A Word from Dr. Kevin Vigil on the All-County Guitar Festival/Assessment in Virginia
Dr. Kevin Vigil is the 2014 Shenandoah Teacher of the Year for Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS). He’s the Guitar & Music Theory Director at Heritage High School, Chair of the Virginia Music Educators Association Guitar Council & All-Virginia Guitar Ensemble, and Member-At-Large of the NAfME Council for Guitar Education.
Each year, among other things, LCPS puts on a terrific All-County Festival and Assessment event for its students. Here at our GCcom headquarters in Austin, Texas, we’re just a week away from our own district Concert & Sight Reading event. Despite the challenges of organizing an event like this, we’ve found the experience to be incredibly beneficial for students and teachers alike, and totally worth the effort. We reached out to Dr. Kevin Vigil for his perspective.
Growth, Change, and Lessons Learned Since 2005
"In 2005, I was honored to be invited as a performer/clinician for the LCPS All-County High School Guitar Festival, which led to my current position there as a guitar teacher. My experience as a guest artist led me to think of other ways to shape this festival. With the support of our administration and the dedication of our incredible guitar faculty, the LCPS Guitar Festival & Assessment has become a great event for our students.
Benjamin Verdery was the first artist I invited. At that time, our one-day event consisted of student performances, coachings and a concert by the guest artist, a short break, then more student performances and coaching. Benjamin and I both agreed it's quite difficult to perform with only a 30-minute lunch break after coaching several ensembles, which led to changes for the following year.
Andrew York was the next artist we brought; he was more of an Artist-in-Residence. He stayed for a few days, working with students in various schools, and gave a concert on the final day. That was certainly a step in the right direction.
The Tantalus Quartet came in 2008, which offered a new opportunity to restructure our event. Tantalus performed an opening concert and worked with the students the next day. Since we had four artists, each one of them could act as a clinician. The idea of having quartets then became a model for several of our events. We've had the Canadian Guitar Quartet three times, the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Texas Guitar Quartet, and the Oregon Guitar Quartet. The magic number seems to be four: when we don’t have quartets, we still usually have four performing guest artist/clinicians.
Loudoun County has grown exponentially since 2005. We've grown from seven high schools to 15, with a 16th opening 2019 – 2020. All of our high schools have guitar programs. With this growth, we've started splitting the festival day into morning and afternoon sessions, with half of the schools participating in each.
This growth created scheduling challenges that became great opportunities for the students. With four clinicians working with four different ensembles in four different rooms, what could the other students do? We added four more clinicians, each presenting 30-minute workshops on various topics, with students rotating from one workshop to the next. Our sessions usually include a guitar maker, with other workshops including members of military bands, guitar history, careers in music, guitar and health, music business, technique, song writing, music therapy, improvisation and guitar technology.
This Year
If you were a student participating in this year’s festival/assessment, this is what you would have experienced: The opening concert featured soloists Júlio Ribiero Alves, Stephen Lochbaum and Ryan Book, then Patrick Roux conducted the world-premiere of his new work Heart, Soul and Passion (commissioned and dedicated to the students of Loudoun County) with a student guitar orchestra comprising the top four students from each school. The next day, you'd check-in, have a short time to tune and warm up, have a coaching with one of our guest artists, do a group sight reading assessment, have a brief break for concessions or to visit the vendor (Music and Arts), then go through four workshops: Music Therapy (Patricia Winters), Entrepreneurism (Fiaza Alam), Musicology (Leilani Dade) and Guitar Making (Zebulon Turrentine). You'd have pizza, then go to the auditorium, where half of the county’s school ensembles would play in the non-competitive assessment concert. Our four guest artists assessed the student performances and assigned a rating with written comments.
The LCPS Guitar Festival/Assessment is not only for our guitar students; the entire community is invited. The opening concert is free and open to the public, and I'm always amazed by who travels to attend it.
This year’s event took place in two locations. The opening concert was hosted by this year’s event chair, Kareem McCullough, at Loudoun County High School. The festival/assessment day was hosted at Heritage High School (my school). Parent and student organizations supplied the necessary volunteers. The Parent Teacher Association at LCHS paid Patrick Roux’s airfare, and the Heritage Music Boosters organized the food for students and staff, ran the concessions, and organized the student volunteers. Student volunteers received volunteer hours from the Tri-M Music Honors Society, Student Council Association, National Honors Society, National English Honors Society and the Interact Club (International Rotary).
Benefits
What are the benefits of having a County-Wide Guitar Festival? Everything! Students enjoy an incredibly enriching experience, meet new friends, and leave this event excited about new possibilities. The community has the opportunity to enjoy live music performed by professionals and students. Parents are directly engaged, and volunteerism comes to the forefront. The guitar teachers beam with pride with a sense of fulfillment for a job well done and a new vision for the future of their programs. This is a win-win for all involved!
If you do not have an All-County or All-District event in your area and you would like to have one, start small and build from there. As you gain community and administrative support, you will be able to offer incredible opportunities for your students."
