WIDE RAINBOW MUSIC RESIDENCY
Our (free) music residency supports musicians and youth mentorship. Take a behind-the-scenes look at each artist’s creative process, listen to new music, watch performances, and follow along with activities inspired by these wonderful musicians, MCs, songwriters, DJs, producers, broadcasters, and more!
Support this special project by making a contribution today ♬
KeiyaA: Week 4
For her final week of our music residency, KeiyaA invites multidisciplinary artist & composer Akeema-Zane aka A2Z for a jam session at Pirate Studios in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Together they explore the theme of Improvisation with spontaneity beginning with a random loop. Let's follow along as they collaborate together and watch the creative process unfold!
INSTRUCTIONS:
Improvisation / Jam Session
1. Discuss the process with your partner
2. Experiment with sounds
3. Create a loop
4. Groove over the loop
5. Experiment with instrumentation
6. Record
7. Listen back together :)
8. Express your preferences
9. Help each other
10. Bring it all together
11. Do it again
Until it feels right…
12. Automate
13. Share with each other!
KeiyaA also shares an experimental video work that features a soundscape she improvised called Waltz D’Hethert . The video work includes a poem from Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow isn’t Enuf…”.
Let’s watch & listen to how she responded to the poem through her music…
Can you find the sound layered underneath?
What tones can you extract? How does it make you feel?
How do you think KeiyaA use improvisation to express her own feelings?
KeiyaA: Week 3
This week singer, song-writer, producer and musician KeiyaA collaborates with Nappy Nina, a Brooklyn-based MC, poet, producer & performance artist from Oakland. Together they create a beat from scratch while Nappy Nina writes a short verse to demonstrate our next musical theme Call & Response. Let's go behind-the-scenes and follow their collaborative creative process at KeiyaA's home recording studio.
Let’s create a beat with KeiyaA:
1. Set the beat
2. Add a melody
3. Add bass
4. Record
5. Make adjustments
6. Save your work
7. Title your song!
Lyrics w/ Nappy Nina:
Ice Cream Truck
The sun is out
I hope that means the summer’s here
I think I hear the ice cream truck
Hopefully it’s driving near
I think I hear the ice cream truck
think it knows which way to steer?
I think I hear the ice cream truck
The sugar really moves my ears
I think I hear the ice cream truck!
Feels like I’ve been waiting years
I think I hear the ice cream truck
It’s almost moving me to tears
I think I hear the ice cream truck!
KeiyaA: Week 2
This week singer, producer, songwriter, & musician KeiyaA invites us back into her studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn for a lesson on Polyphony. Let’s tune into all the layers of sound and watch KeiyaA compose a piece of music with independent parts, rhythms, and melodies moving together simultaneously…
Polyphony: Occurrence of multiple parts happening at once.
MATERIALS
MIDI controller
DAW (ableton)
Metronome
INSTRUCTIONS
Let's make a polyphonic song!
1. Start with drumS
2. Play the metronome
3. Add drum sounds
4. Build a groove with different rhythms
5. Add melodies
6. Record!
Can you call out the distinct parts that are
different but playing at the same time?
Can you call out any parts that are separate
but playing at the same time in harmony?
KeiyaA: Week 1
We are excited to announce Chicago-bred & New York based Singer, Producer, Songwriter, & Musician KeiyaA will be joining us for the month of May as our next Wide Rainbow Music Resident! Join us each week as KeiyaA invites us into her Brooklyn studio to explore different musical themes including Repetition, Improvisation, Call and Response, & Polyphony that inspire her own creative practice…
“Repetition reflects life.”
- KeiyaA
In this week’s video diary KeiyaA give us a tour of her studio, speaks about Repetition & Loops, and shares an intimate performance of her song “Hvnli” from recent album Forever, Ya Girl.
Let’s listen to some of KeiyaA’s favorite songs using this week’s theme of Repetition & Loops:
Journey Through The Secret Life of Plants
Which parts did you hear repeat?
Which parts did you hear loop?
&
Georgia Anne Muldrow
Early
"Run Away"
What was the significance?
Which specific aspects, motifs are being repeated?
Nabihah Iqbal: Week 4
In our final week together DJ, Producer, Broadcaster & Music Maker Nabihah Iqbal returns home to London to give us a tour of her studio at Somerset House and shares an intimate performance of her track 'Wait 4 U' .
