Northeastern music program helps Dorchester, Roxbury high schoolers find their sound

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Breathy vocals and a scratchy, static-like effect overlay upbeat keys. “Love,” a low voice warbles, elongating the word. “Love” echoes. The multilayered fusion crescendos into a bouncy drum beat, ushered in by the voice rapping, “So we’re leading with love? Yeah, we’re leading with love.”

The track, called “Lead with Love,” is the product of Beyond Creative @ NU, a music program offered by Northeastern University and arts nonprofit Transformative Culture Project. Over seven weeks in the summer, or five weeks when school is in session, high school students from Dorchester and Roxbury learn the ins and outs of music production from experienced teaching artists.

One of the teaching artists, Terry Borderline, said he focuses on helping students discover their “sound.”

His philosophy is, “Producers create things that people have to hear and listen to and perceive in a certain way, shape or form,” he said. “But the most important thing as a producer is to know how to listen as well. One must know how to perceive their own sound in the sounds of others.”

By “sound,” Borderline said, he means the specific rhythms, instruments and beats that become the signature of musicians. To help students learn their sound, Borderline has them identify at least three elements they are drawn to in their favorite songs. For some, that might be the bass, for others it’s the piano or the vocals or the lyrics.

Usually, it takes producers years to get to this place, Borderline said, but in this program, the students have a couple of weeks. Borderline “expedites” the process, and once the students have found their sound, they begin making music.

Brooke High School student Brianna Charles (right) and Jade Reid (left). PHOTO: ALYSSA STONE/NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY

Beyond Creative @ NU began in the summer of 2022, following the two-year period that changed a lot of things for a lot of people. For students on Northeastern’s campus, that meant advocating for a better campus atmosphere in the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

“Students wanted us to specifically do a better job of recruiting students from our surrounding communities and of facilitating opportunities to learn more about racism in the city of Boston, about the communities that we encroach upon as an urban campus,” said Rebekah Moore, assistant professor of music at Northeastern.

While Moore and her colleague, Francesca Inglese, assistant professor of music at Northeastern, didn’t have control over, say, increasing the number of faculty of color on campus through hiring, they did have a say in how they marketed their programs, recruited students and included community partnerships in pedagogy to bring more diversity into music, Moore said.

Both Moore and Inglese, as ethnomusicologists, “wanted to go back and think about how we could shape accessibility of music education at the high school level, and specifically engage with the communities around Northeastern,” Inglese said.

So, Inglese and Moore worked with other Northeastern faculty and Letia Larok, executive director of the Transformative Culture Project, to establish Beyond Creative @ NU.

The program’s three-part curriculum focuses on music industry knowledge, music technology or beat making, and storytelling. Larok recruits the students, Transformative Culture Project offers up its teaching artists, and Northeastern provides access to its recording and production studios, musical instruments and learning spaces.

In the program, collaboration is key. While every student learns all the inner workings of creating an album or music in general, each has the opportunity to focus on one aspect of the process. Some students choose to write lyrics or play instruments, while others who are interested in visual arts create album covers.

So far, more than 50 students have gone through the program, releasing two albums under the name “The Chosen People.” Although performance isn’t integral to the program, the students will perform songs from their album on Nov. 21 at the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Roxbury.

Moore said the program team is looking for monetary and in-kind donations to keep their work going after witnessing the positive impact of Beyond Creative @ NU firsthand.

Borderline, the teaching artist, said he has watched students blossom throughout the program. One experienced a lightbulb moment when he found his sound. Another student, who had otherwise hung back, volunteered to write for one of the songs.

After completing the program, some students have chosen to pursue music professionally and others have enrolled in in multiple cycles of the program.

“Even if they’re only with us for one term, everybody leaves this program having found their sound. That is something that’s going to … hopefully stick with them,” Moore said. “Whenever they’re in doubt about whether or not they have a right to speak up or whether or not they belong, they can remember that they have a sound and it deserves to be heard.”