Establishing Classroom Culture
We have been super impressed by the guitar classes we've seen at Bedichek Middle School in Austin under the direction of Mr. Phil Swasey. Guests come through Austin frequently to observe guitar classes, and after the second visitor in the same month specifically commented on how peaceful and productive Mr. Swasey's classrooms were, we decided to ask him if he might share some insights into his approach. Here's what he had to say:
When asked by Matthew Hinsley to write a blog entry on 'Establishing Classroom Culture' for GuitarCurriculum.com, I was simultaneously flattered and terrified. This is my 8th year teaching guitar at Bedichek Middle School in South Austin, and after years of struggle and experimentation, I finally feel that learning is happening at the highest levels in my guitar classes. Although I have much work still to do in this regard, it's fun to look back and think about how my first years of teaching compare to where my program is now.
My apprehension in writing this is based on my inability to point to any one factor or strategy used to establish a strong, connected learning environment. It's difficult for me to pinpoint concrete strategies that I could recommend to a new teacher, so I decided to ask my students to guide me by asking, "Why do you enjoy being in this classroom?" I've chosen three student responses from this prompt, and starting from the students' perspective, I'll discuss some strategies that may have led to that student's feeling about the classroom environment. All names have been changed.
"It's fun and not just work." - Manny
As an authority figure in the classroom, I find myself preaching 'work-ethic' and 'overcoming adversity' like a pull-string teacher doll, but when thinking about my own productivity, I'm always more engaged when the work doesn't feel laborious. I love my job, and very seldom does it feel like 'work.' Why should I expect my students to be any different? In the music classroom, I believe the intrinsic value of the music should be the central focus. Music is fun, why should it be a struggle?
"The class is peaceful and is not chaotic like a normal classroom." - Joseph
I'll admit, this one is probably a little selfish. My main motivation for creating an ordered and structured environment is for my own focus. I don't trust myself to communicate complex ideas to my students in a noisy or disruptive classroom, but what is an effective room for my teaching is also a focused learning environment for the students. Establishing strong classroom routines and procedures is the best place to start. My students should always explicitly know what is expected of them: handing out materials, tuning, warming up, rehearsal etiquette, etc. Many unwanted classroom behaviors are a result of confusion on the students' part, and a failure of the teacher to clearly communicate expectations.
When I first started teaching, Jeremy Osborne played a big role in my development. After observing my class one day, Jeremy told me to 'relax.' He felt that my energy was a little too frantic, and was probably influencing the students' behavior. Now before I open the door to greet my students, I make an extra effort to rid myself of any anxious energy that I might be carrying from the stresses of the job. I think modeling a calm demeanor goes a long way.
"It's accepting." - Robert
Feeling accepted for who you are increases drive and motivation in adults and students alike. Taking small steps to learn about your students and to express acceptance and gratitude for who they are can be very empowering for young learners. Two years ago, after constantly hearing divisive rhetoric in the public forum, I decided to put flags on my door that I believed represented my students' identities; country of origin, sexuality, culture, etc. I'll never forget the smile on a student's face when she saw her home country's flag represented on my door. We still sometimes communicated through Google Translate, but her expression of joy was universal and didn't need translation.
Earlier this month I was delighted to read an Austin Classical Guitar article featuring Rey Rodriguez, A Transformative Experience. Rey is a former Bedichek guitar student, and passed through my program during my teaching infancy. His classes were probably a little chaotic, his teacher inexperienced, but he was still able to flourish and go on to do really incredible things. Although I now have a better vision for my students and for my classroom in general, the reality is that teachers positively influence their students from the very first days of their careers.
- Phil Swasey, Bedichek Middle School, Austin, Texas
Motivating Children in Mexico City
We all know that keeping children motivated is tricky! If students feel as if everyone around is excelling at something while they struggle, their desire to continue can fade. This is a particular challenge in the music classroom, where experience levels among students often differ widely. Sayil López, a guitar performer and teacher in Mexico City, believes the answer lies in allowing students to play music together at whatever level they're most comfortable.
Sayil, a member of the Mexico City Guitar Quartet, has been a guitar educator for the past 15 years. At the Facultad de Música in the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, there was no set curriculum in place for teaching guitar until he discovered GuitarCurriculum.com.
"My children's orchestra has kids between the ages of 8 to 15. They all represent a wide range of levels, which is common in guitar ensembles especially. Your curriculum is the first that solves this problem. There are different and mixed levels for each piece; it's so inclusive. The kids love to play the music."
He said children at the Facultad de Música work very hard, and fatigued students used to become disenchanted with difficult music and want to give up. The Facultad has now been using GuitarCurriculum.com for five years, and he says the difference in student engagement is noticeable.
"When I started using GuitarCurriculum.com with the children's orchestra, they all were suddenly so motivated to work. Other teachers asked what I was doing. It was beautiful, and the parents were so thankful. They want their children to be happy, and for that, the kids have to be happy with the music."
