Music for change

For a change from the normally assigned final PowerPoint Presentation, students in the William Penn Charter School’s Quaker Principles class were asked to imagine they have been hired by a Quaker Meeting. The Meeting wants them to put a written description of a concern they have (a Minute) to music.

Quakers have disfavored music at times because of a desire to express ideas simply and, in so doing, more truthfully. However, this meeting has decided to experiment to see if adding music to their message can help communicate their ideas more broadly.

Students paired up, looked through a collection of Quaker minutes on this site and picked one that interested them.

To prepare for song writing, we listened to songs from popular music that share a concern. Having talked about testimonies earlier in the trimester, students picked up how the concerns in the songs sounded a lot like the testimonies shared by members of the Society of Friends. Students shared their own “message music” picks in a threaded discussion outside of class.

We then shifted our focus to a single artist who sang mostly about social and spiritual concerns–Bob Marley. We watched parts of the movie Legend because it included live concert footage of his songs and interviews where he shared the way his songs were written. Of particular interest was Bob Marley talking about how he feels that the use of silence can lead a person to the truth. Also of interest was the song War–a musical adaptation of Haile Selassie’s 1968 United Nations address. Haile Selassie was a great source of inspiration on spiritual and social justice matters for Bob Marley. The quote below is from the address that Bob Marley then turned into a song.

“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained.”

– English translation of a 1968 speech by Haile Selassie, Emperor then of Ethiopia, delivered to the United Nations, and popularised in a song called War by Bob Marley.

Students then wrote their own songs. Mr. Fitzmartin, choral director and song writing teacher, taught the class how to use iTunes to create music to go with students’ lyrics. iTunes was very easy to use. Students uncomfortable recording themselves singing recruited other students to sing for their recording. When students were done creating their song, they turned it in to Mr. Moulton as an MP3 file.

The goal of this assignment was to engage students in an activity that would support the overall goal of the class…learning about the history, faith, and practices of the people of God called Friends.