Ktunaxa Music Technology Collaboration Workshop
for Aboriginal Youth
April 24-25, 2009 at the ʔaq'am Community Learning Centre

The Ktunaxa Community Learning Centres (KCLC) project provides community members with culturally relevant health information and resources. Community leads employed by the KCLC project who are responsible for creating opportunities for community members to interact with the learning centres, suggested targeting KCLC activities towards youth. Specifically, the emerging talent among the Ktunaxa youth in music and art was noted. After speaking with several promising Ktunaxa Nation musicians, they felt that KCLC could support youth with an outlet to record and develop music, beyond “rapping to the trees”. Engaging community youth through music also connected them to the health issues they face in their communities (e.g, drug use, depression, suicide). It gave them an opportunity to talk about these issues in an authentic, supportive way. From this, KCLC team decided that a music technology workshop for youth, could transform the latent musical talents of Ktunaxa youth into a form that could be further explored and documented.

Funding from TEKTIC provided support to evaluate the workshop’s efficacy in engaging youth around social determinants of health. Additionally, two successful Aboriginal musicians, Rex Smallboy and Sandy Scofield, were engaged as workshop instructors. Both Rex and Sandy have been nominated for Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards. A successful application to DigiDesign’s Charity Committee resulted in a donation of “state of the art” music recording technology. The First Nations Technology Council donated USB drives for participants to take home their music recordings and the instructors provided resource guides. Nigel Warden and Brandy Joe (KCLC community leads) provided local support in organizing the workshop which was critical to its success.  For several weeks, Nigel and Brandy worked hard to oversee event coordination, technical readiness of the venue, event advertising and, most importantly, recruiting musical talent. Workshop objectives included teaching participants how to: 1) install/use multi-track digital audio interfaces (ie. Pro-Tools and MBox); 2) set-up instruments and create midi sounds for recording; and 3) create, mix and publish audio tracks.

Over 20 participants attended the workshop, ranging in age from 15 to 27. Rex inspired youth to make their dreams come true, musical and otherwise, and to rise above racism, drugs and alcohol. Sandy taught participants how to navigate the complexities of Pro-Tools. During the workshop, participants collaboratively created a song titled “Stomp”, and left the workshop with a thirst for more. This led to the organization of regular Friday evening music recording sessions at the CLC, and a Facebook group that is receiving increasing community support (http://www.facebook.com/ group.php?gid= 93577659187). Ultimately, this workshop provided youth with a sustainable outlet for self-expression and a healthy environment to interact with peers, both of which can foster protective factors against emotional stress and substance abuse. One participant rapped about the positive impact of music:

“This is a beat, this is a song, this is an anthem.
Turn up the song, turn up the base, start dancin’.
Let loose, let the venom of the music intoxicate your body.
Feelin’ the rush, lovin’ the high, kickin’ the adrenaline.
I’m lovin’ this life, I’m doin’ it real, I’m goin’ out of style.
We keepin’ it goin’, keepin’ it flowin’, lettin’ it ride.
My mind occupied from the rush of the music.”
-Donovan Williams