MUSIC BY KIDS
Music created by kids, coached to develop their own unique styles and sounds.
From Harlem to Guatemala, Dave Soldier has collaborated with young musicians to create original works inspired by their own experiences, imagination, and communities.
FEATURED PROJECT
The Tangerine Awkestra
Flutist and teacher Katie Down and Dave Soldier coached a class of children, ages 2 to 9, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, to create their own avant-garde ensemble. The result was The Tangerine Awkestra (2000), a musical story imagining space aliens invading New York City.
ALL MUSIC BY KIDS
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This is a project and CD (released Jan. 07) featuring music by 5–10-year-olds in East Harlem and my nieces from near Boston, Isabella and Michelle.
Each group of four children names their own band, and the name of the whole project together is Da Hiphop Raskalz.
The kids not only write the lyrics and sing and rap, but play all the instruments and program the drums! There are a very small number of commercial loops (only a few) but they choose them too! I coach them and mix.
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Composition with kids from West Harlem on Matarile in 1991 – when you could hear gun shots every night in their neighborhood. The kids, 5-9 years old with one 13 year old who did the rap, could identify different guns by sound and imitate them. Released on the CD Smut.
Matarile performers: Wilson Arias - Rap; José R. Céspedes - Conga, Tamboura; Rafael de los Santos - Piano;Willie Hernández - Bass, Guitar; Deyamira de Luna, Marielys Divanne, Fioremi Félix, Yokaira Feliz, Ana María González, Wilson Hidalgo, Merlyn Jaime, Bianel Ramos, Dolly Rosario, Víctor Rosea, Julio Sánchez, Alejandro Taveras, Rocío Taveras -Vocals.
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The flutist and school teacher Katie Down and I coached her class in Fort Green, Brooklyn of kids ranging from 2-9 years old. They made an Avant Garde group, the Tangerine Awkestra (2000). The piece is a story they made up of space aliens invading New York.
Aliens invade from Jupiter
Spaceships on the Empire State Building
Volcanoes explode at the center of the earth
The aliens blow up Antartica
Minuet for recorder & violin
Aliens took my Mom
The navy bombs them
Twelve bar blues
All of the humans blow up
The aliens get nuclear bugs in them and pop
The aliens blow up Part II
Everything is soft -
Yol Ku: Inside the Sun
In 2007, Alan Kushan, Rory Young, and I coached high school children from San Mateo Ixtatan, a Mayan community in Guatemala to compose music using the traditional giant marimbas. Except for the hip hop piece in Chuj, these use games with different colored tapes on the marimba keys.
Oracion de la Cruz
El Bello Quetzal
Xan Matin Mix
Casamiento de los Apaches
Noble Cazador
Fiesta de los Mayas -
I Like Brooklyn
With Rebecca Cherry's violin class (ages about 5-8) at the Noel Pointer Institute in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn (2010)Spider Monkey
Ramsee, composition
Age 4, from Chicago (2008)Tomasso in New York
Tomasso, overdub drum solo
Age 2, from Rome (2008)Related Kids' Music Projects
The AMAZING Modern Music project with kids from Montreal – read about them in Tiny Masters of Tomorrow.