— education —
Bang On A Can
The Bang On A Can Music Education Program works with students in the New York City public school system to create pieces of music exclusively using sounds recorded and mixed in the classroom. The goal of the program is to expose students to music from a wide range of genres and origins and to develop students' competency in audio production, composing, and performing, through the production of professional-quality audio tracks and music videos.
The program encourages students to listen to the world in a different way, by placing an importance on the beauty of everyday sounds: a pencil dropping on a desk, the scraping of a chair, even shouting in the hallway. Students are presented with the idea that music exists everywhere around us and by taking these sounds out of their everyday context we learn to understand and appreciate them in a new way. During class sessions, top-level professional musicians perform for the students and are recorded by the students. Using Ableton Live as our primary recording/editing tool, students are taught the necessary music and computer skills to collaboratively select, edit and organize these sounds into pieces of music that are means of expressing issues relevant to them.
Bang On A Can Music Education was created and is co-directed by Christopher Marianetti and Jeremy Thal. The Program is sponsored by Bang on a Can and was piloted (2007-2008) at Brooklyn Community Arts and Media High School (BCAM) in Brooklyn, NY under the leadership of principle James O’Brian and assistant principle Samantha Charles-Pierre.