“I want him to be a little vampire! I have my own beliefs!” Sixteen middle schoolers were enjoying a playful debate mid-way through day two of IU Jacobs grad student Alex Tedrow’s composition workshop. Underlining the impact of music in film, Tedrow had shown two separate groups of students the same video clip set to two different musical compositions before reuniting them for a lively class discussion.
Brown County Middle School music teacher Jenna Sears invited Tedrow to present a workshop to her eighth grade music technology class in October. “I asked Alex Tedrow if he would be willing to come in and speak from the perspective of a live composer,” said Sears. “Sometimes when you’re in school there’s a disconnect between the application of what you’re doing in school and potential professions and livelihoods and applications outside of a public school setting.”
The three-day workshop began with an introductory session on the topic of story mapping: planning a potential piece of music visually, picking and planning the texture, shape, and form. On the second day, they explored the impact of music on film. The workshop ended with Tedrow helping students create their own compositions on the third and final day of the workshop. “It was really cool to see students engaging in their own interpretations of plot,” said Sears. Tedrow agreed: “One of them actually was so excited about it that they got their clarinet out and started recording!”
Waking that excitement in young students is a large part of Alex Tedrow’s motivation behind teaching these workshops, and engaging with communities as a whole. “I think once students realize that people actually do this, [they realize] anyone can do it and learn how to do it,” he said.
Growing up in small town Indiana, Tedrow played in a teenage rock band, not experiencing his first symphony orchestra concert until the age of thirteen. The impact was massive: “I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I want to do that the rest of my life. How do I do that?” he explained. Immediately accosting his high school band director, Alex said he was encouraged to attend the IU Summer Music Clinic, where he met his first composition teacher.
Now in the final year of his master’s degree and recently hired as resident Music Arranger for the U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” Tedrow is on a mission to show students that they too can pursue music, regardless of their background. “I’ve always sort of seen this huge divide between areas that have access to music making in areas that don’t,” said Tedrow. “Anything we can do as artists to increase the level of community engagement, increase the level of just awareness that these things exist…I think it can have huge impacts on communities.” Alex paused. “It is literally because of that one composition class that I took at a summer program that I’m doing what I’m doing.”
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