Past projects 12
Classical Guitarists Need More Music Books!
Funded Mar 6, 2020Thank you very much for your generous donation of classical method books to our music program. The gift of these books will help our gifted students progress to the next level in their musical development and enrich our music offerings.
Students have to opportunity to enroll in the guitar program year after year beginning in their sophomore year. Students can therefore study the classical guitar over three years, allowing beginner, intermediate and advanced players time to focus on improving their skills in a supportive environment over time. While the schedule was in place for an in depth study of the guitar, our program lacked the method books necessary for students to progress independently at their own pace through a sequenced study of skills and classical repertoire.
The "Christopher Parkening Guitar Method Book Volume 1" provides our musicians the best resource available to meet their individual needs. As a protege of André Segovia, Mr. Parkening is uniquely qualified to create a method book designed for the serious classical guitar player. This method book provides everything from note reading to posture and position instruction, skill builder exercises and of course repertoire.
Your books were delivered the week before schools went fully remote in March 2020. Additionally, as a result of COVID, our schools music program has been put on hold. When our program resumes, these resources will be one of the terrific things we will celebrate when we return to live teaching. Rest assured that music students will benefit for years to come because of your gift to our music library.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
This classroom project was brought to life by A group of anonymous donors and 2 other donors.Jazz Cats Need More Music Books
Funded Mar 4, 2020It is with much appreciation that I draft this letter about the impact your donation has had on our Jazz Band. The donation of three Jazz Combo Packs to our music library provided our jazz band students access to the specific and challenging repertoire they've been longing to play. These dedicated musicians are eager to tackle sophisticated repertoire to express their musical talents and our music library is limited. Each Jazz Combo Pack includes 4 different jazz tunes with separate music scores for each of the different instruments and includes recorded tracks for students to play along to. My students had been begging me to get them music for A Night In Tunisia. They were so excited to know that we would be playing this song this year!
Because COVID-19 forced our school to close right when we were preparing to use the scores, I had to find creative ways to disseminate the music online. I chose to digitize the scores by scanning them and uploaded the MP3 recordings to our Google Drive and shared the music via Google Classroom assignments. I have shared photos of these assignments for your reference. Students enjoyed having electronic versions of the music and were able to print a hard copy or view on a device.
Jazz music is about the conversation between musicians as they interpret each phrase in their own style and response to the phrases and improvisations of other members of the band. In order for students to interact with each other in a virtual setting, I used two different online programs. One allowed students to record tracks of themselves playing that were then shared with other members. The other allowed me to create supplemental materials that scaffolded complex melodies into a form students could to interpret for their instrument. For example, the guitar part I translated into guitar tablature for students with limited understanding of the guitar fretboard. I've uploaded screenshots of these two programs Band Lab and Noteflight to give you a feel for what the students were using to tackle A Night In Tunisia and make recordings of themselves.
What is really wonderful about your donation is that we have only just begun using it! I am very excited that now we have 12 new pieces to explore and look forward to designing lessons this summer to inspire student's passion for music based on this new repertoire. Thank you for this gift to our music library that will be used for many years to come to education students about the Jazz art form and help them achieve their goals to excel as musicians.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
Learning Guitar Can Lead to a Lifetime of Music Making!
Funded Sep 3, 2019Thank you very much for donating to this project! Your donation allowed me to purchase a class set of the Essential Elements Comprehensive Guitar Method Books by Will Schmid and Bob Morris for each of my students in my Classical Guitar class. This class meets five days a week - which means these books are being used every single day! This class includes seniors, juniors and sophomores with varying guitar skills and abilities - which is why these method books have been so helpful. This method book contains everything a beginning to intermediate guitar player needs to know in order to read standard notation and chord shapes and provides a variety of interesting repertoire that students enjoy playing right away.
Guitar players are notorious for not knowing how to read standard notation and therefore are limited in their ability to perform with other musicians or to learn music they would really like to play. This method book teaches students how to read music on the treble clef from the lowest note on the guitar - the E below middle C - to the B on the seventh fret of the high E string. Most guitar players - if they can read music at all - can only read up to the G note on the third fret of the high E string. In addition to learning to read notes, students are introduced to chord shapes in the families of major, minor, dominant 7th and minor 7th and how to read chord charts from a leadsheet to play their favorite songs. Finally, students are taught how to arpeggiate chords using classical fingering terminology and patterns used in more sophisticated classical and folk and even rock music.
