#EXPERIENCE DESIGN #EDUCATION #BRANDING #MULTIMEDIA
SOUNDSCAPES
The Role and Process
As a founding member I have been taking multiple roles during that journey, starting from concept and curriculum development, workshops management, teaching, multimedia design and editing, promotion and marketing.
The process started with hours-long brainstorming sessions, in course of which we all brought our experiences and ideas to the table. We all had something to give: Racquel had spent her childhood in the creative piano residency in the mountains, before moving to NYC to pursue a career as a professional pianist, I had spent the first 17 years of my life as a member of a performance group member within a creative community, and Daniel as an architect, tutor, and founder of a music school has an extensive experience in teaching and expertise in translating the cues around us into creative concepts.
Establishing the goals
A thriving planet needs people who truly care about it and its future. This care starts from a strong emotional connection with our surroundings, which in the digital era is becoming harder and harder to achieve.
Soundscapes teaches children how to empathize, connect with and appreciate the environment around us, and notice our own feelings, through creating collaborative pieces of music inspired by the elements of nature.
Finding the right destination group
We all know that ideally, Soundscapes would become a fully inclusive program suitable for all ages. Yet, at the first stage of the program, we decided to start with an age-group that is most open for assisted independent growth (7-13). We also wanted to explore the idea of creating a safe and firm ground for kids to enter teenage with the self-awareness tools that could bring them notable benefits.
Finding the right vibe
We used the methods of researching about learning process in teenagers, and found out that one of the key factors is the vibe of the space. Even though the word " vibe" seems meta, it is a complex condition that includes many factors, from the sum of different emotions within a space, the look and feel of the space, and so on. Our goal was to create a vibe that makes the participants feel inspired energized, and free. Our society is very good at giving us strong suggestions, telling us what to do, where to go - up to that point when freedom seems confusing and scary. We decided that navigating in freedom, is one of the key things the course was to teach, and how to find inspiration and ideas from within us.
Finding the right settings and tools
Throughout the days we all go through different emotional states. We wanted to bring people together at their highest. As a result we figured that the right length of the first courses for the destined age-group would be 5 x 5-hour days where no more than 1o kids can come together, create, connect, share their creative journeys, and have fun.
Creating and testing the curriculum
When all the key-elements had been established it was time to put together a detailed curriculum, class plans and exercises. As we came up with the program and new exercises we were trying out and timing the process out on our students and friends, made adjustments and formed a program.
Marketing
We collaborated with NYC-based music school Silver Music to fill our classes, as the idea of songwriting and multimedia had created a lot of excitement amongst their older students.
Preparing and guiding the classes
Thanks to making clear plans, budgets, and testing out the lessons, the course flowed very smoothly from the beginning. and the week ended with students who felt very proud of what they had achieved, and wanted to come back. During the process we constantly took notes for the future.
Planning for the future
During the course we shot a lot of material that we later used for assembling our marketing materials that would enable us to bring the course to wider audiences.
We also put together feedback questionaries for the participants, made reports and followed it up with a meeting.
Play-Repeat louder
Based on what we learned, we planned the next courses, and added more layers and disciplines to the program so that it would offer excitement and growth for repeating students.
We believe that through this course, we grow as much as each of the students, as artists and educators and this process continues until today.
The Challenges
How to create a collaborative environment between kids of different ages and backgrounds?
We made a choice to keep the age-gap wide as within this conditions the younger ones would have someones to look up to, while the younger participants would make the pre-teens feel responsible for giving a good example. Yet, this condition can potentially present many challenges, as each children is a world on their own.
As putting together "10 random strangers" , as the kids themselves referred, you never know what the collective vibe will be.
It is very important to enter the situation with an open, creative and adaptable attitude.
For example, instead of one project-defined goal we presented the children many options : a) To create one collaborative piece b)to create individual pieces that have a connecting element c) an open goal, which was not our preferred option, but we were prepared for that as well.
After getting to know each other, the children ended up choosing the option B. Each children wanted to compose their piece and make a visual for it. They decided that all the pieces would be part of a "Escape" movie concept that talked about the Earth being escaped from to different planets, to different songs.
After that, we wrote together our manifesto, including values and collaboration rules. These remained visible on the board from the beginning until the end of the course (and helped to solve many creative conflicts!)
Adapting to Pandemic
The pandemic posed a big challenge for many artists and students across the world. Yet, that inspired us to develop an online course that would focus more on identity and technique.
Instead of big groups we decided to focus on individual and duo-lessons, to make sure that students would have time and space to explore under the guidance of a creative mentor, and have all their questions answered. Just as important as collaboration skills, are the skills to stay focused and self-disciplined.
New digital tools
While our course was built upon real instruments, Ableton Live and Logic pro DAWs and iMovie, and real studio - environment, we had to find the online-collaboration-enabling equivalents to these tools.
After a thorough research and evaluation, we chose Soundtrap, Pixlr, and Zoom screen sharing for movie editing in iMovie, which was the only offline tool we stuck to thanks to its simple structure, and lack of fast enough online software.
New formats
As Soundscapes has proved to be an impactful program and has a lot of potential to change lives of people around the world the same way it has changed our current students', it was necessary to adjust the program to festivals and give it a class/workshop format.
By now, we have created a 60-minute version of the program that is built upon an impactful creative and collaborative momentum that is also suitable for children with no musical background and can easly be brought to different locations across the globe.
Keeping up with new technologies while maintaining the human values
During the past 2 years the world has gone through a big change, and this is just the beginning. The new technologies are bringing us to metaverse environments, the DAWs are going through upgrades and new art forms are being created. This all is here to be included by the program that needs to create an example of how these core values could apply to these new conditions.
Lessons to take
Getting to know myself in a brand-new role
In my school in Estonia, there is a day where final-graders dress up like teachers and give lessons. I taught music that day and after that day gave a promise to never step into a classroom again (as the 30 children ended up knowing where the flutes were stored and I'll let your imagination take you from there...).
Yet, I did not realize that before but that moment was a sign that - this is not the concept of a school you believe in. Something needed to be different. Something needed to change, and years later, life had given me that chance.
The meaning of being an artist
Soundscapes has thought me a lot, and given me a lot of unexpected joy. As an artist and creating a piece the impact of the piece is rarely, or almost never instant. Sometimes it takes years or decades to see its influence. The impact of a live performance is very emotional.
The impact of teaching is the instant and meaningful one for both, ourselves and for our students. Through sharing our journeys we, as artists, learn to value our journeys more, and see ourselves from afar.
IA teaching experience is something that I undoubtedly recommend for every artist, and creative because it brings benefits for both ourselves and to people around us.
