Musical Educators Professional Development Conference Presenters
A couple of weeks ago, I attended a PD Conference with many amazing speakers. Read more about what it is here. I was fortunate to be in two sessions with two amazing presenters and I learned a lot. It also sparked some interest in a topic that I’m not all that comfortable with. These artists are local which made a larger impact on their audience. Here’s what Burnstick Duo discussed at the music PD conference.
Who Are They?
Burnstick Duo are a husband and wife musicians who are singer-songwriters. They spend lots of their time working and promoting social justice. Jason Burnstick is an Indigenous artist with a criminology background. He has travelled all over the world performing (even at the Juno’s) and all over Canada working with Canadian-Indigenous youth specifially. More about this aspect later. Jason’s wife, Nadia Gaudet-Burnstick is a songwriter and music educator. Teaching private lessons for piano, guitar and voice, she strongly believes in the power of song-writing and expression.
Session 1- Songwriting
Nadia’s Method
As stated above, Burnstick Duo is a folk singer-songwriter group. Nadia started by explaining the process that she uses with her students. There are a few different strategies that she uses, depending on the thoughts and feelings of the student. She encourages the student to visualize or feel something in their day-to-day. She writes down everything they bring up and then they decide which idea to persue. Then she follows the formula:
- First line: find a place- walking down the sidewalk was an example
- Second line: describe- expand the visual aspects, leaves falling
- Third line: feeling- evoke an emotion, loneliness
- Fourth line: rhymes with either the second or third line.
After this is written down, she inquires about the style of the song. . . should it be fast or slow? Upbeat or a waltz? Nadia will then begin to play around with chord structure to fit the verse and then build the melody around that. She reinforced the idea of keeping it simple, especially for the younger ones. Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus. As they advance with their experiences, then and only then, move on to bridges or pre-choruses.
She emphasizes the importance of recording every step of the way as to perserve and study the song throughout the creation process. It’s critical to remember that the verses are the story and choruses are the main message. Our final product became:
- Walking down the sidewalk
- Leaves falling around
- I’m feeling okay
- Feet hit the ground
Then the first line of the chorus would be “it’s a great day”.
This took a matter of 10 minutes with a room full of adult music educators. From my perspective, this is a very manageable scenario and even sparked my creativity. I would like to do this process with my older kids and have a “musical yearbook” develop from songwriting.
Jason’s Method
Jason took a different approach. He first writes the music without the lyrics. He will find a beat or chord structure that resonants with him and then create the lyrics to fit the music. As an instrumentalist, I can relate to this process. He then starts the lyrics just by humming something that fits the music and tailors the words to fit the melody.
Conclusion
This is a concept that has remained foreign to me. When I consider the aspect of composition within our curriculum, I always lean towards rhythmic compositions, soundscapes or even Solfege combinations. This opens up a different avenue and I’m excited to put it into action! This session was probably my greatest take-away from the music conference.