Performing Arts

I would like to begin by expressing Sunbury colleges gratitude towards APRA AMCOS and their SONGMAKERS workshop.

We understand the importance of new learning opportunities here at Sunbury College, and our Performing Arts coordinator Miss Brown strives for those valuable opportunities and makes sure we receive the best of the best in our musical education.

Four mentors from the SONGMAKERS workshop visited our school for a 2 day incursion all with different qualities and skills.

Day 1:The first day consisted of creating songs, instrumental and vocal parts.

The group of 15 VET Music students, including year 1 and year 2 participants, was separated into bands, some of which were pre-existing from their VET Music assessments.

We started off with a “get to know each other” session where we went around in a circle and openly shared: our name, our favourite genres of music and the instrument’s we play. 

Following that all students participated in a brain warm-up exercise for creating lyrics, which in turn opened our mind for expanded lyric writing qualities.

As we went into our groups, we started to brainstorm ideas for instrumental parts and lyrics.

Through-out the day there was significant differences in progress for all of the bands, each band rehearsed their created songs in preparation for their demo performance that afternoon.

The demo performances were a big step as public performances are a new experience for some, in my opinion, my peers showed a diverse variety of skills, I am very pleased with their growth over the span of 1 day.

Day 2: The second day was the recording day, the songs that each band created were being recorded by industry professionals, in which would definitely be a musical accomplishment for most.

Each band took the time to work through creating the perfect recording, after that the groups spent time learning about who APRA AMCOS is and what they do.

We then learnt what royalties and copyright privileges each band member now has, we then were asked to make a song in just 25 minutes in pairs with new people that we hadn’t worked with, so instead of working on a song for a whole day we made a small song in 25 minutes.

Using state of the art software and technological equipment each band had the opportunity to experience the best outcome of their recordings.

Collectively everyone in the workshop learnt something new, whether that was the process of creating a song or learning to work with new and unfamiliar people. 

Every student that participated should feel a sense of self accomplishment and be extremely proud of themselves for overcoming fears and portraying utter musical excellence.

Overall the workshop was filled with fun, laughter, new experiences,  and yes a little bit of pressure, though with pressure comes diamonds and every bands finalised recordings shined as bright as a diamond.

Warm regards,

Fletch Allen

Music Captain