CAPE After School 2020-2021:
Nick Meryhew / Tommy Bradford

Tell us the story of your project.

The trajectory of our project can be broken down into three main sections: exploring foley (sound effects made with found objects, especially for film), learning about rhythm/pitch/musical notation, and telling stories through musical composition.

Throughout the fall, we focused our attention on the art of foley. This idea originally developed as an attempt to embrace the screen-facing nature of our course; if we had to be watching a screen, why not explore sounds made specifically to accompany the screen? Students collected objects from around their homes with which to emulate the sounds of a number of environments, both real and imagined. The group brainstormed the many sounds of an ecosystem, sounds were isolated (a bird flapping, wind blowing through trees, waves lapping on a shore), and students figured out strategies for creating sounds with their objects. Environments ranged dramatically, from oceans and forests to outer space and “ninja world.” Sometimes our foley would begin with a general atmospheric sound and move towards some plot or action. For example, an ocean scene started with gulls, waves and wind sounding, but was interrupted by the arrival of a pirate ship and a storm. These explorations invited students to  consider the role of sound in establishing different environments, as well as created opportunities for sonic imagination and play using limited means.

After winter break, we began to explore more conventional musical composition. Students were taught some standard rhythmic notation (quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes, and whole notes) and were challenged to compose rhythms for their peers to perform. Our performances employed a variety of objects, as well as our voice and body. This moment in our program invited students to consider a different yet related connection between sound and image: what sound is represented by the image of a quarter note? How can we learn to translate this visual language into sound? And how can we utilize this language to create expressive and exciting music? During this time students also learned about different historical composers, ranging from European classical composers to blues musicians. In these explorations, we emphasized that we were also composers, and that learning about different musicians can help us stretch our own creative bounds. 

While exploring some blues musicians late in winter (Howlin’ Wolf, Koko Taylor and Lead Belly), it became apparent that the storytelling aspect of this music resonated deeply with the group. In response, we decided to write our own story and create music to accompany it. Students brainstormed potential themes and material, both literary and sonic. The resulting story followed a group of characters embarking on a journey through a magical forest, facing a series of monsters and trials. The story was initially intended to be metaphorical of challenges faced during the pandemic, but students were also encouraged to follow creative and improvisatory impulses as we moved through the music making process. The final album, The Times and Rhymes of Crazy Creatures, employed a huge variety of musical ideas: singing, foley, improvisation, sound collage, text painting, and more. While this project revolved less explicitly around the idea of sound and image, it synthesized many of our areas of artistic research in a project that organically emerged from students’ interests. Additionally, this final project retains much of the imaginative and communicative aspects of our earlier work in both foley and composition.

Tell us about how cultural capital played a part in your class.

One unique thing about our classroom was the tremendous age range. Our oldest student was a 7th grader and our youngest were kindergartners. While it was a challenge to create a curriculum that engaged our students’ different musical interests and levels of experience, there were also many opportunities for our students to teach and learn from one another. Additionally, the age range proved to be an asset creatively in that the music we created was tremendously diverse. Some students were most at home improvising found object percussion, while others created lengthy electronic compositions. The culture of our group fostered and celebrated the potential of our differences.