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JULY 13, 2007 Buffalo students tune into Music in Action hits high note in year one by Amber Pietrobono Business First The Goo Goo Dolls' bassist Robby Takac and other successful music veterans played the role of teacher this year. The group taught students from Buffalo Public Schools the characteristics deemed necessary in the music business. Takac, the director of Music is Art, sponsored the Music in Action industry skills training program for its first year of operation. Organizers are now looking to expand the program from its starting point at the Buffalo Academy for the Visual & Performing Arts. The program's 18 students learned about the music industry, the appropriate attitude for success, and the skills and training necessary in the business. "When you're a kid and you're playing in your basement, and you're watching MTV, and you're seeing all the shiny parts of the car, I think this is a good way to sort of look under the hood a little bit and sort of understand how things actually work," Takac said. The students produced a benefit CD for Helping Every Adolescent Rally Together (HEART) for Mental Health, a coalition with a goal to raise awareness about mental health in Western New York schools. The student-produced CD "Be True - Be You!" was released Wednesday. Next year the Music in Action program will be offered to four additional schools, one more in the city of Buffalo and three in the Western New York community. It is possible that Music in Action could be a state-wide program in the future, said Kevin Kazmierczak, principal of the school. "For the kids who can't hit a baseball, this stuff's really important," Takac said. "For kids that can hit a baseball, this stuff's really important." May 24, 2007 For aspiring musical pros, a high note
*************** May 15th, 2007 Buffalo students produce benefit CD Buffalo, NY – Students participating in the MUSIC IN ACTION industry skills training project at the Buffalo Academy for Visual & Performing Arts (BAVPA) have produced an original music, student artist CD to benefit H.E.A.R.T. for Mental Health, providing mental health awareness to regional schools. HEART is an innovative collaborative effort, funded by the John R. Oishei Foundation, that includes Crisis Services, Healthy Community Alliance, the Mental Health Association of Erie County, and Music is Art. Over 5,400 students have been served since its inception in 2006. The cause-themed CD, enhanced with videos, is set for release on GCR Records, the label owned by Grammy-nominated, Goo Goo Dolls founding member Robby Takac, Director of Music is Art. Entitled, BE TRUE, BE YOU – the CD’s songs and student videos promote unity, self-acceptance, and a resistance to negative peer pressure – all core objectives of HEART’s efforts in schools. MUSIC IN ACTION is a full-year program authored by Takac and Bob James, a state certified student leadership / character education trainer, local music veteran and Director of www.StudentVoices.org. Grammy-nominated and other Industry mentors serve as visiting instructors. “Our idea with this program is to do more than the typical single shot PR event that brings celebrities into schools,” states Takac, “We work with the kids all year long, maintaining a presence in the school, as they learn about all parts of the business, including the attitudes of perseverance, teamwork and success.” PHOTO CAPTION: TRACKMASTER STUDIOS, BUFFALO, APRIL 10, 2007 {photo – Bob Mussell} Contacts: Jessica Zwieg, H.E.A.R.T. for Mental Health: 886.1242 Ext. 340 ****************** March 23, 2007 BUFFALO, NY – {see pictures on TEAMS page}
December 23rd, 2006 Students from BAVPA Team attend special "in-studio" session with Takac, Casuccio, Grunner, James, Brylinski & other "industry mentors." See teams page for photos. ********************* December 4, 2006 GRAMMY NOMINATED PRODUCER JOINS November 16, 2006 October 31, 2006 National Music Business & Attitude Buffalo, NY ************** September 19, 2006 September 18, 2006
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BUFFALO STUDENTS GET PREVIEW OF GOO GOO DOLLS MEMBER'S Buffalo, NY Save the Music meets Making the Band meets Bill Gates call for a renaissance in high school education. Students at Buffalo Public School #187 Academy for the Visual & Performing Arts received an special invitation to attend a focus group today to preview and critique a new school based program that mixes character education with music business industry skills. Robby Takac, founding member and bassist for the Grammy nominated Goo Goo Dolls, is host. Takac is working with Bob James, a youth leadership trainer, recognized by New York State Education Department for an established “research-based, quality” student