In Mexico, a country where interest in guitar has surged in recent years, Sayil's hope is that every child who wants to play is provided a chance to flourish - no matter their level or pace of learning.
"When a little child and a more advanced student play together, it's beautiful that they're able to share the music. It motivates the younger child."
To learn more about Sayil, visit this link.
From Folklore to Music Education
Originally a museum curator and folklorist in St. Louis, Jane Vidrine is a guitar teacher and musician in Lafayette, Louisiana. A few years ago she was named the Lafayette Education Foundation’s “Teacher of the Year,” and she’s part of a two-time Grammy-nominated, all-female Cajun and Creole band called the Magnolia Sisters.
Jane traveled to Louisiana after her friend, Nick Spitzer of NPR’s “American Routes,” enlisted her help with the Louisiana Folklife Pavilion at the New Orleans 1984 World’s Fair. She’s been in Lafayette – the “Hub City” and the state’s center of Creole culture – ever since.
After moving to Louisiana, she continued to do cultural programming and museum curation for a while, but turned her attention toward education when she and her husband had two children.
“It was the beginning of the French immersion program at their school, and here we were in the heart of Cajun and Creole music, and they weren’t teaching music in French,” Jane said.
She wrote some grants to place herself in the classrooms, teaching Cajun and Creole music in French as a field work and archival project. She became “one of those classic itinerant teachers teaching seven different classes in three or four different places every day.”
“I knew the language of folklore and the language of music, but I decided at that point I needed to learn the language of education. So I went back to school and got my Master’s in Education.”
One day about twenty years ago, a girl in her middle school French immersion class said, ‘Miss Vidrine, you’re always teaching us with your guitar. Why don’t you teach us guitar?’
When Jane inquired about a guitar class, her principal said, ‘If you can recruit the students, you can do it.’
Jane only had six students the first year, but her conviction to bring students into the community for exposure to authentic performance settings enabled the word to spread quickly. During a student performance for a principals’ luncheon, one of the principals rushed up to her afterward and said, “I need you at my school.”
Over the past twenty years, she has built a guitar program up from nothing at the LJ Alleman Fine Arts Magnet Academy. She now teaches about a hundred 5th-8th graders in seven classes a day. For years, she was the only classroom guitar teacher in all of Lafayette.
Jane has taken an innovative approach to building her program. To create a pipeline from elementary school music classes into her middle school guitar programs, she developed and wrote a grant for a ukulele program called “The Ukulele Suitcase.” She has about three dozen ukuleles which she loans to teachers, and offers annual training workshops for elementary music educators. The idea behind starting with ukulele is that tiny fingers can negotiate the smaller instrument more easily, which builds basic skills that are then transferable to guitar.
Although high schools in Lafayette didn’t have guitar years ago, so many of her students were entering the high schools that parents demanded they offer guitar classes. The Lafayette Magnet Arts Academy guitar program, a direct stem from her alumni, has enjoyed a particularly close relationship with Jane’s middle school.
“It’s building by itself, not because of anything I personally have done, but because students coming out of my program ask for the class, and other schools see how successful my program is. It’s more a supply and demand thing.”
“When you’re in the trench, you think it’s just class, but then later, you find out it’s not. I’ve had students get full music scholarships to college, students who go into music business, and kids that have CDs out, traveling bands, all kinds of stuff. It’s really cool. We live in a very creative hub here that really encourages that, and I’m glad to be making this particular contribution to the effort.”
“When I find out I’ve sparked creativity and direction in some student’s life, wow. That’s just amazing.”
“It took a while to come back to me, but now my students are succeeding as young adults in music. I’ve put between 1500-2000 students out into the world. When you do that, you feel like you just launch them out there. But certain students have really taken on the guitar and music as their life.”
To read more about Jane's program, visit this link.
Postcard from St. Louis
We love hearing from our education partners, and this conversation with a colleague in St. Louis was so inspiring we thought we'd share it with you. James McKay told us about his path to becoming a music educator, and the success he's had teaching guitar even though it's not his primary instrument.
I grew up in an under-served community in St. Louis. We were fortunate enough to be taught classical music, and I started on violin, then switched to double bass. I ended up studying music education on scholarship at Eastman School of Music.
I didn't want to come back to St. Louis, but the first gig that opened up was at home. I've been an educator here for 22 years now. I teach in the Jennings School District, a community where every single child receives free lunch. When I joined the district five years ago, there was no string program. They asked me to pilot one, and now, the orchestra program is district-wide: I teach in three elementary schools, the middle school, and the high school.
 |
|
|
James and his 7th grade guitar class. |
When did you start teaching guitar?
Three years ago I found GuitarCurriculum.com. Once I heard the gorgeous sounds of other teachers playing at the Teacher Training Workshop, I fell in love, and couldn't wait to take what I'd learned back to my school. This was my third year attending, and I'll just keep going back.
The guitar program started as an after-school club, and three years ago I began incorporating it into my 7th grade string class. Twice a week, we do classical guitar instead of violin, viola, cello, and bass.
How do you use GuitarCurriculum.com?