The music selected for students to apply their note reading skills is what is really worth raving about. For example, students learned to perform standards such as He's Got the Whole World in His Hands, The Saints Go Marching In and This Land is Your Land, along with music from Trinidad such as Water Come A Me Eye. The book includes music from Robert Johnson, Sweet Home Chicago, and a number of songs from the Beatles. Folks songs include Au Clair De La Lune, Aura Lee, For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, De Colores, Greensleeves and many more. African American Spirituals include Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho and music from the legendary Huddie Ledbetter, Good Mornin' Blues. From the classical canon students learn Beethoven's Ode to Joy and J. S. Bach's Minuet in G. But, the biggest hits were the duet arrangements such as Elton John's Can You Feel the Love Tonight and the Beatles' All My Loving.
I can't begin to thank you enough for your generous contribution to the guitar program. I am confident these books will be used by hundreds of students to come and the musical knowledge they gain from using these books will be with them for life.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
This classroom project was brought to life by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and 7 other donors.Help Us Make Music Every Day!
Funded Oct 22, 2018Thank you for contributing to our music classroom by donating funds to purchase Practice Record books for ALL of the students who study music. This project was a new initiative to help my students chart acquisition of new skills and track their progress. In addition, I wanted to help students celebrate the number of minutes they were practicing and needed some way of simply recording their efforts.
The Practice Recorder has been a great tool for helping students chart their progress by making entries that provide the date, the new skill, the homework assignment and the number of minutes they practice each week. Because I only see many of my students once per week, this log book helped students remain on track and provided structure to their practice sessions at home. I was able to check the student practice logs during class periods and even used pictures of their entries for my bulletin board!
Thank you so very much for supporting this new initiative. I am so happy to report the positive results!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
How About Playing Some Real Music on Some Real Instruments!
Funded May 10, 2018Thank you for your generous donation of the Hal Leonard Guitar Method book. These books are allowing students the opportunity to learn how to read music notation, how to play traditional songs and how to play chord shapes that will allow them to perform hundreds of their favorite songs.
These books are being used every day and are teaching student how to be responsible. Students have class twice a week in school. They have the responsibility of taking the books home in their instrument cases and for bringing the books back to school on the days when they have class.
We have our first concert of the year on December 7th and students are learning Jingle Bells and Silent Night as well as the D7 chord, the G chord and the C chord.
Thank you so very much for this donation. It has really made a difference in the lives of our students whose only opportunity to learn an instrument at this time is in our school program. In our guitar ensemble program the students get to work together in small groups and create music with their peers. The support of a guitar method book provides them an opportunity to master basic guitar performance skills and to learn the fundamentals of music notation.
Today they were over joyed when they were all able to play Jingle Bells together as a team. Thank you!”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org and 4 other donors.Capos Needed for Dedicated Guitar Students
Funded Apr 17, 2016Thank you for your gift of guitar capos to our guitar ensemble program. Your gift made it possible for our students to learn music in different keys and play the music they love. Without these capos the amount of music our students would be able to play is very limited. Giving each student a capo allows students to apply a handful of chords to many, many songs.
Learning to play an instrument presents many challenges to the young musician. They need to learn proper hand positioning, how to hold the instrument, how to keep a steady beat and where to put their fingers, and on which strings, in order to make a chord and produce proper tone. In addition, they need to be able to change chord shapes rapidly, in time with the music.
A student's own motivation is the most important ingredient required for their success. Students will not put in the effort it takes to make a decent sound on the guitar if they do not connect in some way to the music. Many of the songs students want to play are composed and recorded in keys that require complicated chord fingerings. But, the capo allows students to apply a simpler chord shape to any key, and therefore rewards them quickly for their efforts, before they get discouraged.
