Westerville Mark Twain Rock and Roll Summer Camp

Monday, August 13th, Day One; We met at 9 am. in Mr. Harvey’s music room, at Mark Twain Elementary School in Westerville, Ohio, introduced ourselves and I sang a song that I wrote with Lancaster, Ohio kids in 2004 called A Kid Beyond Compare, which contains a line, “Right out of my mouth flies a big, fat, fish story, smellin’ up there air.”
On the chalk board I wrote the line, “I woke up this morning with a song in my head.” I passed out rhyming dictionaries and instructed them to find the word “bed.” We worked an hour and finished two verses, before Dr. Scott Ebbrecht arrived with snacks and water.
After snacks we pulled percussion instruments from the shelf and began doodling, before I organized a call and response exercise that gave everyone to have an opportunity to be leader. Afterwards, I solicited song ideas and the subject of the circus came to the forefront. Several of the kids had seen Cirque du Soliel and we consulted our rhyming dictionaries while we developed The Circus, with sixteen lines and a repeated chorus.
Tuesday, August 14th, Day Two; I brought my recording equipment and explained to them how a professional musician’s discipline works when they are recording, respecting the microphones and the need for quiet to engineer a good recording. We recorded the chorus to With a Song in My Head, then finished three additional verses. After the snack break we recorded a tambourine call and response, with the students imitating my beats with their favorite percussion instruments.
I then had them rehearse singng the song about the circus, before I decided that they weren’t responding well to the melody. I recorded the class singing the chorus several times. Afterwards, I recorded Aidan Iannarino playing his wooden flute, before giving each person a chance to solo on percussin instruments before the microphones. A photographer from the Westerville News and Public Opinion came in to shoots for forty excellent images.
Wednesday, August 15th, Day Three; When everyone arrived and we warmed our voices and bodies up, I made them a gift of Hohner plastic kazoos and gave them instruction as to how the instrument made music. It is a challenge to teach a kazoo, an instrument whose best noise is a result of a nasal hum; kids naturally want to blow.
After they got the hang and before the cheap instruments were unusable, the kazoo choir recorded With a Song in My Head and The Circus. Since the music store only had seven kazoos for my eight students, I had to get two plastic, siren whistles. Austin Ebbrecht took a liking to the whistle and offered a unique “beat box” way of making the toy musical. I recorded him rapping with his new whistle, while several of us clapped along and the goods are entitled Mouth Noise 2. He also played a solo piano piece, reminding us of the native Indian culture.
In one of my previous kids recording workshops I had the student record unique body sounds, but this group couldn’t distinguish itself with “arm blats” or hand whistles. However, Aiden, moved to the microphone with distinctive chirp that I thought warranted saving for posterity (Mouth Noise 1).
With a half hour remaining in our session, I wrote the title, Mark Twain Rock and Roll Summer Camp, on the blackboard and passed out rhyming books to solicit help with a song to immortalize Dr. Ebbrecht’s idea of the first Westerville music camp for elementary students. The song came together before we adjourned for the day.
At my home, I work eight straight hours to polish and paste the recording snippets of voices, kazoos, melodic and percussive instruments into eight acceptably finished products. I e-mailed two demo recordings to Dr. Ebbrecht and he responded, “Arnett, once again you impress me! Wonderful stuff ... my twins really enjoyed listening to it with big smiles on their faces. You are sure are doing great stuff with our kids! Can't wait to share with the
principals in the district.”
Thursday, August 16th, Day Four; I assembled playback equipment and introduced the students to their new recordings. We analyzed each of the eight recordings and got opinions about improvement and after an hour and a half, I polled each student and all but two gave the overall project two thumbs up; one student said he needed three thumbs and the other is excited about the camp, but is a late bloomer with his appreciation skills.
I gave the kids templates to design their own disc labels, and after the prototypes were drawn and colored satisfactorily, I gave them label paper to execute their own designs.
Friday, August 17th, Day Five; The assembly process begins; discs are burned, labels are carefully applied, sleeves and j cards are printed, cut and folded. Each student gets to complete the product that started with a blank page and a rhyming dictionary Monday morning, as I guide hands to applying the labels to the discs and jewel boxes and inserting the labels. We finish with a group autograph session and photo.
Hopefully the next generation of musical artists will be launched from this intensive experienced; I was as a young musician being mentored by teachers in the 1960s. Thanks to Dr, Scott Ebbrecht and the families who have made an investment in their children’s growth as musicians and artists.

Arnett Howard, musician, educator

Rock and Roll campers: Aidan Iannarino, Mia Iannarino, Ava Iannarino, Joe Bugenstein, Jack Funderburg, Tristan Rice, Austin Ebbrecht, Nick Fratianne