GuitarCurriculum.com drives what I do. I'm not a classically-trained guitarist, so the instruction I receive at the Teacher Training Workshops, along with what's online, is my foundation.
One large thing for me is the music. It's so straightforward and approachable that students of various ages are able to catch on without struggling. There's so much music available through the curriculum that it gives the instructor options, which is different from the string program I'm using, where sometimes I have to ad hoc things. As a novice guitarist, I really appreciate that there are few limitations in GuitarCurriculum.com.
In my school, I'm isolated as the only one teaching classical guitar. But when I attend the yearly Teacher Training workshops, I'm part of a community. There are other teachers who are doing choir or band, and they understand what it means to not have guitar as their primary instrument, but to have a love for it and the passion to share it with kids.
Recently, James McKay began his own non-profit called Gateway Music Outreach to provide quality education in schools where it's unavailable. He's looking into adding the Guitar Curriculum into that program as well.
How was your journey into guitar education? We'd love to hear from you!
A Halloween Song for Elementary Classes
We had a lot fun improvising this creepy Halloween song at our Austin training this summer, and thought we'd share it with everyone in time to prepare it for the big scary day.
Ghost of John is a well-known song. It works in a round, it's easy to play, and has plenty of room for the class to make "creaky door" and other fun sound effects to amplify the overall spookiness!
A Ghost of John lesson plan, score, and Smartboard artwork are online now on the Elementary Materials page at GuitarCurriculum.com.
Enjoy!
Video Challenge Results + New Challenge
We had so much fun watching all the videos that were submitted for our first-ever Video Challenge this past month on our GuitarCurriculum.com Teacher Forum!
The challenge was for a beginning group, any age, to record a Level 1 or Elementary selection.
Our esteemed panel of judges - Chuck Hulihan (Glendale, AZ), Kevin Vigil (Ashburn, VA), and Joseph Williams (Austin, TX) - had a difficult job, but ultimately settled on the winning entry: the Beginning Guitar Ensemble from McCallum High School (Austin Independent School District).
Congratulations to McCallum and their director, Andrew Clark! Here's their video.
For us, the best part of this challenge was seeing the effort, dedication, and refinement of all the entrants, and the valuable feedback the judges offered to each group of kids that participated.
New Video Challenge
For our next challenge we're looking for videos of ensembles performing a piece in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which takes place from September 15 through October 15. This one is open to ensembles of any level, and the winning entry will receive $150 (must be based in the US!).
Deadline is October 15th at midnight!
1) Take a video of one of your classes playing any piece appropriate for Hispanic Heritage Month. Please only submit one video per ensemble.
2) Upload the video to YouTube (you can make the video public or private).
3) Share your link in the Hispanic Heritage Month Video Challenge thread on our Teacher Forum, with a brief description of the class (School Name, City, State, anything you'd like us to know about how you're celebrating Hispanic Heritage).
4) We'll send the winning program $150 (must be based in the US)!
The winning entry will be chosen based on effort, style, sound, and overall performance by a small panel of judges. Be sure to watch each other's videos and make nice comments!
Thanks all!
Challenges in the Classroom: Elementary Edition
As the school year gathers momentum, we thought we'd share some stories of how your colleagues address certain challenges they face in the guitar classroom. For the first edition in a continuing series, we'll hear from Vikki Schwarz, a veteran music teacher at Widén Elementary here in Austin, Texas. Vikki has been using GuitarCurriculum.com to integrate guitar into her general music classes since 2013.
At Widén Elementary, we start guitar in 4th grade. We spend a week learning how to sit and hold the guitar properly, how to not pretend like we're playing rock n' roll with an electric guitar - that's always a fun part.
Students verbalize simple ta and ta-di rhythms and work on using all the syllables. We sing the songs from GuitarCurriculum.com, play them on recorder, and then play them on guitar. Eventually, the class learns all the parts, and we divide them into sections. We do a number of performances, changing parts with each repetition, and then I let them pick their favorite part to play. Somebody always wants that repeated E on "Blue Magic," even though it's the hardest part - they have to keep a steady pulse for everybody else.
Last year we had 58 guitarists in 5th grade, but this year we have 81. When they all play together, it feels like the biggest ensemble out there, which is really cool. They take a lot of pride in that.
Adapting to cultural differences
My school is 93% Hispanic, with a lot of kids just arriving in the US, and many only speak Spanish. I can't tell them to play the B string, I tell them to play Ti, because in Mexico and other Central or South American countries, letter names are identified with solfège. The US is one of the few countries that uses letters for note names.
Teaching large groups of students with diverse experience levels
I pair really strong students with the ones struggling, or having trouble understanding me, to help them learn things like how to hold the guitar, how to put their fingers on the strings. Those kids become ambassadors of the classroom, which is really cool. Kids learn much faster from each other than from me. But kids that are strong in one area might be weaker in another, so it works out nicely, because there's an egalitarian sharing of information.
Do you have any strategies for dealing with common challenges in your classroom? We'd love to hear from you!