Your gift saved the day. We have three different sections of guitar, 6th, 7th and 8th. We had a limited number of capos that the students were sharing. This worked fine during rehearsals, but would obviously not work for the show when all of the ensembles came together to perform. Without your gift, not everyone could have played in the concert. We continue to use your gift, and will for many years to come.
With deepest gratitude for your commitment to music education.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
Help Us Fix Our Guitars for the Concert!
Funded Apr 26, 2016Thank you for purchasing tuning pegs that allowed our students to repair our guitars. Your gifts was particularly helpful in increasing interest and commitment to our program because not only did it afford each student their own guitar to play, it gave them the opportunity to learn a new skill - guitar repair.
As someone who has played guitar for over 30 years, I had never changed the tuning pegs before. Most players would normally take such a repair to a repair shop. But our program does not have the funds to pay for all of the materials and labor required to repair a class set of guitars. So, we set out to repair the instruments ourselves. Students were completely engaged in the experience of using the screwdrivers and learning how to take a guitar apart and put it back together again.
Who doesn't find something more interesting when they know how something works? By allowing them to learn the skill of how to swap out a broken tuning peg, students developed a deeper understanding of their instrument and developed confidence in their ability to fix a problem.
Your donation saved the day. Without your donation, we would not have had enough instruments for everyone to play in the concert last year. We are forever grateful. We continue to use these guitars today, and will so for many years to come.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
Guitar Racks
Funded Jan 9, 2015The best way to tell you how much your gift has helped our program is to tell you what I have not heard. I have not heard ANY student say to me, "I can't find my guitar!" Before the racks, the students were not able to mindfully return their guitar to a specific location and they often ended up in a pile. They are middle school students and are still learning how to be responsible for their instrument. Without structures to help them maintain a system for placing their guitar in the same place, in a specific order, they struggle to care for their instrument. These racks help our students locate exactly where to put their guitar every day and where to find it when they return.
We do not have a standard classroom, but rather we have taken over a smaller room just off of the auditorium. We are lucky to have this room and we want to serve as many students as possible in each class. We can fit a maximum of 14 students per class and we have three sections per day. In order to have that many students in this mini classroom, along with music stands, book shelves, smartboard and chairs, we desperately needed these guitar racks. Today I taught three sections and I have noticed that we have gained 7-10 minutes of class time with these new racks because we have saved 5 minutes at the beginning and end of class. Thank you so very much! I hope you enjoy the picture of the students having fun with the boxes the racks were shipped in.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
Guitar Program Supplies
Funded Dec 7, 2013Happy Spring and thank you! Since receiving your gift of guitar tuners and capos the students have put on three concerts. Because of your gift, the students have learned to become more independent musicians who are able to change keys more efficiently and tune their instruments when they need to be adjusted.
At this time of year, as winter subsides and spring weather frequents the forecast, vastly changing temperatures are common. As a result, both the metal and plastic strings are expanding and contracting at an accelerated rate, causing the tuning to fluctuate even more than normal. Your gift of the electronic tuners allows the students to monitor these fluctuations independently. This not only allows for more class time devoted to playing and learning, but it also builds student's confidence and musical ear.
Thank you again for your gift of the capos and electronic tuners. You have made a big difference in these student's music education and improved the offerings of the music program for years to come. Thank you so very much for taking the time to donate to our program and for making a difference in our school and the lives of these emerging musicians.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown
Guitar Rack
Funded Oct 15, 2013Thank you so very much for your contribution to my music classroom. Your gift allowed me to purchase wooden guitar racks for my three middle school guitar ensembles. The addition of these racks has allowed the students to become better musicians because these racks encourage them to take better care of their instruments. Students now have a designated position on a beautiful rack and their instrument can stand upright with a clear label. Additionally, these racks have saved the ensemble time during set up and packing up and made the warm-up routine more efficient. The racks have also provided a more professional look to the music room and created more room for things like music stands.
Students are now composing music, learning the difference between lead sheet and sheet music, transposing and learning to accompany the middle school choir. The gift of the guitar rack allows the musicians to concentrate on these things more because the racks have provided more time and organization to our program.”
With gratitude,
Ms. Brown