Local high school students participating in CQUniversity’s Accelerated Arts Education program have been joined by globally acclaimed and award-winning electro music and dance act The Ironing Maidens at workshops in Bundaberg.
Under the guidance of The Ironing Maidens’ Patty Preece and Melania Jack, Year 11 and 12 students participated in a full-day original music making workshop where they learned about songwriting, beat making, performance, recording, production, and film clips.
The workshops culminated in the development and recording of two original songs and film clips to be featured at the program Showcase night in November.
Program Manager of the Accelerated Arts Education Program, Emma Vanstone said that each group worked together to share their creative strengths to write lyrics, develop music, play instruments, sing and produce a video clip.
“Each of the participants bring different creative strengths to the program and during the workshops they worked with Patty and Melania to apply these strengths and step out of their comfort zones to deliver their songs,” she said.
“There was a lot of buzz in the room as each group assigned different responsibilities to team members and encouraged their peers to showcase their talents.
“We had team members contributing in many different ways from playing guitar, rapping, singing and directing the film clips,” said Ms Vanstone.
“The end result is two original tracks that they can be extremely proud of.”
Patty Preece from the Ironing Maidens is a musician, electronic music producer and sound artist who along with Melania Jack mentored the students during the workshops and was impressed by the talent on display.
“Not everyone in the group has a musical background but it was impressive to see them all fully commit to the project and explore the process of music making.
“We produced two original recordings over the two days with the groups working together to write lyrics and produce the music.
‘The first song by the Year 11 group was called Tuesday and is about their journey through the program and how they have become a family of friends thanks to their shared creative interests.
“Meanwhile, the Year 12’s song Half Way Down is about the end of an era (finishing Year 12 and completing the Accelerated Arts program) as well as the unknown future that lies ahead that is both daunting and exciting.
Violet Ballantyne a Year 12 student who has been taking part in the program this year said the workshop was a great experience for her and her peers.
“These workshops gave us an opportunity to learn more about music production as an artform and allowed us to learn from industry professionals who have performed across the world.
“Patty and Melania made the process fun and helped us to understand the process of making a song.
“As someone who would like to work in the technical side of theatre it was also a good experience to see how the process of making music works from a production side of things,” said Miss Ballantyne.
The two songs will be released as part of the Accelerated Arts Education Showcase Night on Friday, 8 November 2024 to be held at CQUniversity.