A Renaissance in Guitar Education
The schedule is (almost!) finalized, the arrangements for the finale performance are coming together, and our education team is striving to make our upcoming National Teacher Training Summits in Austin and St. Louis as enriching, engaging, and inspiring as possible.
We're thrilled that veteran educator Chuck Hulihan will be our guest conductor in Austin this year. He recently shared his perspectives on guitar education and some advice for attendees.
Over the twenty years I've spent as the Director of Guitar at Glendale Community College in Phoenix, I've witnessed a renaissance in guitar education.
In the 1990s, guitarists weren't pursuing education for many reasons, but this has changed. Collegiate education programs are now welcoming guitarists, and certified music educators are making a massive migration toward guitar.
One of the things I love about the Teacher Training Summit is the wonderful exchange of ideas that happens among guitarists not necessarily trained in education and seasoned educators not necessarily trained in guitar. The wealth of experiences means that we all learn something. Keep an open mind, and you might pick up a couple new strategies, or gain some new chops. I always want to see what other folks are doing. We should all be looking for ways to energize and refresh our teaching.
Last semester, I had the honor of being the Faculty Speaker at Commencement. The message of my speech was this idea of carving your own way. If you're following a clear path, then you're probably watching someone else. I never planned to be a teacher. I came to realize that I absolutely love teaching, it was nothing like I imagined. There were endless possibilities, both for creative energy and the ability to impact others' lives.
We are so excited to share Chuck's amazing energy and experience, exchange ideas, and learn with you at this summer's Teacher Training Summits!
Let's Play!
We are extremely pleased to share our newest resource with you:
Let's Play! is a web-based application that offers a progressive series of classical guitar solos, in braille and traditional notation, with audio guides that focus on guitar technique and braille music literacy.
For the past six years our team has had the privilege of helping create a braille-adapted version of GuitarCurriculum.com for students at Texas School for the Blind & Visually Impaired. Here's a video about the program, and another showing a recent performance some of the kids gave for about 1,000 people.
Through our work at TSBVI, we came to recognize a need in the blind and low-vision community for a pathway that would empower lifelong learning in classical guitar.
After 16 months of development, we're thrilled to be able to share Let's Play! with you. It is completely free for any student or teacher to use, anywhere in the world. Phase 1 included the platform and curriculum - build and the creation of the first four levels - about twenty solos. We're already hard at work on Phase 2.
We look forward to discussing this and so much more in person at our upcoming National Teacher Training Summits in St. Louis and Austin. Hope to see you there!
The Job Market
In recent months we've seen a rise in employment opportunities for classroom guitar teachers. So much so that we added a Jobs Section to our Teacher Forum to keep you all up to date on the latest openings across the United States. In fact, a new job opening in New Mexico was just added this week!
We had a particularly powerful conversation about employment with CJ Renzi recently, and thought you'd appreciate his story. Sometimes hidden within the most devastating of situations is a spark of serendipity.
"My wife and I owned a studio in Houston. She taught reading and writing in one room, and I taught guitar in another. We did that for 13 years; I'd planned on perhaps retiring that way. Then Hurricane Harvey came, and wiped out our clientele. Our students had some of the most severe flooding for weeks and weeks, and stopped showing up to lessons. Eventually we realized, 'Oh, they're not coming back.'
We started looking around for jobs, and my wife found one right outside Austin. She made it possible for us to move. Through a welcoming community of educators, I discovered that a program called Breakthrough - an organization which helps students achieve a college education - was looking for a guitar teacher for a new initiative. Breakthrough serves economically and socially disadvantaged students from middle school through their last year of college. They help with academics, social awareness, other difficulties. My job would be to fulfill the arts need for them.
In addition to the great students, administrators, and Breakthrough staff, I received tons of support from Austin Classical Guitar. Everything from helping carry guitars to my car, making phone calls on my behalf, answering questions about GuitarCurriculum.com; I had so much support I couldn't go wrong!
In Breakthrough, all of the students were beginners. Their final concert was during the school's orientation for next fall, so there were hundreds of people in the audience. My students were visibly nervous to play. I just smiled, and tried to keep cool. I did play with them, because I knew that would make them feel more comfortable. At the end, there was big applause, the Breakthrough staff were really happy with it, the donors who'd funded the program were beaming, it was good all the way around."
Soon after we spoke, CJ was offered a full-time teaching position at Decker Middle School in Manor, Texas, close to Austin. He'll begin in August - almost a year to date after Hurricane Harvey struck Houston.
What has your job search experience been like, and what advice or questions do you have? Let us know your story!
Spotlight on St. Louis
Last week, the National Endowment for the Arts wrote a spotlight of the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society program, "Guitar Horizons", which was the recipient of an FY18 NEA grant. Our colleagues in St. Louis are the force behind this musical initiative to heal a community stricken with anger, pain, and tumult following an act of violence in the late summer of 2014. We were fortunate enough to speak with Kevin Ginty and Bill Ash about the program, and want to share with you some of their words.
