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| 8/12/2009 10:24:00 AM Email this article • Print this article | |
Dani DiCiaccio spicing up Southside's Unity Studio
Taryn Thompson
Reporter
Dani DiCiaccio is the program coordinator of the Unity Studio at Southside Community Center. A graduate of Ithaca College, she took a plan-your-own-major path, studying voice and anthropology. Now she's an established singer and voice teacher, and a new face at Southside. The Unity Studio, founded in 2006 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, is aimed at giving minority students, inner city youth, underserved community members and young women a chance to learn about and utilize digital recording and engineering techniques. Free after-school classes will be offered Monday through Wednesday to area high school and middle school students, and when classes are not being held, the studio is free and open for the public's use.
Ithaca Times: You plan to offer after school classes in lyric writing, digital music production and Pro Tools software, singing technique and a weekly jam session. Is this all new?
Dani DiCiaccio: Yes. In 2006 when the program first started, I believe there was one after school class strictly in ProTools, which is the industry-standard software for audio recording that we have here. The lyric writing forum will be new; the singing class will be new.
IT: How many kids do you think know how to use ProTools?
DD: My guess is not that many. A lot of kids might know how to use Garage Band, but ProTools is a very expensive program and I think we're dealing with a lot of students who come from fairly low-income families, so I don't think that type of software is one they've been exposed to. The ultimate goal for these ProTools classes is to get students to a point, if interested, to be an intern or assistant at one of the studios around here.
IT: What are some other goals of the studio itself?
DD: One of them is to give (students) the tools they might not normally have to do (this) kind of thing. Another big goal is to get young women involved, because they're typically very underrepresented in the audio recording (and) producing world of music. And it's also just to give people access to this equipment. This kind of thing is very unique.
IT: Can you tell me more about the lyric writing forum?
DD: That's going to be limited to high school students only, and the goal is to get students who are into writing of any sort - whether it's poetry or fiction or whatever, just to kind of get wheels turning, in terms of writing songs. The forum will be more of a discussion-oriented group. We're going to try to push toward song writing, but it's open to all writers, or anyone who has an interest. Part of the class is going to be devoted to studying music that the kids want, so if people want to study Jay-Z lyrics from a certain album, we're gonna talk about those, and then work on things that they want to do. The goal is to create a safe enough space, because lyrics can come from a pretty vulnerable place.
IT: What can students do here in the studio on their own time?
DD: They can make beats, they can record themselves, they can help design the class - there' s so much room for input. That's one of the cool things about this is that I feel like we're really starting from scratch. There are volunteers that have been calling and helping me write the syllabus, whatever you want to call it. They can do all of that techy stuff, but there's room for the layout of the program, too.
IT: What are you doing to increase interest?
DD: There are a couple things to be done before the fall. One of the big things is recruiting students, so we are hosting this thing called Way Back Wednesdays, and it's kind of like a free-style session, or open mic session. We have a deejay, Vinnie Sierra, from the (Southside) computer lab and a panel of experts. It's just kind of a party for the community to let them know the studio is open and a way to attract kids so I have an audience. We'll have two more on the 19th and 26th, and the last one will be a competition.
IT: How did the first Wednesday turn out?
DD: There were two kids that did it and it was so cool to see them. They just got up there and they'd be goin' and goin' and goin', and if they messed up, everyone would be like, "Keep going!" It was so cute. Just having the guts to get up there and do it is amazing.
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