Kickstarter

Recording Arts for Youth (RAY) consists of two main components. First is an 8 to 10 week education program that will introduce young music students to recording arts concepts like MIDI, live recording and digital audio software. At the conclusion of the program, each student will record an original production composed by one of our resident musicians. These recordings will then be remixed into a final album that we can then sell to support future expansion of the program.

What we plan to accomplish is: 1) Introduce young music students to the power of recording arts 2) Introduce them to the creative possibilities of remixing and musical collaboration 3) Give them the thrill of being part of an official music release.

In order to achieve all of this, we are partnering with a nonprofit in Miami called The Motivational Edge. The Motivational Edge is an education nonprofit that offers tutoring and music education programs to underprivileged and at-risk youth. So they already have three important ingredients for this program to succeed: students, instructors and real estate. The only thing missing is the gear, and that’s where You come in.

With the money we raise through this Kickstarter project, we plan to put together 5 project studio stations. Each station will consist of a computer, a MIDI keyboard, an audio interface, a microphone and a pair of studio monitors. And each keyboard comes bundled with ProTools SE software. Our goal is to give these kids the closest thing to a project studio setting as possible on a modest budget. We are confident we can build each station for $1,000 or less, depending on the discounts we can find.

Any donation of $10 or more will automatically get you a digital copy of the final album. But since that won’t be complete until sometime this summer, we are also offering some releases from Musical Missionary's catalog as additional gifts for your generous donation.

The final list of remixers for the album has yet to be determined, but the following have already been confirmed: - Cleaveland Jones (cleavelandjones.com) - Mike Monday (mikemonday.com) - Darren DuVall (myspace.com/ridgebackrecordings) - Swanken (soundcloud.com/swanken) And artwork for the album will be custom made by photographer Joshua Martin.

A key feature of the final album will be the Creative Commons "Share Alike" license (CC BY-SA) it will be released under. This is the same license used by Wikipedia and it lets others remix, tweak, and build upon the work as long as proper credit is given and the new derivative creations are released under identical terms. By doing this, we hope to teach our students that music, at its very core, is meant to be collaborative and shared rather than frozen into the cryogenic freezers of traditional copyright. In fact, part of the inspiration for this project came from a book called "Remix" by Lawrence Lessig, a founding member of Creative Commons.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot... PLEASE help us spread the word!!

NOTE: All contributions go directly to The Motivational Edge, a registered 501(c)3 nonprofit, which means your donations are tax-deductible.