{"id":11994,"date":"2026-07-21T20:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T01:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/?p=11994"},"modified":"2026-08-02T20:33:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T01:33:21","slug":"listen-by-plucking-strings-and-pressing-keys-cherubs-connect-through-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/07\/listen-by-plucking-strings-and-pressing-keys-cherubs-connect-through-music\/","title":{"rendered":"LISTEN: By plucking strings and pressing keys, cherubs connect through music"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe title=\"LISTEN: Cherubs connect through music by plucking strings and pressing keys: by Medill Cherubs\" width=\"800\" height=\"400\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" allow=\"autoplay; encrypted-media\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?visual=true&#038;url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F2365437713&#038;show_artwork=true&#038;maxheight=1000&#038;maxwidth=800\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[CHERUBS AUDIO THEME MUSIC]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JAYEN SHAH: After a long day of working, it\u2019s just a good way to unwind.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">That was Jayen Shah, a cherub from Princeton, New Jersey. His performance of Viva la Vida by Coldplay during Cherubs Got Talent captivated his audience.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">JAYEN SHAH: It was just awesome because you could see how happy the room was and I was glad I was able to help bring that song to life and it really just showed how great this cherubs community is.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cherub Rania Raj from London has also found community through her music.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">RANIA RAJ: We were all in the great room after check-in and I started playing Billy Joel with some other people. Then everyone started singing and then we started playing some other songs and it was just a really nice moment to have.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some just like to sit and listen in amazement to cherub Claire Lin. She has won several classical piano competitions since she was 10. She\u2019s also part of her local chamber orchestra in Reno, Nevada.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">CLAIRE LIN: I think it\u2019s nice for people here to be complementing my playing because a lot of people here are just very nice. Like, people here are willing to talk with you, let you know how they feel about the things that you\u2019re doing. So I think it\u2019s really nice and it does make me feel more welcomed here because they\u2019re happy to hear me practice and it\u2019s not considered a disturbance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Regardless of the style, music is more than what\u2019s on the page.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">RANIA RAJ: Music is everywhere. It\u2019s so central to the way that people go about their lives. You hear it every single day. It can be something that you enjoy by yourself, where you can be kind of alone with your thoughts or it can be something that brings people together and it really encompasses every emotion and you can express all of that with just a couple of notes on a piano. I just think that it\u2019s so beautiful that you can express all of those emotions without having to use a single word.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Reporting from Cherubs Audio, this is Scarlett Ashford. See you next time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">[CHERUBS AUDIO THEME MUSIC]<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Music provided by @prettyjohn1 on Pixabay<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Playing music in the Great Room helped cherubs find community after long days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":11098,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[709],"class_list":["post-11994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-audio"],"acf":[],"authors":[{"term_id":709,"user_id":290,"is_guest":0,"slug":"ashford26","display_name":"Scarlett Ashford","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6cbc749cbfe2cec98a4e168fdc0a0fd04f0c600ab33f06682b5c322f215b3f23?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"","user_url":"","last_name":"Ashford","first_name":"Scarlett","job_title":"","description":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11994"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12972,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11994\/revisions\/12972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11994"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cherubs.medill.northwestern.edu\/2026\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=11994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}