Sound project develops in local community
Karen Peterson
Mars Sandoval listens to the sounds he layered with the new equipment.
Karen Peterson
Yancy McCrea
Karen Peterson
Listening
Karen Peterson
Lauren Vargas, instructor from New York
Karen Peterson
New equipment
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
Karen Peterson
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PABLO – Students sat down in front of what looked reminiscent of a space station on Thursday at Two Eagle River School, although something very familiar came out of the machines.
“You can express music ideas,” Lauren Vargas said to the students about the equipment set up on six separate desks in one of the school’s classrooms.
Vargas and a group of New Yorkers from the Lower Eastside Girls Club brought the sound project to the school. The Girls Club is a lot like the Boys and Girls Club in Lake County but with only girls. The Girls Club purchased the equipment for TERS through fundraising efforts in New York.
Just how the school became acquainted with a club about 2,000 miles away is simple. David Spear teaches photography at TERS and he once lived in New York and worked with the club.
He took 14 TERS students to New York earlier this year on a photography field trip, and the students displayed their images at the club. They saw the sound systems at the club and loved it, so the club helped bring a similar system to TERS. Spear is helping the school and the club work together on a cultural exchange project. The Girls Club members will eventuallymake it to Montana.
“This is a partnership with TERS,” said Kelly Webb, Girls Club Director of Sound and radio DJ in New York. She helped set up the equipment and teach the students how to use it with the other visitors.
Girls Club instructors set up the sound project with that space station looking equipment including Mac- Books, push controls, audio interface systems, microphones and cables.
Vargas is a sound technician and director of technology at the Girls Club. She estimates that each of the six stations is worth about $6,000.
“This is standard stuff,” she said of the mobile sound stations that students can use to develop and record sound waves from the push controls, external interments, interviews with people and anything else with sound. It was noted that interviewing elders and recording drum groups would be a future project.
“I see you looking at this with hungry eyes,” Vargas said to the students before they got started. She gave the students a lesson in how to work the equipment before letting them loose to practice on their own to mix different sounds together to create a beat.
“This is awesome,” said Xavier Smith, junior at TERS. “I’m so glad we have something like this.”
Smith got interested in music when he was about 12. The band OutKast inspired him to want to work on his own beats. He often taps out rhythms with his hands. The new equipment will help him expand how he makes sounds.
Nina Hernandez, TERS junior, is excited about developing sounds with the equipment.
“I’ve never done anything like this before,” she said.
Shawncee Braverock, TERS senior, said he feels like he gets lost in another world when he works on developing sounds. He was one of the students who went to New York to display his photography at the Girls Club.
“We did everything in New York,” he said. “We visited the Statue of Liberty. It’s better than it looks on TV.”
Spear said teachers are looking forward to incorporating the sound equipment room into their curriculum. The sound experts from New York worked with teachers and staff so they can teach other students how to use it.
