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Grade 11 students compose songs on guitar for CD
Friday June 20 2008 By Nelia Raposo, Staff Writer Christie Reeves isn’t afraid of the guitar anymore.
After signing up for guitar class at her high school last year, the Grade 11 student is now comfortable enough with the string instrument that she bought one.
“I play it at home all the time,” Reeves, 16, said.
She’s one of 10 students at a CD launch party at Orangeville District Secondary School who have composed, copyrighted and recorded their own songs to create a compilation called Perennial. Each student also designed an original album cover for the class project.
Holding her multi-coloured CD case, Reeves thinks back to how she felt those first days in Karen Lander’s class, “It’s nerve wracking. You don’t know if you are going to be the lowest one in the class.”
Although she’d played the clarinet and flute, she was hesitant when learning guitar. Encouragement from Lander really helped, she said.
The song she scored for the class CD is called Between Time. She opted not to include lyrics.
“It’s a getaway song. I play it to feel relaxed. I get a base idea, then pick up the guitar and strum and figure out what I like…” she said about the creative process.
More than half of the songs on the class CD have vocals. It’s a mix of soft music and rock.
Warren Cotton, 15, had two years of guitar experience before joining the class.
“I love guitar. I play at home all the time. Even if I get home and have too much homework I know that I’ll have at least played for an hour in class. You can never learn too much about guitar,” Cotton said.
It’s an amazing instrument, he said, because you are “not limited to one genre of music. You can hear guitars in classic music and hard rock.”
Cotton’s song is called Shade. It’s about a girl that’s having a tough time in life.
“The song is about being the shade for someone when things get too hot,” he said. “I write about what I’m feeling at the time.  It’s an extension of my emotions. Music is a medium everyone can understand.”
Listening to his classmates songs for the first time, Cotton said, “It’s amazing. I didn’t know my classmates had it in them to do something like this.  A lot of people in here have different musical tastes but they are all amazing songs. You just get a real good feeling for who the person is and what they have to say.”
For her part, Lander is proud of the work her students do.
“Kids sometimes get a bad rap so it’s nice to highlight the positive that they do,” Lander said.

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