You never know where the talent lies. Sometimes it’s hidden in plain sight like small, suburban Stroudsburg High School. It’s time this talent is recognized beyond our school’s community.
During the “Songs of a Generation” cultural assembly, Tyler Finney, ’25 and Victoria Campbell, ’25, wrote and directed the concert choir, band, and orchestra to an original song titled “I’ll Be Alright,” receiving praise from peers and showcasing the immense talent in the SHS community.
The theme of the assembly was creative expression: music, dance, poetry, and other art forms crossing generations of ethnic culture. By guiding the SHS music department through the performance of an original song written by Finney’s parents, Maria and Micha Finney, he fully embraced the concept showing generations of talent.
“My mother had written it back in the day for her church’s choir and was shocked by how much everyone loved it,” explained Finney. “My Dad helped write the music for it and last year, I found the original song on my dad’s computer.”
A year after discovering the song, Milan George, ‘25, approached Finney about using the song for the Black History assembly as SHS.
Finney had been looking for a chance to show off the song since its discovery and when he approached his parents for permission to use the song, they were shocked to hear the news.
“They were like ‘Really? They really want to do this song?’ My mom never thought the song was good because she was never much of a singer herself,” Finney shared, “She said to do it and to make it good.”
Now with a chance to perform his parents’ original piece, Finney was faced with the task of transferring the song to sheet music to make it more authentic. He reached out to Campbell for her help creating the version of “I’ll Be Alright” the student body heard.
Finney adjusted the song to make it a version of his own. He adjusted the lyrics, taking some parts out while adding others in. His goal was to keep the same melodies in the song and update it while keeping it true to his parent’s version.
Campbell wrote the sheet music within the span of a month while she was preparing for regional orchestra and chorus as well as other commitments.
While she was originally approached to write the vocal parts, upon hearing the song, she realized there was more to the song than just vocals. Finney expressed that he wanted parts for the cello, viola, violin, and piano, all of which Campbell completed.
Faced with all this work to do, Campbell quickly realized that in her experience writing compositions, this was the most challenging work she had done for a project ever.
“I saw that it was going to be a big project already and thought we might as well make it bigger,” Campbell expressed.
From there, Campbell composed parts for a string trio, two trumpets, a trombone, and a drum set.
The music was transferred to sheet music by ear. This means Campbell had to listen to the original recording and recognize the notes, tempo, and other musical elements to create the sheet music. Transcribing music by ear is not an easy feat, requiring a deep understanding of rhythm, key, and many other musical elements.
The process began with writing the vocal parts to the song because they needed it for the vocalists to start practicing. She added harmonies to the music and then began to write the instrumental parts.
This was done by identifying the musical time signature and how many beats would be in each measure. Campbell then worked on finding what key the music was in by taking the song’s starting note and singing her way down the musical scale until she found a match.
“It was more complicated in Tyler’s case because the song was in a minor key meaning it has more steps to it,” she explained.
The key signature tells the composer how many flats or sharps are in the song or, as Campbell explained, the kind of “vibe” the song has.
Campbell has composed music by ear as a hobby in the past, but still found the process to be challenging. She was surprised by the amount of work it included, but excited when the composition came together.
“I learn music by ear, meaning I can play something back like an echo after hearing it with no sheet music to go off of,” Campbell explained. “It’s a skill I developed because I couldn’t read sheet music until I was older than most, so I had to learn how to play music by ear.”
The final step to this multi-generational performance was spreading the music to the talented musicians in the Stroudsburg band, orchestra, and choir.
Finney began to figure out how they would get everyone they needed to make this project as big as possible. He reached out to Janice Lee, the choir director and one of Stroudsburg’s music teachers, for permission to use the school choir.
When Finney was tasked with finding talented students to sing solos in the performance he reached out to Kira Smith-Stewart, ’26, Laila Carrol, ‘26, and Alena Murray, ‘25. Together they worked to figure out who would sing what parts and Finney worked with the girls to help them perfect the performance.
Both Finney and Campbell conducted SHS students in both the learning process and the school-wide assembly. Finney conducted the choir, and Campbell conducted the instrumentals.
She explained how it was her first time tackling this endeavor and the difficulties she faced as a newcomer. There was the challenge of learning how to keep musicians on beat by creating a pattern in which she waved her hands. When keeping beat one is a motion down, two is in, three is out, and four is a motion up.
“I can’t do that. It’s not ingrained in my brain yet, so I was kind of just snapping my fingers,” she admitted.
With keeping the beat also comes the task of queuing the instrumentalists; there is no room for error when it comes to organizing entrances.
“You have to be locked in,” she explained, “You have to understand exactly what each part is doing at any given point in time and be ready to give that queue.”
The final step was showing the students and staff at Stroudsburg High School their hard work by putting on a performance that blew away students at SHS. They received a loud applause and were showered in compliments after the cultural assembly.
Their performance of “I’ll Be Alright” spread a sense of empowerment and hope throughout the school.
“I hope the school would, as the song says, be alright. No matter what happens, they have someone with them,” Finney expressed. “It was also my message to fellow seniors. That when graduation comes, we’ll all be alright.”
Campbell has been a part of many musical groups since her early childhood. She has participated in theater in and out of school, played the viola, joined the school’s show choir, and many more. Campbell plans to attend college to follow her passion for music. She shares how her experience working with Finney has helped her discover she wants to learn how to conduct correctly and find projects like “I’ll Be Alright” to tackle next.
She has expressed how she is grateful to Finney for this opportunity and hopes it will steer her in the right direction when it comes to applying to colleges in the future.
Finney doesn’t plan on attending school for any musical majors but has participated in SHS’s choir and choral groups.
While the students and faculty of SHS are not shocked by the talent they see roaming the halls, it’s important to share the effect these gifted students have on the community. Both Finney and Campbell put on a performance that spread a sense of togetherness through SHS. Together, they brought an old song that once lifted up a community to a new generation of listeners.
So, in 10 years when the radio is playing and the names “Tyler Finney” and “Victoria Campbell” are heard worldwide, know that Stroudsburg High School knew them first and knew the impact they would have on the world someday.