leadership program. The pair are currently gathering and merging “best practice” ideas from experts in education, youth-development, marketing and entertainment. Similar focus groups were held during summer stops in 3 states on the Goo Goo Dolls current world tour. A dedication to WNY brings the program, designed for national delivery, back to be launched in Buffalo schools. Music In Action - Industry skills and attitude training for kids looks to first train and inspire youth in under-served school districts, then others, with a mix of high tech tools, field trip workshops at a recording studio, record label, media production house and radio stations, along with live video-conferences with music industry insiders, in a kind of mentoring dialog. Both New York State learning standards and the Search-Institute's “developmental assets” are embedded in the modular training. “I've been learning about how top program designs rely on research and focus groups”, states Takac, the musician, studio/label owner, and director of the Buffalo nonprofit, Music Is Art. “Talking to students today will help us understand what challenges they face and what we can do to make a real difference, not just be another glossy but no results benefit.” James has brought music benefits to schools before, releasing 5 locally produced, nationally supported benefit CDs since 1999. A new disc, Classic Buffalo Rock, 97 Rock Benefit for Music is Art, arrives next month. Program details are available online, at www.MusAction.org. CONTACTS: Eileen Bohen, Alternative Education, Buffalo Public Schools, 716.816.3617 August 12, 2006 August 11, 2006 Liberty Kids Get Upfront With Takac By Jeanne Sager BETHEL, NY Thirty-seven years ago, it birthed the Woodstock Nation. Wednesday evening, Bethel Woods put Music in Action. Goo Goo Dolls bassist Robby Takac returned to musical “hallowed ground” with a request. Head of his own non-profit, Music Is Art, Takac has been itching to get a program up and running that hooks kids in an educational way by showing them the “ins” of the recording industry. He’s a famous rock star, but Takac said he knew something other program directors, teachers and administrators don’t – his experience wasn’t enough. “People my age always seem to think they know what the right ideas are,” he said. “We know, from our perspective, what the right lessons are. “But too many educators spend time building up steam for something that isn’t exactly what the kids want to do,” he explained. Takac’s Music is Art program puts instruments in the hands of children. It’s that simple. But he wants to do more. “I was able to find the thing that grabbed kids,” he said. “But I wasn’t schooled in how to school.” For that piece of the puzzle, Takac turned to Bob James, longtime friend and educator in the Buffalo area. James heads up the future leaders network with teams in high schools throughout New York State. Among them is a team right in Liberty – a team that had the street cred and the smarts to earn a face-to-face meeting with Takac Wednesday evening. The teens were pulled out of their summer vacation for a focus group with Takac before he went onstage to rock out with the Goos at Bethel Woods. In recent years, the Liberty leaders have filmed several of their own videos dealing with peer pressure, suicide and depression and drugs – films that have been played for the whole school. The kids used their musical influences to tell the story, to ground the life lessons in a youthful way. Ryan Cerullo, a rising junior at Liberty High School, said the idea is to let other kids know that although they’re the “leadership” team, they’re all on a level playing field. “We try not to put out the idea that we’re better than them, we don’t lecture,” he explained. “I feel that we reach out to kids.” “If they have a problem they can come talk to us,” added Justin Sutherland, a recent graduate of Liberty. “They can come talk to us instead of an adult.” Sutherland said he felt like he made a difference in his four years on the leadership team – after one meeting at the school, a girl approached the team to tell them her friend was a “cutter.” The girl had been self-mutilating, but when approached by kids her own age rather than an intimidating adult, she responded. “Because of this, I feel like we saved a life,” Sutherland said of the team. Sutherland is one of the more musical team members – he’s headed to college in the fall to study music. That interest and background made them ideal for Takac to tap into these teens for ideas. And the kids were ga-ga to meet the Goos. Their last production, a short called “The Crowd,” included Goo Goo Dolls songs in its soundtrack. “We listen to them and everything they say through their songs,” said 15-year-old Ishan Trivedi, younger