Music Composition Project

Published January 8, 2020 by Rebecca McDaniel      |      Share this post!

This video documents a 4-day residency partnership between Third Coast Percussion and The People’s Music School. This is a residency project TCP has offered a number of times over the past few years, both at home in Chicago and on tour.

TCP performed for the students at TPMS’s location at the Gary Comer Youth Center in Chicago’s Greater Grand Crossing neighborhood, introduced three building blocks of music (melody, rhythm, and musical textures), lead the students in breakout sessions where all students create their own melodies, rhythms, and textures, then TCP lead the full ensemble of students in assembling the musical building blocks into a final piece.

This project was designed to give young students a creative outlet at a time when their instruction is primarily focused on learning their instrument and learning to perform music written by other people.

This project is ideal for students with some musical background, but students do not have to read standard Western musical notation.