Nabihah Iqbal : Week 3
DJ, Producer, Broadcaster & Music Maker Nabihah Iqbal joins us again this week from Karachi, Pakistan for a songwriting activity inspired by her track "Zone 1 to 6000" from her recent album Weighing of the Heart. She shares her music video, talks through her songwriting process and takes inspiration from one of her favorite William Blake poems London (her home). Let's take our favorite poems and turn them into lyrics to create our own new music!
Example:
I wander thro' each charter'd street,
like the charter'd Thames does flow.
We wonder through each others lives
Just like the rivers, constant flow
Nabihah Iqbal : Week 2
This week take a journey with London based DJ, Producer, Broadcaster & Music Maker Nabihah Iqbal to Karachi, Pakistan. Nabihah captures some beautiful sounds of the city, sea and everyday life around her. She teaches us about field recordings and inspires us to tune in, listen, and record our own surroundings…
MATERIALS
phone
voice memos app
optional:
røde stereo
iphone mic
zoom recorder
windshield aka dead cat
headphones
Nabihah Iqbal : Week 1
We are thrilled to kick off another month of music ♫ this March with our (remote) Wide Rainbow Music Residency. Each week London based DJ, Music Maker, Producer, & Broadcaster Nabihah Iqbal will share an intimate video diary introducing us to her world of vinyl while inviting us into her studio(s) and sharing her creative process.
This week Nabihah invites us into her UK home & studio sharing her record collection, radio show and her own music. Let's tune in!
EQUIPMENT
cdjs
mp3s
turntables
speakers
mixer
headphones
vinyl records
SOUNDS
Jimi Hendrix
"Oud" Music
Nigerian Afrobeat
Nkengas
Throwing Shade
Throwing Shade
Throwing Shade
Nabihah Iqbal
Nabihah Iqbal
Nabihah's radio show NTS:
https://www.nts.live/shows/nabihah-iqbal
Nailah Hunter : Week 4
We are wrapping up Wide Rainbow Music Residency with LA based musician & composer Nailah Hunter. This week Nailah collaborates with illustrator Ianna Vasale while performing "Opal Falls" live to a beautiful animation and visual representation of her ambient sound.
♫ Listen to the song ‘Opal Falls’ that Nailah created this week:
Nailah Hunter : Week 3
We have one more week of our Wide Rainbow Music Residency left, but this week LA based musician & composer Nailah Hunter invites us into her studio after a recording session to share an intimate performance of her new song The Brook…
♫ Listen to the song ‘The Brook’ that Nailah created this week after her recording session below :
Nailah Hunter : Week 2
Let’s tune into our emotions while we learn about art therapy and take inspiration from our own works of art to create a song alongside LA based musician & composer Nailah Hunter.
Part 1: Arts Therapy
Let’s receive our feelings and re-center together by painting.
1. Close Your Eyes?
Notice your emotions. What comes Up?
2. Name your emotion
Ex: Nailah (in her garden) feels ‘Calm’
3. Assign a color to your emotion
4. Paint and let your feelings lead the way!
MATERIALS:
Paint
Brushes
Paper
Part 2: Graphic Score
Let’s turn our painting and emotion(s) into a song!
*Graphic Score is our map or instructions to make music
1. Start with Piano (Foundation)
2. Think about our Graphic Score
3. Take inspiration from our painting/feelings
4. Add other Instruments (Ex: Harp)
5. Add Vocals
♫ Listen to the song ‘Reconciliation’ that Nailah created this week inspired by her watercolor and feelings below:
Nailah Hunter : Week 1
LA based musician & composer Nailah Hunter joins us for a x4 week music residency. Each week we will join Nailah in the studio. Exploring her creative practice and inspiration as she creates music responding to visual art.
Intro: What is a visual score?
Visual Inspiration: Sadko in the Underwater Kingdom (1876) by Ilya Repin
What does cold sound like to you?
What story line can you come up with by just looking at the painting?
Ex: Bubble like texture - looks like stars, iridescent glow, space
and sea creatures, translucent jellyfish, deep ocean, bioluminescent etc.
Start with the base track, create the rhythm and pulse 1, 2, 3, 4 ...
What is Rhythm & Pulse?
What is a Texture (in Music)?
1st Texture: What sound feels like cold bubbles?
Larger Texture: What feels like the flowing sound of water?
Currents, Fish, Direction
What is an Ambient Soundscape?