brother of leadership team member Pranali. “Now it was our turn to talk.” And talk they did. “We got tonight ideas we hadn’t really thought about,” James said. “It was funny to hear some of the comments just socially that were made,” Takac said. “I love the energy of that . . . the excited optimismof something going to happen.” That’s the idea behind the leadership team at Liberty – allowing teens to put their natural enthusiasm into helping their classmates. “You take the kids with optimism and hope and light, and you pair them with kids who’ve given up, and that’s when the magic happens,” James explained. That magic has benefited the team members as well, Pranali Trivedi explained. “We’re making a difference in our school . . . and along the way, we’re improving if you want to call them leadership skills, talking, listening,” she noted. Trivedi said she hopes Takac was able to glean something useful from the experiences she and her classmates have had in Liberty. “I really liked that everyone else is willing to listen to us,” she said, “that people recognize that we as students might have something to say.” Rachel Parkhurst isn’t on the leadership team, but the 18-year-old is on her way to study at Boston’s Berklee School of Music. She was honored to talk to someone who’s “been through it all” about her passion. “Music changed my life,” she said earnestly. “I’ve never been an amazing student, and I never excelled at anything. “Then I picked up the trumpet, and I was talented . . . I had something to be proud of.” Georgia Siegel comes from the opposite side of the spectrum. She plays in the band, and her family is intensely musical (her dad, Gary, is even a music teacher), but she wouldn’t call music her life. Still, sitting down with Takac, having a rock star zero in on what she had to say, made an impact. “Usually with bands, they’re not into talking to fans,” she said. “They have thousands and millions of fans, and they don’t need to talk to a bunch of kids. “But it was just as cool an experience for him as it was for us.” Takac did seem to be having fun. Even after spending more than an hour in a focus group with the teens and rejoining his bandmates, Johnny Rzeznik and Mike Malinin, to get ready to go onstage, Takac returned to the spot backstage where the kids were milling around. Sitting on the edge of a small garden, Takac answered questions and allowed the kids to touch his funky dreadlocks. “What did I get from these kids?” he asked. “These are real kids – these are not a bunch of f***-ups.” The stories he heard, the ideas they provided, will go into a pilot program for Music in Action by fall. The nine-day program is expected to be in schools by early 2007, according to James, although there’s no idea yet of when it will come to Liberty. Copyright © 1999-2006 Catskill-Delaware Publications. August 10, 2006 - LISTEN StudentVoices focus group #2 4th question & responses from Music in Action focus group Robby Takac / RT: I never had the football team. I never had all the structural things that happened after school. I just wasn’t interested. I wasn’t one of those kids. And this [Music in Action] is such a lesson in cooperation, to be able to draw together some of those [gesturing - fringe] people who maybe aren’t interested into this is what we’re trying to achieve here. Robert James / RJ: So… how would this benefit the school? Female student (“FS”): I think it would be very good because it would bring everyone together whether you were white or black or like pop music or rock. It would bring everybody together and learn how to… It would teach the students how to work together, and work with each other to achieve their goal. FS: I think it would be a very good thing to have. It would get kids experience of something they may never have thought of ever doing. And that it would open doors for a lot of people and give kids opportunities. FS: I Think it would be good to have mentors around because, say you didn’t have mentors around, the school would fall apart because not a lot of kids would not be paying attention doing their homework involving groups and when we do have mentors around, it would be good. FS: I think having the program around would be a very positive influence on many of the students here. We’re all very diverse and coming together we’d be able to learn about many different cultures and how we work together and achieve one goal. Female Teacher: I think it would show students how they view people. White, black, asian, whoever they may be. They may see them at one point during the day, maybe in class and now they’re going to see them in another light [Music in Action]. I think it would effect the faculty and the staff the same, in that: ‘this is a troubled kid, but WOW. How could he do