Results
2024 Spring Your Voice is Power Hip Hop is Everything Competition
Top 5 Winners
1st Place
Zhiheng S., 9th grade
Teacher: M. O'Donnell
Ithaca High School, Ithaca City School District
Ithaca, NY
About this song, I'm not really sure what to say about it. It all started when I heard some good music from some rhythm games, like Sphere by Creo, or Explores by Hinkik. After that I spent two days just going to the sound gallery to find some dubstep, trap or house music. I found a lot, and noted them down, but now the problem is I can't mash them all together, it sound terrible. Meanwhile, at the same time, I was kinda losing sleep, so Sometimes I just listen to Minecraft background music to relax. As days go by, before I even realize, my Earsketch music came more and more close to Minecraft C418 music. After I found out that it became like this, which is around the fifth day of making music, I just choose to continue, and I adjusted the effects and the volume for the chilling theme a background music should have, but mixed with some power tune. Finally, after more than a week, I finished the music by adding some customized sounds. For me myself, it sounds ok, just a bit unfortunate that I had to cut the length a bit into 2 minutes. In this whole process, I enjoyed everything. It was really nice >:^).
2nd Place
Theo S., 10th grade
Teacher: C. Schwartz
Lane Tech College Prep,
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago, IL
Coming into this remix I wanted to enter it around an instrument I have been playing for most of my life, the Korean traditional barrel drum or 'buk'. I haven't heard it at all in any music outside of the Korean drumming class I go to every Saturday and I think it has some really great sounds and rhythms that could complement contemporary music. So I recorded myself playing a single hit on the drum and rim and made beats out of it. Many of the drumming rhythms I have learned in my class are powerful, fast paced ones so I wanted to create a fast pace beat to compliment it. I settled on an electronic sound but around halfway through the song I decided to switch the beat into a funkier, cleaner sound with less electronic elements and effects. Finally, I wanted to add a drum solo section accompanied by some discrete 808 beats. My overall goal with this remix is to prove that Korean and Asian instruments can have a place in modern music. Like I said before, I haven’t heard it outside of my Korean drumming classes but I really do think it could match well with a lot of music so hopefully someone that listens to my remix will learn about a new instrument that they've never heard before.
3rd Place
Phil C., 9th grade
Teacher: M. O'Donnell
Ithaca High School, Ithaca City School District
Ithaca, NY
I started this song simply as a school requirement to compose a song on Earsketch. Meanwhile, I wanted to make a quick-tempo song as one of the background music for my own YouTube videos.
A big challenge was I found only three more pieces that were similar to each other and could be mixed with the main melody to create the song. I had to try to use different background sounds and combinations to keep the song from being boring.
Honorable Mentions
Honorable Mention
Winnie M., 9th grade
Teacher: M. O'Donnell
Ithaca High School, Ithaca City School District
Ithaca, NY
I wanted to create a kind of calm-angry-calm sense of the song so it had different levels. I liked the kind of mix of the delicate strings with the more contrasting drums and I thought that it was really interesting.
Honorable Mention
Joshua R., 12th grade
Teacher: C. Parrish
Treutlen County High School, Treutlen County Schools
Soperton, GA
The inspiration for this remix stimmed from a desire to learn coding and my love for music. Throughout my remix and code you can see as I learn more and more about how to express what I am thinking through code and music. In my community, rap and hip hop are very main stream and people seem to very rarely deviate from that genre. I would say this music falls under an EDM esque genre but with a spin. I like to think that this remix is a cry out saying "There's so much more to music than you think."
Honorable Mention
Sydney G., 12th grade
Teacher: Dr. Wong
Mercy Academy
Louisville, KY
My song is mostly instrumental but I wanted to create something that felt uplifting and inspiring. I know a lot of people, especially girls, struggle with confidence, and having music that tells us we are good enough can be very impactful. Even simple messages can be empowering, which is what I was aiming to do here.
Honorable Mention
Myles H., 9th grade
Teacher: T. Jones
Global Impact Academy, Fulton County Schools
Fairburn, GA
I wanted to make this song to inspire people to have fun and dance instead of trying to stay serious. This song is meant to help you relax and to take things one at a time while still having fun on while on your own time.
2024 Spring Your Voice is Power Hip Hop is Everything Competition
Top 5 Winners
1st Place
Sandy R., 8th grade
Teacher: J. Rivas
Alliance College-Ready Middle Academy 4, Alliance College-Ready Public Schools
Los Angeles, CA​​
The inspiration for my remix was our upcoming culmination and how in two months we will be entering highschool. An explanation of the message in my music is that sometimes change can be terrifying and sometimes we have to get past that so we can get better. Most people know that change can end up being just fine or maybe make you feel even better. So I wanted to involve some sort of message of that change into the music.
