It’s the end of day four of the Bandcamp WInter Intensive that I co-teach with my colleague Matt Rohrer at The Harvest Collegiate High School, in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. For seven days, a group of 26 kids have chosen to write, rehearse, record and perform original music in bands with fellow students from the time they arrive at school to the time they leave. It gets, as one might guess from the name, intense.
Though these days are exhausting, I come home from them with a strong impulse to hole up and be creative. I excuse myself from dinner with with my wife and daughter a little early to play my guitar, get out my notebook and see what kind of song ideas I have rattling through my head. It’s been a while and I may be a little rusty, but I remember not that long ago when songs were my lifeblood. That was before I generally collapsed into bed at 10:30 at the end of every school day, after teaching, grading, prepping my lessons, etc. In fact, three years into teaching music full time and the sleep schedule has yet to completely normalize. I am still trying to convince the creative muses to visit me on a regular basis, just earlier in the day, and preferably during my free periods when there are no students in my room wanting to show me their latest Metallica riff.
When I teach Bandcamp, maybe more than during the rest of the school year when I am teaching guitar or choir, I need to be completely present for my students. I am helping them realize their original song ideas and I can tell how important that work is to them. I admit it, I am jealous of my students: I want these luxurious stretches of uninterrupted time to work on music with my friends and collaborators. I want somebody to curate a week of guest speakers, readings from great musicians and artists about their creative processes, lessons on how to write a great guitar riff, poem, or recording in GarageBand. I want caring teachers to give me guidance, feedback on my work, and fixed deadlines for finished, recorded, performable songs. If I had been given the opportunity to take a class like this when I was in high school, I would have felt that I had died and gone to heaven. These students have a good thing going on, and I am actually really grateful to be a part of an open-minded, progressive school that lets me teach courses like this.
Today we heard from guest speaker Victoria Ruiz from “The Downtown Boys,” who Rolling Stone calls “America’s most exciting punk band.” She spoke to our students about her experience working in a hotel when she was one of the only bilingual people on staff. Hearing the brutal stories of how the mostly Latina housekeeping staff was treated led her to advocate for their rights both in her songs and in her work as a community organizer. She spoke of all-age venues in border towns in Mexico where there is a thriving punk scene, and how punk is no longer a white genre, but a vehicle for people of color who want to harness their collective anger. As she talked about the way Chilean folk-musicians/activists like Victor Jara had influenced her, I saw that punk actually shares some characteristics with folk music: it’s direct, accessible, non-virtuosic, politically charged.
After Victoria left our class, we had a great reflection discussion on the meaning of punk. Was it a feeling? An attitude? A sound? How did Victoria’s approach to music differ from that of our other guest speakers, Telli and Jah Jah from hip-hop, electro-punk band Ninjasonik, or Lucas Del Calvo, producer and guitarist for Grammy-Award winning artist Esperanza Spalding? In turn-and-talk discussions, the students reflected on where they saw themselves on a spectrum from master-technician to punk-expressionist. One of the female rockers in our class remarked that she liked how Victoria did not feel the need to conform to typical gender roles in her music, growling her lyrics and presiding over sweaty mosh-pits. The lead singer of the heavy metal band said he liked how passionate Victoria was about what she did. A group of girls of color started writing a song about the distrust that they felt for the police in their neighborhoods. A special needs student worked with Victoria in the singing workshop she did with a small group of students at the end of class. I could feel the cathartic power of his song as he shouted, “you don’t understand me!” into the microphone over one of Victoria’s instrumental tracks.
So hard to know what students will take away from this. I can make some guesses. I think their minds will be opened, that they will seek out new artistic scenes and communities where music and art grow. Places like The Silent Barn in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where we are having our final performance, and which hosts almost exclusively all ages shows every night of the week. I keep coming back to this idea that I’m helping students to find their voice and to hear how it resonates within a community or new movement that they will shape for themselves. Whatever these kids end up doing with their lives professionally or personally, this is my hope for them.
Colin McGrath teaches Guitar, Glee Club and Bandcamp at Harvest Collegiate, a NYC public high school. Before Harvest, he worked as a teaching artist for eleven years in schools all around the city through The New York Philharmonic, The Lincoln Center Institute and The Orchestra of Saint Luke’s. He received his Masters in Music Education from New York University and his Bachelors from Oberlin College, where he studied guitar. He has two albums (available on Spotify and iTunes) of folk-pop songs, some of which have won awards at The Wildflower! Songwriting Competition, The Listening Room Retreat Competition and The Belfast Nashville Songwriting Festival Competition. He lives in Inwood, at the top of Manhattan, with his wife, daughter, and dog, Chester.