"Our mission is to strengthen communities through shared experiences in classical guitar performance and education. After the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Bill Ash, our former Executive Director and current Education Director, reached out to the Fine Arts Coordinator for Ferguson schools with an offer to send an experienced guitar teaching artist into the classroom. The Ferguson-Florissant School District agreed to pilot the program in two elementary schools, and it has continued to grow ever since. The first St. Louis Teacher Training in 2014 - with 30 registrants - got us off to a great start!
I (Bill) began weekly training sessions in late August 2014 to help interested classroom music teachers learn the curriculum. I found that the key is to have teachers we support motivated to teach the curriculum with good teaching procedures and classroom management skills, both of which will be addressed when we host this summer's 4th annual Teacher Training Summit.
In the next year, we're expanding into at least four more Title I schools, thanks to new support from the NEA. We'd like to begin at least one high school program to create the opportunity for vertical integration of guitar studies. Our vision is to be able to support any local school that wants the program.
We currently have a proposal submitted to the local Arts and Education Council to begin a new program this fall at the Clayton Detention Center. We envision it as the Austin Classical Guitar program with Jeremy Osborne at Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center.
NEA funding is so important for this project. Not only does it provide a direct source of income for school expansion, but it also provides a "seal of approval" when approaching other grant makers and individual donors to show that this project is recognized nationally."
What are your aspirations for guitar in your schools and community? We'd love to hear from you!
Postcard from Cleveland
The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society was recently featured in a radio story that highlighted the tremendous success of their education programs. We got a chance to speak with their executive director, Erik Mann, who offered some insights into his organization's achievements.
"When I took a chance on heading Cleveland Classical Guitar Society in 2009, we had no education program. Cleveland has the second-highest child poverty rate in the nation, and most inner-city schools offer no opportunity to learn a musical instrument. The Cleveland arts scene is amazing, but most of the big arts organizations haven't dedicated themselves to serving the city school kids on a continuing basis, and in a deep way.
In 2012, we launched our education program, and modeled it after Austin Classical Guitar. We struggled the first few years to find our feet and to get the right teachers and school partners.
Now, we serve more than 200 kids each year in the Cleveland schools. This past year alone, we've hired our first Director of Education, started a program at Cleveland School for the Arts, begun individual lessons for 28 students, and had over 50 student performances at some of Cleveland's most prestigious venues. We're providing deep, ongoing engagement year to year. In a recent survey, 71% of students said they're more engaged in school because of guitar class. One of our students began guitar less than two years ago, and has already performed with Les Frères Méduses, gotten a fellowship to Cleveland School of Music, and been accepted to Interlochen Fine Arts Camp.
I want us to be working toward college connections and employment for our students. We're partnering with an organization this summer to do a 5-week program where high school students get paid to learn guitar and career development skills. I want to do more of this - paying students to perform and teach, so they can see what it's like to earn an income.
So much of what we do is influenced by Austin Classical Guitar. We've personalized our programs to Cleveland, and to particular students we work with, but ACG remains that model of high attainment."
From all of us at ACG, thank you for continuing to inspire us every day. We hope you can join us this summer for our annual Teacher Training Summit, either July 26-28 in St. Louis, or August 2-4 in Austin.
From the desk of Matt Hinsley: What A Time We’re In
Dear Guitar Education Colleagues,
It is a truly remarkable time to be in guitar education.
Two separate partner districts wrote me this week with stories of significant, vertically aligned (elementary-high school), program growth. All month we’ve been adding new full time job openings for guitar educators across the country to our new GuitarCurriculum.com Teacher Forum.
Here in central Texas, where we’re based, we helped five new districts add guitar programs this year alone and at least one more will add guitar in the fall. Nearly 50 ensembles with close to 1,000 kids participated in our adjudicated Concert and Sight Reading Contest last month. Last week I spoke with a national rep for a major instrument distributor who told me sales of nylon string guitars is their fastest growth area.
What’s your story? I’d love to hear your challenges and successes. I’d love to know how our network of amazing teachers and resources might be able to promote your wins and help with any losses.
Here at GuitarCurriculum.com and Austin Classical Guitar Education we’re excited about the near release of a new lifelong learning tool for blind and visually impaired students later this month to compliment the Braille adaptation of our classroom resources. We’re focusing now on bringing the best new thoughts and perspectives to our Teacher Training Summits in St. Louis (July 26-28) and Austin (August 2-4). And we’re so incredibly grateful for all the amazing teachers in the world, like you, who bring the magic of music to so many kids’ lives through the guitar each day.
I look forward to hearing from you, and hope to be together this summer.
Thank you for all you do,
Matt Hinsley, Executive Director
A Story of Transformation
By Jeremy Osborne
One of the benefits of teaching guitar at the Gardner-Betts Juvenile Justice Center is getting to witness the high rate of positive change that learning music brings to my students. Music has the unique ability to provide an honest experience in which the students’ hard work brings them legitimate recognition. For many of my students, this has never happened before. I get asked a lot about what it’s like working in a youth detention facility, and I usually say, “The bad days are bad, but the good days are really good.” Fortunately, we have many more good days than bad, and the abundance of positive change I witness turns the bad days into mere reminders of what these young people are truly dealing with in their lives.
