use of a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), honing your songwriting skills, and crafting impactful, meaningful lyrics. Collaborate with your friends, Jose Arambula the III and Octavio Gutierrez-Rivero, to produce an album that reflects your creativity and highlights your progress in music production. Engage fully in studio sessions with community partners to cultivate skills in communication, collaboration, and critical reflection. Through this journey, explore music as a medium for personal expression and societal impact.

Learning goals

Your learning goals include mastering the use of a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and developing proficiency in music creation, including composing meaningful lyrics. You will develop skills in effective communication by collaborating closely with peers, utilizing empathy and active listening to resolve creative differences. Additionally, you will engage in reflection to understand your identity within the music world, thereby increasing your confidence and self-efficacy as you explore the impact of your work.

Competencies

Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
Academic Mindset - Students establish a sense of place, identity, and belonging to increase self-efficacy while engaging in critical reflection and action.

Products

Collaborate with Jose and Octavio to produce an album of original songs, using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) for developing proficiency in music creation. Concentrate on writing meaningful, impactful lyrics and document your songwriting journey through drafts and completed versions. Assemble a digital or physical portfolio that records your creative process, showcasing audio excerpts from initial attempts to completed tracks. Use this portfolio as a pivotal part of your exhibition, presenting both your music and the narrative of its development.

Launch

Begin your project with an interactive workshop on using a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). Invite a community partner from a local studio to provide a hands-on demonstration of music production tools and techniques. Following the workshop, collaborate with Jose and Octavio to craft meaningful lyrics that resonate with personal experiences, focusing on how music can communicate emotions and stories.

Exhibition

Host a live album launch event at a community partner studio, such as Signature Sound Studios. Perform your new songs with Jose and Octavio, highlighting the evolution of your musical skills and the impact of meaningful lyrics. Set up interactive stations that allow attendees to explore the songwriting process and the use of a Digital Audio Workstation, comparing early drafts to polished tracks. End with a feedback session to capture audience reactions and reflections on your music's emotional and artistic effect.

Rubric

Competency Progression Rubric Competency-first rubric

Category	Learning Goal	Stage 1	Stage 2	Stage 3	Stage 4
Deeper Learning Competencies	Learning how to use a DAW	Research into finding out what DAW workstations are good. Find what DAW I personally find comfortable for making music.	Experiment and play around with the DAW that I've chosen. Get accustomed to the features and add-ons that the DAW provides for me.	Start making random things using the DAW non-publish worthy and experimenting with it more. Start working on and making the actual songs that we're going to use for the album.	Finalize and polish the final draft of our songs. Listen and see if we need to re-record anything or improve on anything before publishing. Edit and make the song sound better.
Deeper Learning Competencies	How to write, and create music	Learn chord progressions, and collaborate with my peers seeing what they think of my music creation and how they would like to improve it and add onto it. Do meet ups and or "band practice" off of our ideas and see how we do and what we can do to improve.	Collaborate with my peers by contributing ideas during our music production sessions and actively participating in decision-making I engage in friendly and constructive discussions to balance different opinions and ensure everyone's voice is heard as we create our album.	I can work effectively with my peers, and contribute to shared decision-making by actively participating in group discussions and respecting diverse perspectives, while consistently moving our music production project forward.	I confidently lead collaborative sessions with Jose and Octavio, effectively facilitating shared decision-making while ensuring each person's voice is heard and valued I resolve any conflicts that arise with empathy and active listening, fostering a creative environment where we can all contribute our best ideas to produce a cohesive, innovative album.
Deeper Learning Competencies	Academic Mindset	Think about certain things like what I'd like to write about. Find out what genre of music I'd like to make. Reflect on previous songs and see if their lyrics were meaningful/good.	Recognize my role in the music production project and identify areas where I can further develop my musical identity, showing improvement by contributing ideas and reflecting on feedback during group sessions.	I can confidently navigate a digital audio workstation to produce music, showing my growing understanding by experimenting with different tools and techniques to enhance the quality of our album I actively engage in discussions with my peers on our creative direction, using empathy and reflective thinking to contribute meaningful ideas and resolve differences By reflecting on my personal experiences and identity, I create music that expresses my unique perspective and resonates with our shared goals.	I can confidently express my unique musical identity and voice through the completed album, showing a deep connection to my personal and musical roots I thoughtfully reflect on the creative process and my learning, using feedback to enhance my work and clearly communicate the significance and societal impact of our music in our live launch event.

Learning Journey

Ideate

You will collaboratively brainstorm and gather diverse song ideas with your peers, exploring different music genres and themes, while leveraging insights gained from your community partners to envision how your album can create meaningful impacts and invoke various emotions in listeners.

Days 5 - 7