Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 7, Issue 7, July 2003

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Students write, perform songs for peace

By CLAYTON PARK

"Peace is quiet, like a riot on a diet. Peace is no war, peace is no terror. Peace is people being nice to each other, People on Earth taking care of one another. That's Peace, that's Peace, that's Peace."

Those are the opening lyrics to "Peace," a song that was written and recently recorded for a CD by students at Alternative School #1 in a class taught by teacher Adam Boesel. The title of the class, appropriately enough, is "Folk Songs for Peace."

Twenty students from Boesel's class, ranging from kindergartners to eighth graders, performed "Peace" and several other songs they wrote for the class at the opening day of the year for the Lake City Farmer's Market on May 29.

The students' 20-minute set was followed by a two-hour performance by Boesel's band, Creeping Time, a four-piece group that describes its music as "original acoustic grassrock." Boesel is one of the band's two principal songwriters, and also sings and plays guitar and harmonica. The other chief songwriter is Ken Nottingham, who sings and plays bass and mandolin. Creeping Time's other members are Dave Glosson Forrester (percussion and vocals) and Kjell Anderson (fiddle).

Boesel, who also teaches general studies courses for grades 2-4 at A.S.#1, began teaching a folk music class at the school in the fall quarter of 2001. Immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, he decided to retitled the class "Folk Songs for Peace," and encouraged his students to not only learn how to sing folk songs but to write new tunes of their own. "We do group songwriting," he says, explaining that the process starts with the students offering their ideas and then refining those ideas, with his help, to create a poem.

"Then we make up the tune," says Boesel, who accompanies his students with his acoustic guitar.

"The kids love it. They get a kick out of performing and the fact that they've written some of these songs really makes it meaningful to them."

For the most part, Boesel says, he lets the kids come up with their own ideas and lyrics, although he will intervene if things get out of hand or off track. "The only guidance I give is when I occasionally have to remind them, 'This is Folk Songs for Peace, not Folk Songs for Punching Someone in the Arm,'" he says.

The class has held several concerts at AS#1, including an outdoor performance for the community on June 13, which drew about 150 people. The class has also performed at the Seattle Center during Peace Day last fall and at the International Children's Festival in May.

This past school year, Boesel brought in his Sony Walkman digital recorder to record a CD of five of his students' songs, as well as three "cover" tunes they also learned to sing in the class.

One of the covers is actually a song that Boesel wrote for his own band, titled "Alright the Sun." The other two covers are Willie Nelson's "I'm My Own Grandpa" and the classic "Take Me Out to the Ballgame."

The five original tunes recorded by the "AS#1 Rockers," as the students are known as when they perform, include "Peace," "That's What We Notice About War," "Song About the Earth," "That's What We Do Here (The A.S. #1 Song)," and "Strange Family," a song written by Elizabeth Uding, a parent of a student at A.S. #1.

The CD, which was professionally mastered and duplicated, is available for purchase from Boesel for $8 each. Each member of the class got a copy for free.

Proceeds from sales of the CD will be donated by the class to benefit a nonprofit project: the filming of a documentary titled "Healing Planet" by a filmmaker in New Mexico. The class was also filmed for a television spot by a local nonprofit organization called ArtSpots, which produces 30-second "art commercials" to promote "positive, peaceful art," says Boesel. ArtSpots then broadcasts the spot by buying commercial air time on one of the local television stations. In addition to filming the 30-second spot, which features the kids performing "Peace," ArtSpots also produced a five-minute video of the making of the commercial. Boesel does not know when the commercial featuring his class will be aired, or on what station.

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A.S.#1 is located at 11530 12th Ave. NE in the Pinehurst neighborhood. To order a copy of the AS#1 Rockers CD, contact Boesel at 226-7347 or e-mail him at Creepingtime@hotmail.com. Boesel also has copies for sale of CDs by Creeping Time.