Music program inspires students

TIMBOON P-12 School senior music students put their song writing hats on in a program last week which brought ARIA nominated artists to the school to support the students with creating their own songs from scratch.

Collaboration: Students at Timboon P-12 School worked together in groups with the support of industry mentors to create their own songs from start to finish over two days.

The SongMakers program runs over two days and allows students to work with industry artists and write and record their own songs from start to finish.

Music students from Year Nine to 12 had the opportunity to be a part of the program and put their song writing skills to the test after the success of the program which ran last year.

Music teacher Andrew Deppeler said it was thanks to the hard work of previous students which allowed the school to receive the chance to run the highly sought-after program again.

“We got the program again this year on the back of the quality of the students we had last year,” he said.

“The kids were really great, the songs were really good, and the artists enjoyed coming down into this area – they hadn’t been here before.

“They were actually keen to come back.”

The program is run by Australasian Performing Right Association Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (APRA AMCOS), which is in charge of copyright for artists in Australia.

The company brings ARIA nominated and award-winning artists to schools to help students write songs, perform them and then record and produce them into a finished product in just two days.

“Students get confidence and the ability to see a song from an idea to a finished product and the ability to talk to people who are at the cutting edge, leaders in the music industry – artists who have won ARIAs and tour overseas and play with people like Taylor Swift,” Mr Deppeler said.

“Kids get the chance to talk to them and it’s a really empowering process for kids.

“The absolute confidence students show at the end as opposed to the start, especially when they actually hear the finished product, they go ‘Wow, I actually wrote that,’ just from an idea.”

Mr Deppeler said the process was hard work, having gone through it himself on a training day.

“It’s hard,” he said.

“As a teacher I go down to ‘train a teacher’ type days – last Friday I went down to Geelong High School and they put me through the process that the kids go through and it’s intimidating.

“They pair you up with people you don’t know and say here’s a room, you’ve got 45 minutes, come up with a song.

“You go in and do it and record it and do the whole thing and it really gives you an appreciation of the pressure that these kids are under.”

The artists who came to Timboon P-12 School this year were Claire Rayner, James Seymour and Seetali Mack, an eclectic mix of Australian song writers with different musical backgrounds and skillsets to support the students in their endeavours.

Ms Rayner said it was rewarding to see the students grow over the course of the two days.

“I see a lot of expansion and growth in the students, it's really lovely,” she said.

“I see beautiful comradery and teamwork.

“What I also see is people really surprising themselves with the abilities they’ve been able to unlock that maybe they didn’t know they had or haven’t had the opportunity to explore before.

“It’s a really nice and a beautiful program for that reason.”

Mr Seymour said the program was a great experience for both the students and the mentors.

“It’s ticked all the boxes that I’ve wanted to do in music – collaborate with people, write songs and learn as we go,” he said.

“I think that it’s a great workshop for the kids to kind of get in a room and give each other space and respect to listen to each other’s ideas, workshop them.

“It’s a pretty chaotic space in terms of the time we have to do it so for them to show empathy and patience and a willingness to work together is really cool when they’re collaborating.”

Ms Seetali said the difference in the students’ self confidence over just two days was “astounding”.

“I feel like it’s really awesome to see kids grow out of their shell over just two days,” she said.

“They could be really quiet in the first day and then they get the self confidence from the others in the group and the second day they’re this whole new person.

“I think it’s an awesome way to show kids that there’s more avenues to the music industry than just the performance side of things, which is what a lot of high schools heavily push.”

The finished songs will be available to listen to on the SongMakers website at https://songmakers.com.au in the coming weeks.