Common Chords: Words, Music, and the Ways We Express Ourselves is an interactive, multi-sensory installation that invites Angelenos of all ages to explore how words and music help us express ourselves and connect with one another. Designed to travel to LAPL branches, it has two parts that work together: Inspiration and Composition. Just as a good conversation depends on both listening and speaking, music is made in the balance between hearing and expressing. Common Chords is built on these themes, inviting visitors to listen first, then compose, practicing the give-and-take that connects us through both language and music.
The Inspiration and Listening Station
This station celebrates the library as a place to hear and discover. Visitors browse curated books from LAPL's collection, from picture books like Your Name Is a Song by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow and The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds to songwriting guides, music theory, and fiction for adults. A listening station with headphones features curated playlists from LAPL's digital music library Freegal. This station also provides information about how to borrow instruments from the library, how to access music programming, and links to free digital creative tools.
The Composition Station
The Composition Station turns listening into making, through three hands-on activities:
Rhythm and Words: Visitors pick magnetic words ("watermelon", "leap", "cozy“) and match their syllables to electronic drum pads labeled with rhythmic notation, discovering that every word has a beat. Strung together, words become rhythmic sentences.
Melody: Using color coded xylophones and/or keyboards (for use with headphones depending on noise concerns) with Boomwhackers, and a giant corresponding magnetic music staff, visitors place magnetic words on notes to write their own melodies. Expressive magnetic elements such as tempo, staccato and fermatas at available to shape the melodies.
Common Chords is intentionally analog and screen-light, creating a space where families, caregivers, teens, and elders make things with their hands and voices, side by side. It's built for accessibility, including non-speaking individuals, multilingual families, and people with physical disabilities drawing on our clinical and teaching expertise. Participants leave inspired by their own ability to express themselves through words and music and equipped with new writing and music skills.
Common Chords leaves the library with the lasting legacy of a curated musical resource guide, as well as a multi-media video featuring selected original compositions, songs and poetry created by the community during the run of the exhibition.
Expression: Visitors listen to wordless music across genres and cultures, consider how the music makes them feel and what it makes them want to express, then write lyrics on paper or a typewriter. Prompts, graphic organizers, and other writing support is provided.
Who We Are
Leah Paul is a classically trained musician with a degree from the University of Michigan School of Music. Her original music and playing has been featured on NPR, the LA Times and countless film and television shows. Her children’s program has been featured on On Air w/ Ryan Seacrest, The Today Show and Apple Curated playlists.
She is the founder of Sweet Potato Music, an early childhood music program beloved by educators, parents and celebrities throughout Los Angeles. Additionally Leah has been teaching instrumental music and contracts her music program with the LA Public Library, Children’s Mental Health Foundation and Cinecamp LA.
Róisín Ching, MS CCC-SLP is a licensed speech-language pathologist and founder of Echo Speech Therapy, a family-centered speech therapy practice in Los Angeles County. She is passionate about helping people improve their communication and connections with others. Róisín believes in neurodiversity-affirming practices and works with children and adults experiencing a variety of challenges and disabilities including dyslexia, autism, speech sound disorders, and language delays. Róisín is trained in the Orton-Gillingham instructional approach, holds a masters degree in communication disorders, and a bachelors degree in Spanish Literature. She enjoys singing and playing piano in her free time.
Together, we founded PopLit Music, a company focused on improving literacy through music. PopLit Music produces content (e.g. songs, worksheets, and videos) for speech-language pathologists, teachers, and parents that support literacy instruction.
Róisín and Leah are passionate about human connection and communication. Together, they have been inspired by the LAPL call for artists to design a playful, hands-on experience that help people of every age discover that rhythm, melody, and words are all ways of communicating and connecting.