I’d like to tell you about one student. Let’s call him Taylor.
Taylor is a long-term resident at Gardner-Betts. He is extremely intelligent and very intuitive. He reluctantly entered my class last year because he needed fine arts credit to stay on track for high school graduation. He was always polite and did what I asked, but made it clear he had no interest in being there.
One afternoon, Taylor walked into the classroom, and I could tell he was already having a bad day. Minutes after we started rehearsing I heard a loud “POW!” Taylor had punched his guitar in an attempt to vent his frustration. I immediately told him to give me the guitar, and explained that I had a responsibility to keep all of my students safe. Taylor responded by lobbing a flurry of colorful verbal threats of bodily harm at me. Fortunately, the Gardner-Betts staff members were able to calm him down without having to use physical restraint. My heart was pounding. I felt like I had failed Taylor, as this incident caused him to be removed from guitar class for the rest of the year.
Taylor was allowed back in the class this fall. He was in a better place with his treatment, and living in a quieter unit. We talked for a long time after class one day, and he apologized for what had happened. I told him how happy I was to have him back, and that we could try again. This time around, Taylor immersed himself in the class. He began to learn solos and compose his own music on the instrument. Every week he made a point to tell me he how sorry he was about what had happened, and that he hadn’t realized how much he would enjoy learning guitar. I kept reminding him how happy I was to have him in class.
Taylor still has some tough days, but he’s learned to cope with them. He’ll tell me, “I’m mad, sir, not at you, but mad nonetheless. Is it OK if I just chill for a little while?” When this happens, he always picks up the guitar by the end of class.
Last week Taylor performed Etude No. 1 by Leo Brouwer as part of our winter concert. This piece is a rite of passage for classical guitar students, and Taylor worked on it obsessively. All of the students played beautifully that afternoon, but Taylor stole the show, and got a huge ovation after his piece. I’m happy to say that Taylor is just days away from being transferred into a lower security facility. The strides he has made in the last four months have given his treatment team the confidence to expedite him through his sentence, and put him on a faster track to returning home.
Jeremy Osborne has been one of GuitarCurriculum.com’s major contributors over the years. In addition to composing and arranging for the curriculum, Jeremy is Austin Classical Guitar’s Assistant Director of Education. In this role, he teaches two daily guitar ensemble classes at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center where he uses GuitarCurriculum.com to help him enrich the lives of the talented young people he works with.
Nepal
In 2006, Pushpa Basnet founded the Early Childhood Development Center, a special home in Nepal for children whose parents are incarcerated. Due to overcrowding in Nepal’s orphanages, these young people are often left to live with their parents in prison or by themselves on the streets. In recognition of her work, she was chosen as CNN’s Hero of the Year in 2012, and in 2016 she was declared the CNN Super Hero: Above and Beyond!
Last year, Ms. Basnet decided to bring music to the home, and into the lives of the dozens of children living there. She partnered with Daniel Linden and the Gharana Music Foundation in Kathmandu, and together they approached us at GuitarCurriculum.com for support starting a guitar class.
We were thrilled to guide them through using the curriculum, along with offering teacher training and consultation - anything we could do to help. Also, as we always do with new partners around the world, our staff created new arrangements of Nepali folk songs to add to the curriculum's music library, so that the kids could learn to play songs they recognize.
The results have been incredible, and we invite you to watch this beautiful video about the program and the impact it is having on children:
An Interview with The Honorable Darlene Byrne
GuitarCurriculum.com is used by teachers in classrooms around the world, including at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center in Central Texas where Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) offers daily guitar ensemble classes for youth who are incarcerated. Many of the students in this program have at one time or another found themselves in the courtroom of The Honorable Darlene Byrne. Having spent over 15 years working with youth involved in the Juvenile Justice and Foster Care Systems, Judge Byrne offers a unique and insightful perspective on the work GuitarCurriculum.com makes possible with these talented young people who happen to have troubled pasts.
What was your initial thought about a classical guitar program at Gardner Betts?
That it’s unique, innovative, and a win-win for the students and the facility. It’s not a program I would have ever imagined thriving in a detention center, but it’s become a wonderful enrichment experience that allows these young men to define themselves other than as someone who has broken the law. Learning music can reveal the unique, and often hidden, talents these kids have. It’s more than music. It’s mentorship, and the relationship the instructor has with the students.
"Austin Classical Guitar uses a beautiful art form to crack through the hard exterior of some of our community’s toughest young people and inspire in them a sense of beauty, passion, and self-respect."
What kind of impact do you think the guitar program has on the students at Gardner Betts?
