This month, FasterLouder and the Australian Children’s Music Foundation teamed up to take local star Snob Scrilla to a Sydney detention centre as a musical mentor. He conducted a two-day songwriting workshop for the girls, in which they created a song in its entirety. FL had a chat to Snob Scrilla about the experience.

Why did you volunteer to get involved with Australian Children’s Music Foundation?
The reason I got involved specifically with Australian Children’s Music Foundation is because while I have worked with some other charities in the past, I felt like working with the foundation was a good and obvious fit for me. I could use my specific set of skills in a unique way to engage a group of kids that I might not otherwise have the chance to impact or affect.

How did you feel before going to the Juniper Detention Centre?
I was actually very apprehensive about going there, because I didn’t know what to expect. I had an idea about what I wanted to do with the girls there but I wasn’t sure if they would be receptive or not. The day of the visit, I was actually more nervous than I think I have been for anything in a very long time. I reckon I was more nervous about going and presenting a workshop for 12 teenage girls than I was for performing at Homebake.

What was the project that you undertook with the girls?
The project I undertook was a songwriting workshop where we explored the techniques involved with songwriting, song and musical structure, syllable balancing, rhyming patterns and an overview of the business of songwriting professionally. We also explored ways of using art as a mode of expression and release and explored the ways in which they might want to use songwriting as a positive outlet in the future. The outcome of the workshop was the completion of a song. It was collaborated on by the entire group on a topic they chose – which was dealing with separation from family and positive progression in your life.

What kind of reaction did you get from the girls when you were working with them?
Initially when we sat down and started the workshop, the girls were extremely reserved and cautious. It took jokes, time, and initially blatant name dropping to break the ice (Jessica Mauboy has more cred than you think!). Once we got the ball rolling and we got into the thick of writing, the girls started to get really excited and come out of their shells. When they heard some of the beats that I brought with me, they got much more eager to get involved. By the end of the first day, the majority of the girls we engaged and taking part in the writing.

Because of time constraints with the centre’s schedule, we ran out of time to finish the songs and we were forced to cut off before we were done. I hadn’t planned on going back a second day at that point, because I only had a couple days left in Sydney before I was headed to California for a while. When I informed them of this, it seemed like all the energy and rapport we had built was just sucked out of the room. I left with no promise of coming back in the next couple days, so when I was able to get back the next day to finish what we had started, that seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. From the jump on that day, the girls were all involved. We were able to finish the song in its entirety: verse, chorus and bridge. By the end of the workshop, all of the girls were singing the song together with all pretense of bashfulness and stage-fright gone.

How did you feel being the detention centre and working with the girls – was it a positive experience for the girls and yourself?
Well working with the girls was an amazingly fulfilling experience. I can’t express how much I personally got out of it. And judging from the reactions and the participation I got from the girls in the end, I think it was a positive experience for them as well. Being able to widen that range of options through the use of music was incredibly rewarding for me and I hope equally so for the girls I worked with. As soon as I’m back in Australia, I definitely plan on going back to continue working with both the girls at Juniper Detention Centre and the Australian Children’s Music Foundation.