St. Cecilia kids write, score and record music

Kids at St. Cecilia School are working on 17 new songs for their new CD recording. They do it all: write the words, score the music and make the recordings right at school.

They produced their first CD last spring. It contained all the original music from their spring concert last May.

This year, they'll include something different. Some of the new songs will be in Spanish since the Catholic school in south St. Louis City has 30 per cent Hispanic students. Last month's Advent pageant of Las Posadas featured songs sung in both English and Spanish.

Most of last spring's songs were written by whole classes.

But, student Carmen Alfonso handled both words and music for an original song, "Praise the Lord's Name On High."

Carmen is now an eighth grader. She explained how the song came into being. "I was taking a class in liturgical dance. I made up the words on my own and adapted music from the dance," she said.

This year, she's working with her younger sister, Madeline, on a new song about AIDS. But, Carmen's also got words written for another song, "Come Jesus Come." That could be considered for the concert next spring.

The whole school has added a special emphasis on music since Principal Jim Ford came to St. Cecilia. He was formerly at New City School in University City.

It's fitting that music should have an increased role in the life of that school. St. Cecilia is the patron saint of music in the Catholic religion.

Kevin Cavanaugh on congas

One of the special musical events at the school is a Coffee House celebration in November. That special musical programming is built around the traditional feast day in honor of St. Cecilia.

Principal Ford is a believer that music "can be used for every curriculum subject." He believes that people learn in different ways. Some who are inclined to music may be able to understand even math and science better if it's taught in musical terms.

Music teacher Katy Harr told of some fifth graders who were having trouble with multiplication tables. "They tried to put the tables to music to see if it might help them remember better," she said.

Carmen said she believes music can help her with some of her other homework.

In addition to music classes during school, St. Cecilia also has an after-school music program as well as a regular summer music camp.

Casey Cavanaugh on traditional drums

Twins Casey and Kevin Cavanaugh take part in the after-school program. The 12-year-olds play the drums. Casey usually plays regular drums with drum sticks while Kevin plays conga drums.

Recently, they played in a concert where both of them played congas at the Thomas Dunn Learning Center.

The brothers had a hand in writing and performing two songs on last spring's CD. The songs were "Follow the Ways of the Lord" and "Thank You."

All sixth graders sang those songs with accompaniment from Ms. Harr and another student on the congas.

Recording of songs can be completed on a new computer system. It's set up to let the school handle its own production work. The recordings are done in the music room.

Alison Crudden

Eleven-year-old Alison Crudden is another student who tried her hand at writing music. She said it took her about a week to write the words for her song, "Angels Everywhere."

She said one of the hardest things was to make the words fit the melody of the song. "I had to make a lot of word adjustments there," she said.

She then did the singing for a recording with Ms. Harr accompanying. Asked if she was a good singer, Alison smiled and said, "No." She likes the emphasis on music although she doesn't come from a musical family.

Ms. Harr has all students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, in music classes twice a week. The after-school program also is twice a week. It provides a chance for more individual attention for students.

This semester, students will have chances to learn on the guitar, percussion and keyboard.