Vivian Dillard, a sixth grade student at The Project School, sits in a group of three and brainstorms a song verse. One girl in the group brings up how plants, animals and humans are all part of the growing process. As they discuss what they want their lyrics to be the volunteer helping them writes it down on a posterboard. The five other groups around them do the same while Amy Oelsner, Girls Rock Bloomington founder and director, floats around helping them practice their verses with the guitar melody.
“I think I liked getting to write the song lyrics with our groups because it was just fun to kind of come up with them all and like really talk through it,” Dillard said.
GRB hosted a “Growing Through Songwriting” workshop Sunday at the McCalla School. The goal of the workshop was to get kids to collaborate and write a song that Oelsner, who is also known by her musician stage name Amy O, had already begun. Roughly 20 kids ages 8 to 17 attended the event. The workshop started with the kids creating collages with the question “what does it feel like to grow?” in mind. They then used the collages to do a freewriting exercise where they wrote whatever came to mind without planning.
“I really liked the creative writing part,” AnnaLee Kristoff, a third grader at TPS, said. “I kind of wrote about a girl, cause I had a flower on (the collage), so I did Daisy as her name and then kind of like about how much she loves nature and the nature around her.”
After the freewriting activity Oelsner gave the kids a chance to share their collages and writings with the bunch before splitting into six different groups to fill in the blank verses of the song.
“I noticed there seemed to be some nerves around sharing and being vulnerable,” Oelsner said. “But I felt like everyone ended up pretty much feeling safe enough to take part in it and I feel like they had their voices represented.”
In their groups, they discussed different things they’ve learned and how to add those things to their verse while connecting it to growth. They also worked on fitting the lyrics they wanted to add into the timing of the song.
“I feel like songwriting is actually a form of art where the less experience you have it can actually lead to more interesting work,” Oelsner said. “So, people shouldn’t be deterred if they don’t have any experience.”
While coming up with lyrics many kids referenced their collages and writings for inspiration.
“I think I really learned to collaborate and how to fit all of the lines into the time that I have,” Margaret Zarse, a fourth grader at TPS, said. “One line was like ‘and tomorrow I'll learn about the bright blue woman riding a horse’ that was about (a collage) where they had a horse cut out and a blue person.”
Oelsner hopes that this workshop can show kids how approachable songwriting can be if that is something they are interested in.
The kids’ completed collages, free writes and final song will be made into a zine — a small self-published work in the form of a pamphlet — that will be included in a University Collections exhibit.
