It may come across as trite, but if you want to know – if we want to know – what students are asking for, what they want and need, really, just ask them. I did just that when I sat down with Ben Russell and his students that make up Cave Studios at Carleton Place High School. After telling me all about making music, learning the technical approaches to recording from equipment to theory to application, songwriting, filming videos, and working within the music business as school, I asked Lukas and Sean, based on your learning experience in Music for Creativity – the course – what have you found that you wish was more a part of school?

Sean didn’t hesitate: “More creativity.” He went on to describe learning with actual objects – I take from his comment that in school we often replace real applications with simulations, the most reductive of which is the worksheet. In the studio context, we ask students to place hypothetical microphones in a hypothetical room to achieve the best hypothetical sound. Why do we do that? Why do we let the hypothetical stand for the authentic. Scarcity might be the response, but I don’t think that rationale works. There is an abundance of possibility for our classrooms and sometimes I think we lose sight of how important it is that we find a way, any way, to make those possibilities occur.

In the case of The Cave Studios, Ben Russell is leading from passion. Afterall, Ben is a musician. As you’ll hear, he chased the dream of making music for years. Now, he uses that experience and the inherent adolescent drive to make something indelible - as a catalyst for rock-n-roll: writing, performing, recording, videography, merch, promotion, if the music business has it, it is part of Ben’s Music for Creativity.

So, what’s the big question, then? How do you bring what has always been an underground, counterculture, garage formed, evolution through sweat equity process - into the walls of school? Ben has a theory that he describes that makes sense for all disciplines: there exists a menagerie of techniques and theories for making professional music. When students reach the ceiling of their experience and experimentation, Ben is waiting to add yet another layer. It’s the tried, tested, and truest form of learning, applied by artists and artisans for millennia: work to your capacity, and just when you think you’ve reached the peak, extend the journey with an additional question, skill, technique, or, even, a theory that until now will have meant little, and now means everything.

This is why for generations young people have made music and art: because it belongs to them, it is about them, and much of it is accessible without the expertise of adults. If we don’t know how, we’ll figure it out. If you’re a mentor, you’ll guide us while walking with us on the journey. We’ve got things you’ll need to learn also.

In the case of Music for Creativity at CPHS, the learning is about music and music production. It could be about anything. In fact, maybe it should be about everything, every subject, as a tool, as an object, waiting to be explored by minds that will shape it as the learn to use it, rather than store it for a purpose beyond knowing.

As Lukas explained, “I don’t really get it until I put it together myself. I would love to see experience like that in other classes, where I’m forced to go try it myself and see what happens.”

Before we get into the conversation, you’ve been listening to Lukas play Chopin’s Waltz in D minor. Later you’ll hear him play Billie Jean – yes, that Billie Jean. Sean’s Band Right comes in a little later on with their song, SASD.

The kids are alright!

Right Band: http://right.band/?i=1