this (gesturing - event), but he can’t do this (gesturing - schoolwork)? FS: Maybe it could help the faculty know how to like teach certain kids, and make them enjoy the school and learning. And if they saw this, and they (teachers) saw that they were answering in this (Music in Action), then they could try bringing that into their classroom. RJ: Oh. A new way to teach? (she nods yes) FS: I think it would be good for the school and the faculty because there are some people out there who just want to be recognized and never thought that they’d ever have the chance because people put them down… FS: I think it would benefit the whole entire student body and the faculty and (help) a lot of the kids that do perform get a chance to actually understand what they are going to be doing if they choose it as a career. And it shows the rest of the student body that these kids that are not interested in school have other interests and they can see that they are not just the dropouts from school. FULL FOCUS GROUP TRANSCRIPTS ARE BEING ANALYZED FOR PROGRAM DESIGN IDEAS ********** August 09, 2006 - LISTEN StudentVoices focus group #1 held with students from LIBERTY HIGH SCHOOL @ Bethelwoods center for the arts. Students interviewed by local media and get insiders backstage view of a national tour. download the Sullivan County Democrat .pdf news story here ******************************************* August 08, 2006 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Local Students Shape Goo Goo Doll Member’s Bethel, NY Save the Music meets Making the Band meets Bill Gates’ 2005 call for a renaissance in education. Members of the Liberty High School Future Leaders Network team received an exclusive invitation last week to attend a private backstage focus group to preview and critique a new school based program that mixes character education with music business skills. The window of opportunity for the meeting is a local stop at Bethelwoods on the Goo Goo Dolls world tour. The Grammy nominated band’s bassist, Robby Takac, is host. Takac is currently gathering “best practice” ideas from experts in education, youth-development, marketing and entertainment. Music In Action – Industry skills and attitude training for kids looks to first serve and inspire youth in under-served districts, then others. It features a mix of high tech tools, recording studio and radio workshop field trips and live videoconferences with music industry insiders, in a kind of mentoring dialog. “I’ve read studies on how top program designs rely on research and focus groups”, states Takac, founding member of the Goo Goo Dolls and director of the community collaborative nonprofit group, Music Is Art, in Buffalo (details below). “That’s why we’re talking today, you know, to help us understand what challenges they face and what we can do to make this program really help kids, not just be another glossy but no results benefit.” The Liberty student group was selected due to their success in designing and delivering pop-culture influenced prevention films and workshops. Impressed with their efforts, the New York State Education Department recently forwarded their 2005 “lifeguard” film to the NYS Department of Mental Health for potential inclusion in their new state-wide suicide prevention school initiative. Liberty’s 2006 film, “The Crowd” about teen relationship choices included Goo Goo Doll songs in its soundtrack. The team was suggested to Takac by their long-term leadership trainer, Bob James, recognized by the New York State Education Department (www.nysed.gov) for “research-based, quality” programming. Takac and James share the same hometown of Buffalo NY. Music in Action begins pilot sessions this fall in Buffalo. Foreseeing wide interest, it is designed with national capacity, delivered through grassroots, community-based organizations. The program introduces innovations in engaging students that may draw support from teachers and parents. Findings from today’s focus group will be analyzed and then posted on-line by August 22nd @ www.MusAction.org. Additional focus groups are being planned. *Back-story on Music is Art Since its inception in 2003, Music Is Art has brought a diverse mix of original music, art, instruments; events & opportunities to over 350,000 people, and is one of Western New York’s most recognized and innovative promoters of original music, arts appreciation, and more in the academic and community arts scene. www.BuffaloRoots.com reported recently: "Music Is Art 2006 was not only another success [June 2006 street festival in Buffalo], but it is becoming a standard by which other music and art festivals, and successful Buffalo/Western New York musicians and artists, are to be measured." |
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