As a judge, I routinely see young people in my courtroom who suffer from the effects of abuse, neglect, poverty, mental illness, and addiction. These youth often develop a hard exterior and are not easily reached by individuals in the community who want to engage them in a positive activity. Austin Classical Guitar uses a beautiful art form to crack through the hard exterior of some of our community's toughest young people and inspire in them a sense of beauty, passion, and self-respect. For some students this may be the first opportunity they’ve had to express themselves and their emotions. Most of the young people at Gardner Betts are one, two, or three years behind in their education, and this becomes something they are self-conscious about. Because of this, many learn not to like school, and feel embarrassed if they don’t know something. But the great thing about the guitar program is that all the students are starting from the same place. They’re learning the language of music together. Regrettably, I think many of these students have been taught to view messing up as a failure. ACG takes those messy moments, like when a student might be having trouble with a passage of music, and turns them into moments of enlightenment, discovery, and learning.
Do you have a favorite memory of the guitar students at Gardner Betts?
One of the most beautiful experiences I have had with the program was seeing one of the young men perform a solo in front of a live audience while at the same time displaying a paper and tape, life size, three-dimensional rendering of a guitar he had built. It is a remarkable piece of art and an expression of what this program can inspire within some of these young folks. This young man took it upon himself to create this piece of art for his instructors while his classes were on pause for the summer. It was a testament to how much passion the program had inspired in his heart.
New School Year Thoughts from Dr. Kevin Vigil
Dear Guitar Education Colleagues,
We asked one of our favorite guitar education leaders, Dr. Kevin Vigil from Loudoun County, Virginia, to share some thoughts about how he prepares for a new school year. Wow, are we glad we did! These are awesome, and we hope you find them helpful too. More on Kevin and his program is online here.
Greetings Guitar Gurus,
Some of you may have already begun the new school year while others will soon be in the classroom. Some of you are experienced teachers while some are starting their adventures in guitar teaching for the first time. No matter what your circumstance, welcome to the 2017 – 2018 school year!
I have been invited to share some thoughts and tips as we all begin this year, so here we go…
1) Learn your students’ names! Make it a point to learn every student’s first name during the first week of school, their last name by the end of the second week and the parents’ names by the third week of school. Calling students by their names is a sign that you care enough about each student to get to know them better. Get to know the parents and make it known that you are available to them. Many of them will be your strongest supporters.
2) There is a difference between ten years of experience and one year of experience ten times. We have probably all had a teacher sometime in our education that used the same syllabus and simply changed dates and presented the same exact lecture multiple times. I encourage you not to be that teacher. Instead, reflect on last year’s experience; what would you do differently? If you are a new teacher, journal everything and go back and review that journal as you prepare for the following year.
3) Backward Design: Yes, No or Maybe? Backward Design is a method of setting goals before making lesson plans and creating assessments. This is a standard model in education. Goals are certainly important, so ask yourself: What abilities should your students have acquired by the end of the year? How will you sequence instruction? On the other hand, be alert to your students’ needs. Not all students learn at the same pace. There may be times when forward design works better to improve mastery of a particular skill or concept. Remember, your students are not just numbers, they are kids. Be willing to alter your goals if you feel that it is in the best interest of your students.
4) Second chances. At the beginning of the year, you will likely have returning students in your program. Some may have been problematic last year and you may even have some negative feelings about a particular student. Take a cleansing breath and think back to your Human, Growth and Development classes or your own childhood. One year or even a summer can make a huge difference in a child’s life. Ask yourself: If the student was problematic in your class last year, why did they sign up to study with you again? You probably made more of an impact in that child’s life than you thought. You are the adult capable of compassion and forgiveness. We don’t always know what happens at home and the behaviors that were exhibited previously probably had very little to do with you. In fact, if they are returning, feel confident that they know you have much to offer.
5) Create opportunities for your students so that this year is uniquely special. Opportunities come in all shapes and sizes. You can set the stage for meaningful opportunities throughout the year. Give your students the opportunity to be in self-directed ensembles, lead a sectional, demonstrate what they do in their free time or participate in an open mic setting. If a student has a creative idea, pursue it with them. Other opportunities include community involvement in the form of performances at libraries, other schools, senior living facilities, or even guitar festivals. Bring in a special guest or take your students to a concert. Be creative, but most of all, make this year somehow different from last year so that it is uniquely special and memorable.
6) Stay active and nurture your passion. I assume that you learned and fell in love with the guitar at some point in time. Stay connected with those feelings and continue to practice your craft. Students are quite perceptive; they know if their teacher is fully engaged with them or simply going through the motions. When you demonstrate your passion for playing and teaching, your students will benefit more than you will ever know. You may enjoy watching this video of some teachers in Loudoun and Fairfax Counties in Virginia staying active and collaborating together to the benefit of their students.
I hope this is good food for thought and that you have an incredible and special year with your students.
2016 Education Progress Report
See Pepe Romero play Vivaldi with 80 kids (October 2016)!
GuitarCurriculum.com is a project of Austin Classical Guitar, a nonprofit service organization based in Austin, Texas.
For all inquiries, please contact:
Austin Classical Guitar
512-300-2247