While many teens already know to go to Yahoo! Music Vidoes, Youtube, and Myspace for music videos, they may not know of these new resources.
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Are you passionate about music? Or are you interested in sitting in on discussion from some of YALSA’s most music-focused librarians? Finally, are you going to ALA Annual? If so, YALSA’s Teen Music Media Interest Group has a few things planned for you.

First will be the YALSA Music Interest Group social event on Sunday, June 29 from 7-10pm at The Grove in Anaheim. Official “National Rock & Roll Library Tour” band The High Strung will be playing

The YALSA Music Interest Group’s official meeting will take place Monday the 30th from 4-5:30 PM. It is taking place in the Hyatt’s Imperial room and will consist of interest group business mixed with lively discussion about teens, music, and how they matter to your library.

~Joseph Wilk
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Teen

The way music can be made or listened to may soon go through some radical changes.  What might today’s teens have in store for their musical landscape?

South Korean engineers at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) have developed a new audio format, MT9, in which listeners can exercise greater control over their music.  Is the guitar too much?  Turn it down.  More drums?  Turn it up.  Want to mute the vocals and do it karaoke-style?  Sure thing.  That’s because, unlike MP3s, MT9 files are comprised of six audio tracks that can be mixed independently by the user.  For teens who grew up in the age of mash-ups and Guitar Hero, this is a logical progression.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes before this concept becomes more widespread in how music is distributed.
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A recent news article demonstrated how video games are fast becoming an international platform for musicians to showcase their work. If your library is using free software like Game Maker or the RPG Toolkit to develop games with teens, consider partnering them up with teen artists to develop the soundtrack.

Teens have access to a number of resources to help them understand where video game music comes from and what makes it successful. (more…)

A recent press release clued me into the mission of the Hip Hop Chronicle, a newsletter designed to bring teens and literacy together through hip hop. Along with hip hop news, reviews, and some exclusive interviews, The Hip Hop Chronicle presents teens with intriguing information life, literature, and other important topics that will carry teens through to adulthood.

When I noticed that The Hip Hop Chronicle was available for free to partnering public schools, I called to ask if libraries also could tap into this new resource. In response, founder DeNea R. Conner developed a set of partnership guidelines by which you can make The Hip Hop Chronicle available at your library.

A sample issue is available at this link. If you like what you see, you can download the Hip Hop Chronicle Library Partnership Form and fax the completed form to DeNea Conner at 1-866-810-8524. The Hip Hop Chronicle is a quarterly publication, with the next issue coming out this month.

Remember Footloose? While getting recent news about high schools banning certain types of dancing at prom, I was reminded of Kevin Bacon’s struggle against the town’s ban on rock ‘n roll music and dancing. Banning dancing–or certain kinds of dancing–has long been a way to control “undesirable elements” within public space, long before Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips were censored for the good of teen girls all over America (not to discount teens of any other gender who might have found Elvis’s pelvis alluring). (more…)

I’ve recently been fortunate to give a variety of presentations about teens, music, and what that relationship means for your library. As Kelly mentioned in the last YALSA post, I’ll be live broadcasting an online stream for the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County’s teen retreat. For anyone interested in tuning in (see Kelly’s post for details), here are the presentation materials I’ll be using.

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If you’re free today, Wednesday, May 14 at 3:30pm EST, tune into ustream.tv for a presentation by Librarian Joseph Wilk on connecting with teens and music at your library. Go to www.ustream.tv, type in ‘plcmc’ in the upper right corner where it says ’search here’, choose the ‘PLCMC Teens 1′ channel when it says ‘live’ and you’re in! You’ll need headphones and the latest Adobe Flash Player to view it. Think of the possibilities for using such a tool-gaming with other libraries, teens giving hosting their own radio show, author talks, etc. For more ideas, check out a past post by Linda Braun on the YALSA blog about Ustream and some other ideas and similar software from School Library Journal. Feel free to share your own experiences.

This past month has witnessed a lot of news and developments in the world of digital music, whether major acquisitions, new studies on teen habits, and cool new technologies. Here’s an extensive rundown… (more…)

Congratulations to the winner and finalists of the Teen Tech Week Best promotional song contest! Our teen contestants created songs promoting Teen Tech Week and the technology resources that the library has to offer. Songs were judged on creativity, lyrical construction, effectives of promoting technologies in libraries, and overall craftsmanship. The submissions were all very creative, drawing from a wide spectrum of musical talent and style.

Michelle Visent, a student at Felix Varela Senior High School in Miami, Florida, is the winner of the 2008 Teen Tech Week Song Contest! Check out her winning song, “The Library”!

Second place went to Bryan Aguilar, also a student at Felix Varela Senior High School in Miami, Florida, for his song, “You’re a Handy One.”

Leon Moskatel, Anne McGrath, and Sarah Brandon of North Hollywood, California, came in third with “I Find It at the Library.”

Fourth place goes to Ben Heston and Josh Mattison, Longview, Washington, for “Overloading the Outlet: Library Song.”

You can

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Stay tuned for Teen Tech Week 2009! Have a contest idea? Submit it to Stephanie Iser, committee chair for the 2009 celebration. stephanie.iser@gmail.com.