“You Can Cage the Singer, But Not the Song”
Submitted by: Kami Keesor
School: Margaret B. Pollard Middle School
County: Chatham
Video: True Colors – Words and music by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly – Arranged by Jesse Hampsch
The title of this piece is a quote from Harry Belafonte that is truly appropriate in these unprecedented times. Many of us feel like we’ve been caged, but at my school, we are using music to bridge the social distance. I want to share with you a project I created with my 6th-8th grade A Cappella group.
We have been meeting twice a week over Zoom and holding rehearsals to learn new music. On my end, I made practice tracks for them to practice with in between rehearsals using Noteflight.com. They practiced, and once they all felt ready, I had them each record themselves individually on a website called Soundtrack. I put all the recordings together to recreate our group dynamic. Next, I had the students each take pictures of themselves to match the theme of the music and send them to me. Finally, I put all the pictures together with the music and some cool effects on the Kizoa video making website to create a beautiful video. The kids and I are tremendously proud of our finished project.
We will not let anything stop us from expressing ourselves through music. Even a bird in a cage can sing beautiful music!
