Historically, the music field has been composed primarily of artists with record labels, great amounts of money and great amounts of skill. However, in recent years this has changed. Technological advancements have made it possible for more independent artists and groups to enter the field, making and distributing original music, even with limited resources.
Many high school students are benefiting from this trend.
White Flower is an upstarting band composed of six Liberty High School students: Benjamin Henry, 10 (drums), Bennet Halverson, 10 (lead singer), Caleb Hoth, 10 (bass), Henry McDonald, 10 (keyboard), Kevin Arzu, 10 (rhythm guitar) and Vitali Beneke (lead guitar).
“We’ve always had a thing for music and talked about creating a band, and we knew that all of us had some skill with playing our instruments,” Hoth said. After seeing other bands perform at a local bar, White Flower was inspired to do the same. The band has since performed live twice at Tavern Blue in Coralville.
“Parker and Sam from DOV [Day on Venus] told us about how Tavern Blue hosts open mic nights. We figured it would be good to kind of dip our toes in the pool to see if we could swim. After our first show, we all agreed that we really loved performing,” Halverson said.
One challenge faced by young artists and groups such as White Flower is navigating busy schedules in order to find time and space to practice all together.
“Since there’s seven of us, a lot of the time we have overlapping schedules… we basically have two practice areas, either at my house to kind of have almost a studio setup with sound pads on the walls, and then we have Kevin’s garage… we basically text in the groupchat ‘hey, are there any times available this week?’…and then we’ll kind of set times from there,” Hoth said.
Hoth and Halverson agree that, even with limited resources and practice, performing is a very rewarding and impactful experience.
“I mean, we haven’t had a ton of experience…but it’s a lot of fun to share what you’ve been working on,” said Hoth. ”It’s one thing to go up there and perform, but it’s another thing to go up there and have people enjoy your performance,” added Halverson.
Halverson is an individual artist as well as a member of the young band.
“To make music, I originally used BandLab because it was free, and then… I got GarageBand, and I’m using that, which it’s still free, and then I use DistroKit to distribute music to streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, [and] Amazon Music,” Halverson said.
Halverson believes that the process of making music is a good outlet for creativity.
“When I get bored, instead of just scrolling reels on my phone, it gives me something like a project to work towards,” Halverson said.
DOV is another band composed of majority Liberty students: Isabella Nelson, 11 (lead singer), Jace Gent, 9 (Bass), Mason Fedler (solo guitar), Parker McGowan, 9 (rhythm guitar) and Sam Bevins, 9 (drums).
Nelson finds connections to others through music and appreciates the band’s ability to depict emotions through their music and performances.
“I like that music is like a universal language. Even if you don’t understand what someone’s saying, you understand the message they’re trying to portray,” said Nelson.
Alongside bands, many individual artists and producers have entered the music scene as well. Maxwell Cooper, 10, is an artist specializing in jazz music. Cooper recently performed at Northern Illinois University with many of the top high school jazz musicians from around the country. Cooper also produces his own music which he releases on Spotify and Apple Music.
“A producer is someone who uses technology and musical instruments to compose a song. You have to learn different techniques and how to compose…and also having a good ear,” Cooper said. “I can hear something and almost immediately know what to add or remove.”
Although music is currently a hobby for many, some are working for it to become more.
“One thing that we want people to know is that we’re starting to actually get serious, to try to perform in professional opportunities and be able to showcase our skill,” Hoth said.
Cooper aims to study jazz music at Berklee College of Music or Northern Illinois University to either become a performer or obtain a music business degree to pursue both performing and production.
