A Whole New World

Author: Bella Ward

It has certainly been an interesting start to ArtistCorps! Despite all of the changes this year, I am grateful to be back at school and working again. This is my first year serving in ArtistCorps and I feel that the service it provides to the community is very important now more than ever. Although we cannot serve in person at schools, I am excited to explore ways throughout the semester to help kids learn and stay engaged virtually.

I am learning a lot myself as I navigate it all. Being a musician, the film and editing aspect of producing educational video content is certainly new to me. I am happy to be stretched to learn those skills, which I may never have challenged myself to learn if not for our ArtistCorps objectives.

What is most exciting to me about this process however is the teaching aspect, channeling my artistry in a way I am not used to. When brainstorming for my first exposure video I had to change my mindset. Although I am still a student, I have forgotten how to approach the violin from a beginner's point of view. It is hard for me to simplify musical concepts because they are so a part of who I am at this point in my training. As I was thinking back to when I was six years old and learning the violin for the very first time, I stumbled upon an idea for my video. Of course - fiddle playing! I had completely forgotten that my teacher first started teaching me with fiddle tunes. I learned the notes by ear back then and remember really connecting with the music. I excitedly wrote up a script for a video and found a lot of joy in trying to communicate my roots as a musician to other beginning musicians.

What is more, I learned a new tune to play at the end of the video. Now that I play mostly classical music I rarely practice my fiddle playing. It is a skill that I've been meaning to hone but never seem to find the time. In my process of introducing young kids to folk music, I rekindled a passion for the style of music that got me started in the first place!