Welcome!

Age 17:  JJHS Collaborative Project,   

 Kayla Grace (producer, piano, vocals, lyrics, music)
Nate Greenspan (co-producer, guitar, background vocals, melody)

Hayden Byrne (co-producer, engineer)

“Can We” is a story-based pop song with electric and acoustic instrumentation and recorded vocals that was originally conceived for a collaborative school project. For this project, I was paired up with my two good friends, Nate Greenspan and Hayden Byrne, based on how our individual strengths (mine being songwriting and singing, Nate’s, his skill at guitar, and Hayden’s, producing) complement one another.

We began our work as a group. First we chose the key of D Major and then I began to play with chords on the piano, making and repeating random patterns. Nate responded to my sounds with some improvised phrases on the guitar and together we came up with the melody. Hayden was also present for this process and he too contributed ideas as our song began to take shape.

Once we had the melodic and harmonic structure for our song, Nate and Hayden went to work on the finer details of production while I went off on my own to begin to craft the lyrics. When I first heard the music we had created, the track spoke to me as “sad-hopeful”. Those were actually the very first words that came to my head. I sat alone at a giant grand piano and wrote about four different versions of lyrics, scrapping a bunch of them along the way, before coming out with a final version. Eventually, my initial thoughts led me to a story about someone who had made a mistake in a relationship and now wanted their partner back. I feel like many people will relate to those feelings and I hope that our song will strike a place in people’s hearts because of the familiarity of the sentiment. I brought my finished lyrics to Hayden and Nate and then, after only a couple of more minor tweaks made as a group, were ready to record.

Our piece was recorded and compiled into Logic Pro in the studio using midi software. Hayden and Nate had set up everything I needed for my time in the booth beforehand. First, we recorded each section separately beginning with Nate on guitar, Hayden on drums, and me on piano: Chorus 1, Verse 1, Chorus 2, Verse 2, and final Chorus. My lyrics, too, were recorded in these five different parts, each part having about 8 different takes, before we went back in and “comped” all of our favorite parts of the separate clips to make one seamless recording. Only after the vocals were laid down did we also add Nate on bass. Finally, Hayden acted as the main producer, editing, adding reverb, quantizing and making sure everything was on beat, while Nate and I chose tracks based on the nuances of the performances, and also eventually helped with the EQ. 

Before this experience, I had always thought of myself as a solo artist so used to working alone, but this collaborative project really opened my eyes to teamwork and its value. I really enjoyed seeing what other people’s ideas, talents and skills could bring to the table and how our interpretations of the project came together to create something that exceeded our individual contributions. In the end, what we produced was something that none of us could have accomplished on our own.

Age 16: JJHS Minecraft Composition 

All recording and production by Kayla Grace  

This piece began as part of a video game project I was asked to do. Once given the assignment, I knew immediately where to begin. My love for Minecraft as a kid was irrefutable. For years I was obsessed with the Minecraft theme song. It didn’t take long for me to decide that I wanted to create from there. What I wanted to do was to create my own music to accompany gameplay - but not only the music - I wanted to find a video of gameplay and re-envision all the sound components. I would mute the original game sounds and make all my own sound effects as well.

To accomplish my vision I used Logic Pro and an electric piano. First, I found sounds that replicated both real life and video game sounding audio. Then I found the different notes on the piano that made sounds like the different sounds I wanted for each component. Finally, I overlapped these all together.

My goal was to take the original Minecraft score (which has more of a retro aesthetic) and modernize it into something more indi-styled for the year 2022, while still preserving a nostalgic feel. What you have here is my interpretation of Minecraft audio for the year 2022 and beyond.

Age 16: Singing "Jar of Hearts" by Christina Perri

Performing Live 

at the 

Don Cesar Hotel in St. Pete Beach, FL 

Age 14: Featured in a CoCo Oil digital video commercial in 2019
Produced by Bluewater Media for social media advertising campaign.

Age 13: Singing "I'm Not the Only One," by Sam Smith, at the North Star Restaurant with Two Shots of Blue 

Accompanied by Michael Weinstein (Keyboard)