open hearts open minds program
Rose City Lyricists
Steve offers concise & useful theory lessons in music lab (relative minors, how circle of 5th works, substitutions in chord progressions, etc), and TJ offers word-based lessons in Lyric Writing (images, imagery, metaphor, metonymy—word choice—meter—etc), and the men study music, compose songs, and grow as comrades and mentors for each other.
Stay tuned for concerts inside.
Steve Pings Rawley
Steve is a musician, composer and arranger, currently playing upright bass with Portland folk-rock act the Prairie Benders. Previously he taught private music lessons and played bass, wrote, and arranged for Pomo Leviathan, Latee and the Triage, the Wholistic Ramblers and Totem Soul, and played lead alto sax with Tejano great Poli Chavez. Steve is a champion for the power of art to transform lives, bridge divides, and nurture community. He also works as a letter carrier for the USPS. In his free time Steve enjoys baking bread, going to shows, hiking, mountaineering, and playing in the snow.
TJ Jaffe
TJ enjoys the strange and beautiful properties of letters and numbers. For example, when she
wrote the date “2/22/22” on the whiteboard of the high school classroom where she was
teaching English, she also wrote “Desmond Tutu Day,” which, unfortunately, doesn’t exist yet.
Nevertheless, on that date she honored the late great theologian and human rights leader from
South Africa by teaching dialogues from The Book of Joy. The joy Archbishop Tutu and the
Dalai Lama describe in that book is an important companion to the revolutionary love that
guides TJ’s life. Her good luck began in Salem, Oregon, where she was born. It increased in
Talbot, Portland, and Eugene, where she graduated from South Eugene High School. It
increased again in Chicago, where she went to college and graduate schools, taught, and
raised her five children. She likes to read, write, play music, and climb mountains when she’s
not teaching Lyric Writing at CRCI. The most dangerous people TJ knows are not incarcerated.
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