The Soundscapes of Underprivileged Youth: A Study of Kidznotes After-School Music Program in Urban North Carolina

• Other Authors: Alfonso, Elisa Glen (author)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Music; Education; Acoustics
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/2019_Spring_Alfonso_fsu_0071N_15202

Kidznotes is a non-profit organization that provides free after-school music education for underserved populations in urban North Carolina. Kidznotes bases its organizational model on El Sistema; a state-funded music education program started in Venezuela by economist and educator José Abreu in 1987. Kidznotes provides free instruction, a daily snack, instruments, and transportation, all funded by corporate sponsors, concerts performed by Kidznotes’ students, and Kidznotes fundraising events put on by corporate sponsors. As a former employee of the program, and through the fieldwork I conducted at Kidznotes’ Raleigh and Durham summer camps, I gained an immersion and acute awareness to the content and structure of Kidznotes’ soundscapes. The students of Kidznotes are predominately elementary-age, come from low-income neighborhoods in Raleigh and Durham, and attend either Title I or non-profit charter schools in the area. They come to Kidznotes three days during the school week for two hours after a 7-hour school day, and for two hours in the morning on Saturdays. The short time spent in the Kidznotes environment was just a glimpse of what their students experience daily with those that are intended to help them. I theorize that the distinctive aural space of Kidznotes allows for compartmentalization in the minds of underprivileged children, separating their everyday lives from their lives at Kidznotes so that they are given the mental space and sonic authority to assert themselves into the soundscape. This assertion, I propose, is a metaphorical way of challenging the convoluted soundscapes of the outside world, filled with overlapping and contradictory messages children hear that shape their self-perception. This study will then illuminate the ways in which intimacy and music-making as they present themselves within the sonic space of underprivileged youth, make programs like Kidznotes in the North Carolinian context potentially useful for helping minority and low-income children form a healthier sense of self. === A Thesis submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Music. === Spring Semester 2019. === April 1, 2019. === Children's music, Durham, El Sistema, North Carolina, Raleigh, Sound Studies === Includes bibliographical references. === Frank Gunderson, Professor Directing Thesis; Margaret Jackson, Committee Member; John Reynolds, Committee Member.