Day one of week two, summer 2016

For the second of this summer’s Girls Rock Camps, seven former campers are on duty to help document the proceedings in words and photos.

These GRITs (Girls Rock Internship Training program) formed their own band, as well (“True Grits”), and participated in the group instrument lessons.

Guitarists went over open chords.

Drummers practiced the huckleberry ice cream beat, and traded tips on how to recover from a dropped drumstick.

The vocals lesson went over breathing, and broke down the structure of Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off.

The keyboardists reviewed the basics of the triad.

The bassists found G, C and F while exploring basslines from Fall Out Boy and Twenty One Pilots.

The GRITs also tried to capture some of that first day feeling by reflecting back on what it was like to be a first-time camper.

I walked in the building on my first day as a Girls Rock camper nervous out of my mind. In general, new places and people always scare me. But when I entered the room where the other campers were gathered something must have clicked, because I felt safe in that environment and I found myself able to talk to people, which is quite an incredible feat for an extremely shy 11-year-old.

Girl: woman and powerful Rock: music and sound Girls rock: different, amazing

I arrived at the Philharmonic, and the first thing I noticed was the large-ness of everything. Then I saw the fifty campers and I was like “wooow.”

The singing like important, cause you have to just keep going and just make it up as you go along if you forget, cause the audience doesn’t know your song, or the words, so just like have fun.

Playing the drums for the first time was strange/intimidating, but my want to get better and continue it has definitely been beneficial in my life.

One of the the amazing things in the Girls Rock community is all the positivity. Everyone is so helpful and confident in each other as the week goes on, and wonderful bonds between campers, and with teachers/GRITs/volunteers start to form.