2nd Place
Fariya S., 10th grade
Teacher: J. Williams
New Utrecht High School,
New York City Public Schools
Brooklyn, NY
The song talks about the tough situations faced by women worldwide. Even though the world has become more open and equal, women are often seen as inferior, especially due to gender roles. The line, "single mothers" highlights how independent single moms are often judged harshly. Women are limited to roles involving motherhood and domestic jobs. Even when they get jobs, these fields, especially STEM, are usually dominated by men. To add, Alicia Keys flawlessly mentions "Hustlers" and "Underdogs", she's talking about these women who defy social expectations and break gender roles for a better community.
3rd Place
Thaddues L., 9th grade
Teacher: D. Le
Brea Olinda High School
Brea Olinda Unified School District
Brea, CA
4th Place
Jordan L., 11th grade
Teacher: C. Sellers
Whitfield School
St. Louis, MO
I chose to make my song about climate change. I am very passionate about this topic and believe all eyes need to be on this international phenomenon. My song is a rap song and includes a beat switch roughly a minute into the song.
5th Place
Ellen K. and Samantha O., 10th grade
Teacher: M. Camarena
Maywood Center for Enriched Studies
Los Angeles Unified School District
Maywood, CA
We have been inspired to create this song for the underrepresented girls and women in the male dominated Computer Science Field. Also, this song is to support those interested in getting into this field who may feel intimidated to do so. It is for those who might have doubts about whether they belong in coding. We hope to show girls and women their passion for technology and coding is necessary in our digital age. Our goal is to ignite confidence in women and to remind them that they can overcome any obstacles they might face. Overall we hope those who listen to this song realize their value and potential to pursue their interest in the computer science industry.
Honorable Mentions
Honorable Mention
Rick H. and Brandon H., 11th grade
Teacher: M. Strine
Monessen High School
Monessen City School District
Monessen, PA
This song is all about people needing to step up to address racial inequities. Students are too often judged by society, systems, and schools. Yes, even teachers sometimes have underlying biases that they need to confront in order to successfully reach all students. Equity in education means giving extra support and extra opportunities to those who have historically been underserved. Until this happens and people speak up about racism, judgments will continue, and certain students will again lose out as they too often have in the past!
Honorable Mention
Almaelle A., 10th grade
Teacher: A. Gritsenko
Palm Beach Gardens High School
Palm Beach County School District
Palm Beach, FL
My song represents the story of black people and the many things they have accomplished over the years it gives them recognition for their many achievements and successes with the artist Jayz to describe the many careers and accomplishments of black people and tell them that to become something they have to reach for it and get up to work for it and the speech adds on to let us know we must start now and we need to start now.
Honorable Mention
Idan B., 6th grade
Teacher: J. O'Connor
New York City Public Schools
New York City, NY
I remixed Alicia Keys's song "Underdog" to emphasize how much trouble some people are going through. I included motivational parts of the lyrics to represent hope, and I made an aggressive drop to represent the hardships discriminated people have to deal with. I chose to remix “Underdog” specifically, because I really liked how the song raised awareness to the people less noticed and/or less understood. I think it is a great song in general, and has a great message as well. I felt that I could spread that message of equity by remixing the song and emphasizing the parts that I thought conveyed the message the best.
Honorable Mention
Jack R., 11th grade
Teacher: C. Sellers
Whitfield School
St. Louis, MO
Originally, I composed this song without thinking about a message, which would come later. I found the Y13 strings and kind of fell in love with them, so I built the rest of the song off of them. My plan for the song was to add a new element every two measures or so for a steady progression. I also liked the idea of having drums with the strings, so I added two sets.
Honorable Mention
Jacquelin N., 7th grade
Teacher: Le
Brea Junior High
Brea-Olinda Unified School District
Brea, CA
My song promotes equality because it uses repetition to show that life is hard, but it is what we make it to be. I remixed multiple artist's songs, for example, Khalid, Pharrell, and more. My song promotes equality because everyone has their own story, but it’s the decisions we make that impact it. Everyone should be treated equally because we are all unique people with no limits.
2024 Summer Teach to the Beat Competition
Best Overall Remix
Brian Fredricks
Rex Mill Middle School, Clayton County Public Schools
Rex, Georgia
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Creativity in Code
Raymond Herek
Williamston High School. Williamston Community Schools
Williamston, Michigan
Honorable Mention
Maria Camerena
Maywood Center for Enriched Studies, Los Angeles Unified School District
Los Angeles, California
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Honorable Mention
Connie Dunn
Stovall Middle School, Aldine ISD
Houston, Texas