Search - Langley Schools Music Project :: Innocence & Despair

A Musical Tresure Almost Lost

E. K. RIGHTER | Chalfont, PA | 10/24/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is an astounding CD. The story that I read in the Vancouver Sun was that a hippie elementary school music teacher in 1976 recorded a choir of students from several schools singing classic rock/baby boomer music. The resulting album was pressed and copies were given to the students in the choir. Recently someone found the album on vinyl in a thrift store and fell in love with it. The recording was passed to radio stations and it was picked up by a record label.
While on vacation I heard the CD in a small coffee shop in downtown Vancouver, British Columbia and was immediately amazed. Covers of Wings, Beach Boys, David Bowie, Fleetwood Mac, etc. are transformed from standard FM radio fare into something more meaningful and strange as sung by children. The lyrics of Wings' "Band on the Run" come through as rather sad and downbeat yet very touching. The most arresting moment on the CD has to be a little girl singing The Eagles' "Desperado". The strangest moment is when the kids take on David Bowie's "Space Oddity". The background arragements are wonderful.
Want something unusual in your music collection? This is it!"

Ahh...two tracks in a gym

Jeff Hodges | Denton, TX United States | 01/16/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"As a ex-rock musician who has found his career in music education, it would be an understatement to say that I can relate to this disc. When walking into a performance with students, a good music teacher hopes for perfection but expects disaster. Somewhere in between these two extremes there lies what we call in the trade a "musical experience". All music teachers have a story about their musical experiences, the times when we felt something that we've have never felt before, nor since, and that cannot exist without music as a part of our lives. This feeling drives us, and help us to keep music alive in young minds. We hope to impart one or two musical experiences in the average student's career, and these keep us going in a when our job is stressful or even sometimes thankless.Hans Ferger was not only gave his students the opportunity to have as least (count 'em) nineteen musical experiences, he was smart enough to capture them on two-track.The story of Hans Ferger, the music director of the Langley Schools, reads like the familiar story of a real-life Mr. Holland. Playing gigs by night and teaching guitar by day can pay the bills if you're thrifty, but when a child comes the story changes. When presented with this situation, Ferger got teaching certification and began teaching elementary music. However, it was in the format of the classroom that he finally found his "band". Instead of a bass player, or a drummer, his format consisted of sixty-plus kids, various drums, cymbals, Orff instruments, and "modern" electric instruments. He played guitar and piano. The result of this collaboration yielded some of the most energetic, honest, and musical performances that I can think of."Innocence and Despair", in its own way, totally ROCKS, but you have to be able to recognize how children express themselves. The Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night" is an obvious example. Even the most lost kid comes in with the "S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y - NIGHT" part of the song, so much so that the bulk of the ensemble misses the entrance of the first verse. Most of them would seem to be more than happy to just jeep singing the chorus over and over and clapping quarter notes all day long.Remember, we aren't talking about the Vienna Boys Choir, here. "Innocence and Despair" is, above all else, a performance of sixty-plus public elementary school students singing hits from the sixties and seventies. The ensemble performances are of questionable intonation, timbre, and security. Most of them might bug you because of thier very nature, but think about it: an age-appropriate obstacle for some kids at this age is just to follow the melodic line. To get kids to follow a melody up and down is the goal of any elementary school music teacher, and this is something that Ferger's students are able to do almost flawlessly. They are even able to sing in harmony pretty well ("In My Room"). However, after an hour or so the average listener might not be able to keep tuned in, and this is quite understandable. Most elementary concerts don't last for more than thirty minutes or so for just this reason.

To get an idea of whether or not "Innocence and Despair" is for you, I suggest listening to "Band on the Run". The genius of Hans Ferger's arrangements meets the energy of the students head-on on this track. The song form of the original "Band on the Run" is not standard by any means, and it has some guitar playing that is integral to the song. Ferger's arrangement stays totally true to the original song form, but is able to distill the guitar licks into totally digestible and age-appropriate four-note Orff patterns. Ingenious. In addition to this, the kids really seem to LOVE the melody of the song. When they sing the line "I hope you're having fun", well, they seem to be - just listen to it.As good as the ensemble performances are, there are also a couple of standout gems on this recording, and those are the solo performances. The subject material of both "The Long and Winding Road" (as performed by Joy Jackson) and "Desperado" (as performed by Shiela Behman) would most assuredly elude the average elementary student, but I cannot imagine a more convincing and heart-rending rendition of either of these songs. Both of them are eerie, and almost unlistenable in terms of their honesty and empathy. Musicians, take note: perfection is not so important. Its not important that you hit every note every night. Its the love of what you do that drives you. How can you like both Nirvana and Frank Zappa at the same time? You simply have to recognize that both belived in what they were doing, and they were realizing thier vision to the best of thier ability. These kids LOVED the songs they were singing, and on the whole I think they believed in what thier teacher was saying. Because of this, "Innocence and Despair" is an indespensibly human recording.People hold music they choose to listen to very close to their heart. Musicians in particular are shaped by the music that they love, and the music they listen to quite literally becomes part of them and their life's experience. Ferger was able to pass on to these children was the love that he obviously had for these songs. All music educators hope to inspire their students the way that they themselves were once inspired. Inarguably, Ferger achieved this aim, and was able to share an intimate part of himself with his students. More enviable, he found ways to express himself through an unimaginable medium. His arrangements and orchestrations were both meaningful and relevant to him and well as his students, and that is where he and his students shared something thatthe average educator will never understand."

Get this - you won't be sorry.

Jeff Hodges | 01/03/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I first became aware of the LS Project when my brother's friend let me listen to their version of Rhiannon on his portable CD player. Although intrigued, I didn't even know who they were and didn't think much about them again until I saw the CD in a record store and made a spur of the moment purchase. WOW!!! I am so happy that I did. The singing and simple but dramatic instrumentation makes my scalp tingle and brings tears to my eyes. Perhaps I am more affected than some others because I was the same age as the children when they made these recordings and have special memories revolving around many of the songs they sing. But I would recommend this to anyone for its beauty and purity. Their version of David Bowie's Space Oddity is positively eerie and really captures the solemnity of someone lost in space. It's pretty weird but incredibly moving to hear a bunch of 10 year olds singing, "Tell my wife I love her very much..." Band on the Run brims with exuberance and Desperado - a song by the Eagles that I never cared for- takes on a whole different meaning when sung by then 9 year old Shela Behman. I have not gotten tired of it yet. I could go on and on as there is something special about each song. The one caveat is that because of the way it was recorded, the volume sometimes changes and it is difficult to pick up some of the subtleties that make this album so wonderful. It seems best suited to earphones where it suddenly is easy to hear everything."