Beats In The Bronx

Celebrating Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month

This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.

Aspiring Musicians in Search of Equipment... My students ask me almost every day: when can we perform our music? When can we play our beats so everyone can hear what we made? Our proposal is to purchase DJ equipment so that 360 students can learn how to mix, perform, and hear the music they write and produce in my Urban Music Workshop class. To do this, we need 2 CD turntables, a mixer, 2 powered speakers, 2 stands, a mic, and just for fun, a DJ lighting kit. At the Bronx High School for the Visual Arts (BHSVA), we strive to create a community alive with the arts. We a are a small public inner city school in the Bronx with a student population comprised primarily of aspiring Black and Hispanic artists -- a majority of whom qualify for free lunches. This year we broke the mold when our school was honored as the only New York City school to win the Mayor's Award for Arts and Culture for our visual arts program. But I'm also watching out for my aspiring musicians, beat-makers, DJs, writers, and MCs -- students whose interests reach beyond designing, animating, painting, drawing, and sculpting. I am a lead teacher feeling extremely lucky to be teaching an Urban Music Workshop with the help of two professional DJs and Producers. As our students gain understanding of music theory, hip-hop history, and the creative process, they are taking us in a new direction: performance. As they approach putting the final touches on their original compositions using industry standard software and equipment, they have no way to share their work with their peers and surrounding community in a public setting. Currently, we plan to publish using Pod casts and CDs, but there's nothing that tops a large group of people together in an auditorium, at a dance, or in a beat battle to hear and enjoy their music. Imagine the excitement my students and I could all feel with a full DJ setup. We plan to use our new equipment not only to share the final projects by students in the Music Workshop, but also to start an after school DJ-ing program taught by a professional DJ, host our own dances, and open our school to community speakers and events. This means the turntables, mixer, speakers, mic, and lights will be in constant use, sparking the growth of an enlivened community of learners, and giving interested students the chance to learn new, practical skills. Thank you very much.