Become an ARTS PARTNER with Music Ascension

Music Ascension has passionately designed short term and full year music programs for more than 20 years in a great variety of settings across the United States.

We are extremely proud of our seasoned ability to design and implement innovative programming that is not only proven to be highly impactful and successful but also reflects the needs, vision, and purpose of the communities in which we work.

We continue to seek new Arts Partners with whom we can affect inspired and positive change in young people and those who believe in them.

Please read below and reach out to us if you or your organization would like to explore what program or combination of programs you would like to offer to your youth. They will be moved and move others in ways you may have yet to imagine!

Write original lyrics & music, record the parts, find power in the creative process

Our flagship program, Songwriting & Recording Music is what Music Ascension is all about. This program will ignite students’ belief in the value of their words and creative expression allowing participants to turn their experiences, feelings and insights into creative works of Art, powerful testaments of authenticity and positive vehicles for impacting those who listen.

Our mobile recording rig (Digital Audio Workstation) will convert your space into a fully functioning recording studio and provide the rare opportunity for participants to discover, develop, and share their creative voices.

With great respect for the unique nature of each participant’s story, our teaching artists facilitate the songwriting process, helping to transform stories and experiences into lyrics and melodies, rhythms and rhymes.  The act of infusing our participants’ stories with these musical elements can breathe life into as well as shed light on what is so often indescribable within and around them.

Our Teaching Artists will inspire and guide students in a dynamic, creative, and collaborative process that will produce amazing and heartfelt results.

Our Teaching Artists are skilled facilitators that will introduce students to important concepts pertaining to song structure, recording fundamentals, studio etiquette and vocal technique. In addition, the students will gain vocational audio engineering and music production skills. After we have finished recording the album is professionally mixed and mastered by our production team. We then celebrate the achievements of our students with an album release and listening party.

A great producer is someone who combines top level technical expertise with true artistic vision and care. A producer doesn’t just push buttons and make things work. They provide insight and breathe life into a musical creation. This program is all about getting at the soul of the producer. In the current state of the music industry every artist has to be a producer in addition to the many other hats they wear. In Music Production students will gain an understanding of the importance of being a jack of all trades, but will also get into the nitty gritty of what happens behind the studio desk.

Like Songwriting and Recording we bring a mobile Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) to transform your space into a fully functioning recording studio. Whether it is working with preamps and setting up microphones or discussing mixing concepts and editing tools, our teaching artists demonstrate and curate best practices when creating a recording. Students will learn the basics of signal flow, mic placement, creating and layering tracks, editing and mixing techniques. Industry standard software programs will be utilized such as Pro Tools, Logic X and Ableton Live. Many times this program runs in conjunction with Songwriting & Recording Music, but can also operate as a standalone program.

All of these activities will culminate in allowing students to freely improvise over a beat. This will be done using bucket drums, body percussion, and the most expressive of all instruments: our voice. As always, we create a safe space where all different types of musical expression are welcomed. We challenge our participants to take safe risks and stretch beyond their comfort zone, but students will never be pressured to do something they are uncomfortable with. Each of our students is unique and we encourage their music to be as well. 

Key points

• 6 - 12 Sessions

• All Ages

• Great for larger groups

• Learn the fundamentals of music in an interactive and immersive way

• Utilizes games and group activities to explore the basic concepts of music to excite young people about their own relationship with music and the endless possibilities of what music can be.

• Explore rhythmic improvisation with the use of bucket drums and other forms of percussion

• Students will leave this program with a firm understanding of Beat, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, Dynamics and Improvisation

At the heart of every piece of music is the beat. The beat is the driving force that creates motion in the music we hear. A beat can make us want to dance or calm ourselves. The beat is often the first building block of a piece of music and has just as much to do with how a song makes us feel as the melody or harmony.

In Beat Lab students will learn the basics of rhythm and meter using body percussion, their voice and drums to learn different ways to create and think about the aspects of a beat before taking these concepts to the computer desk. Once on in front of the DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) students will explore how to work with samples and sequence them into their own beats using Ableton Live and/or Reason. From there other sonic possibilities will be explored and many times will lead to incorporating bass lines, spoken word, rap and singing over these beats. By the end of the session students will leave with a compilation album of the music they’ve made in Beat Lab and will have a chance to showcase their creations with friends and family. Motion leads to emotion in music and this program is all about making that connection.

This immediately engaging program will bring much joy and collaborative focus to your students. Participants will build and rehearse a small repertoire of pieces. Students will learn improvisational techniques as well some of the basics of Latin percussion and West African drumming on a variety of handheld percussion instruments including clave, agogo bell, guira and 5 gallon buckets.

Bucket Drum Circles provide a focal point for group collaboration, critical listening, as well as physical and emotional expression.  Drumming can provide the opportunity for students to diffuse and safely express pent-up energy, aid in self-regulation and improve mood and overall emotional well-being.

Students will discover and employ effective means of creative expression while exploring the basic elements of rhythm, call and response, critical listening and will have an exciting and expertly guided hands-on experience with music!

Coming Fall 2020….

For more info or to request program cost details please fill out this brief questionnaire