CNY Grants for Arts in Education - art$TART

Oswego Middle School and Dan Duggan - "Making Dulcet Sounds"

It was our goal to have students understand and experience music not only as a single performance event but through a variety of learning opportunities. These opportunities demonstrated the aesthetic and the functional, the historical and the literary, the scientific and technological elements of music.

Following team faculty meetings with teaching artist Dan Duggan, students set about building 20 lap dulcimers with technology teacher Ken Kern. Construction began in February and included seventy 7th-grade students in various aspects of instrument constructions and took nearly two months. Students began by building Appalachian dulcimers in Technology class.

Students first learned to play dulcimer when Dan visited in mid-March and continued to learn with their music teacher, Paul Brewster.

Students work on their playing.

As the students progressed on the instruments they began to rehearse with 8th-grade guitar students and members of the school orchestra.

On May 28th, an ensemble of over thirty string performers held two concerts with Dan Duggan; one for their peers at Oswego Middle School and one at St. Luke’s adult home. The school performance was recorded by students using our new portable recording studio. The culmination of the project in a public service performance gave the students a terrific opportunity to give back to the community as well as a chance for the community to see and hear what is going on in the schools and interract with school-age people.

"My grandparents were there and they were proud of me. They didn’t know I could play an instrument.” “Performing for other people is fun” -- student comments

What was it like to have the opportunity to work with a professional musician?
“Awesome!”
“I felt like I was a professional.”
“It was a unique experience and I would like to do such a thing again.”  -- student comments

This collaborative grant allowed students to witness and be a part of the connections between several curricular areas.

With the money already invested in the construction of instruments and recording equipment, we hope to improve upon and repeat this program in subsequent years. We would like to strengthen and increase the connections in the core classroom areas, particularly in ELA and Social Studies.