"On Stage: Taloni on Drums"A short vignette from a drummer's perspective of the Girls Rock! DC summer camp.

A while ago, I spent a week with the students of the Girls Rock! DC summer camp. The camp teaches women's empowerment through music education. During the week, the girls attend instrument practice, workshops, and band practices. At the end of the week, they performed on stage at the 9:30 Club in DC. Some of the girls didn't know how to play instruments at all at the beginning of the week, yet by the end, they had formed bands and had created decent songs. It was very intensive, with some bands working on their performances late until the night before.

Due to changes in my schedule, editing the larger piece has taken longer than I expected. I created a short vignette so I could have something to share. I wouldn't call it a trailer though, since it uses a lot of footage that probably won't be in the final video. In this video, Taloni speaks about her experiences with the camp and her band. The final piece will go into greater depth about the students' experiences.

If there was one technical thing I learned, it's that the sound system at the 9:30 Club is extremely powerful and LOUD. I had been to a concert there before but it didn't have nearly this much volume. There is some camera shake at the end because the building was literally shaking. I did my best to physically weigh down the camera by pushing down from the top, but as with gambling, the house always wins. The house also won in the sound department. I had a feed from the sound board but since it was so loud in the room, I couldn't hear the loudness distortion through my headphones. So the lesson? Next time, I need to use input levels that are so low, they probably seem too low. Fortunately, I was able to control the rest of the audio from the week.

Nonetheless, I genuinely enjoyed seeing these different girls work together to create a performance and overcome their stage fright in just one week.