The Kirkwood Spring Fling is an festival held in Kirkwood at Bessie Branham Park. Usually, the Fling would be in the springtime, but this year it was pushed back a few months due to Covid. This year marks the 18th annual event (with one year off last year) and it’s shaping up to be a great one!
Attendees will enjoy a day of food trucks, drinks, local artists & vendors, and live music. The festival is all day from noon to 8:00pm and there are 7 great musical acts throughout the day, including some familiar faces! Come out and see Parker Smith & The Bandwith from 3:00-4:00. Parker’s band will feature a few Guitar Shed teachers (Chris Case, Nichelle Young, and Brandon Marsolo) plus a couple of other fantastic local musicians.
Read more about the Kirkwood Spring Fling, sign up for the 5K, or get information on volunteering at the even here: https://www.eventeny.com/events/2021-kirkwood-spring-fling-1367/
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We had our Virtual Summer Recital last Sunday and, as usual, our students showed out! It’s always such a treat to see a student’s progress and to learn a little bit more about them with each performance from year to year. We enjoyed a night of stellar playing, beautiful singing, great video editing, stuffed animal audiences, duets, ensembles, and a whole lot of talent and hard work. Keep an eye on our social media pages for the Tuesday Student Spotlight where you can catch some of these virtual performances each week.
We are now looking forward to our Fall Student Showcase and Winter Recitals and after a year-plus of virtual events, we can’t wait to enjoy our students’ performances IN PERSON! We will make announcements regarding dates, venues, and registration for these events in the coming weeks.
Enjoy this fantastic performance of Bill Evans’s “Waltz For Debby” by one of our long-time students, Jack Whitman.
Despite going from intense heat, to torrential downpour, to the tropical humidity that followed that downpour, we made it through our 2nd annual ShedFest and had a blast doing it! After a virtual event last year, we decided to continue the tradition with an all-day benefit concert at Steady Hand Beer Co. With a musical lineup of our talented teachers and their friends and family, we heard a wide array of genres and styles that covered a full day of live music. We also raffled off some amazing prizes from the following local businesses: Trophy Room Barber Shop, Poppa Corn, Heart Happy Organizing, Proof Media Mix, Taproom Coffee, Indigo Wellness, and a few of our own from Guitar Shed.
The event raised $750 for the Lanta Gras Music Scholarship Program and we learned a lot that we will take with us through future ShedFest events for years to come. We can’t wait to continue this tradition and to keep making ShedFest bigger and better each year to use the power of music to give back to the community.
It’s time to start talking to your teacher about the recital, choosing pieces, planning videos, and getting creative! The Virtual Summer Recital will be broadcasted on our Guitar Shed Facebook page and our YouTube channel on Sunday, June 27th at 6:00pm. Video submissions are due Friday, June 18th.
To submit a video:
-Record a video (2 minute maximum) and upload it to YouTube.
-Be sure to check the “No, it’s not for kids” box. Otherwise we won’t be able to access it!
-Email the YouTube link to [email protected] and include the student’s name, title of the song, and composer/artist.
If you are taking lessons in person you can even arrange to record a video during your lesson time here at Guitar Shed and have your teacher accompany you!
Go all out! Dress up, create a nice setting, get creative with your introduction, and have fun with your video. We can’t wait to see what you come up with.
Our second annual philanthropy event, ShedFest, will be taking place on June 5th at Steady Hand Beer Co. ShedFest is a benefit concert to raise money for neighborhood non-profit, Lanta Gras, which provides music scholarships and instruments to families in the area. We have a stellar lineup of talented musicians made up of Guitar Shed teachers and their families and bandmates. Here is how the day will shake out:
The event will end with the “Shed Jam” led by teachers Brandon Marsolo and Dylan Banks with bassist Alex Pound. Other musicians will hop on and off stage for a song or two to turn this final set into a big Guitar Shed family jam session!
ShedFest will also feature a free raffle featuring prizes donated by several local businesses. Prizes will be raffled off between each set of music. We want to thank everyone who has donated a prize so far!
-Indigo Wellness
-Heart Happy Organizing
-Taproom Coffee & Beer
-Proof Media Mix
We hope to see you all at Steady Hand on June 5th!
We’d like to extend a warm welcome to our newest piano teacher, Matt Raisky!
“Matthew seeks to give students a healthy physical and theoretical foundation for their musical growth. He emphasizes the principles of music theory and improvisation, encourages the exploration of electronic music tools, and teaches repertoire from contemporary and classical literature. His hope is to guide students in finding their individual paths.”
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Guitar ShedSongs For Kids Foundation Fundraiser 2021
On May 1st and 2nd, hundreds of bands and artists will perform the Beatles catalog in its entirety in an epic livestream fundraiser for Songs For Kids. If your child is interested in playing a song and is willing to put some time into fundraising, we highly encourage you to take part!
Songs For Kids provides free music mentorship for kids with disabilities and illnesses and this is their biggest fundraiser of the year!
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It was so exciting to have our Teen Band Concert live and in person on Saturday, March 27th. Our lobby was filled with adrenaline and some nervousness as each band had their sound checks in preparation of their performances.
We kicked off the event with the Crazy 8’s: Evelyn’s vocals moved us as the band’s lead singer (and a little tambourine), Ava & Alex were rocking the electric guitars. With Sully on drums & Ellie on bass guitar, the two were holding down the rhythm section. Avery was picking and grinning on acoustic guitar, & Ryley was tickling the electric ivories.
Next, we had a first-time solo performance on guitar & vocals by Orion who also rocked the vocals for the teen band, The Humans. On keys and vocals was Finnian with his electric personality, Noelle was jamming on electric guitar, and we had Nyla banging the skins on the drums.
Last up, we had the Tween band (full of no-longer tweens, teen boys) with Heath on the cool, low vocals and playing guitar, Laird thumping the bass guitar, Axel shredding the rhythm guitar, and Luke & Ben showing their skills on dual drum kits.
What a beautiful day for a live concert and each band with their own energy and style did not disappoint! If you are wondering why you didn’t hear about the concert until now, we kept it small for safety purposes as unfortunately we are still in a pandemic. However, there is light at the end of this year-long tunnel! If you haven’t heard, we will be opening up for in-person lessons on May 1st and planning for more live performances in the near future! Congratulations to all the bands on a job well done!
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At Guitar Shed, we have focused on putting together a team of not just great teachers, but great songwriters, performers, and recording artists. Many of our teachers have released music over the years and we have decided to combine all of these great songs into one Guitar Shed Playlist!
The playlist currently features music from Parker Smith(& The Bandwith), Desmond Myers, Miss Gail & The Jumpin’ Jam Band, Christo Case(Somatoad, Samadha), and Brandon Marsolo and we will continue to add to it as our team of talented rockstars continues to release new music. Check out the playlist below and follow the individual artists to support our Guitar Shed teachers!
As we prepare to return to the Shed for in-person lessons, we look back at the last year and what we have learned.
First and foremost, we learned that our students and parents are incredibly dedicated and adaptable. We switched to a completely virtual operation in a matter of days and our students responded with understanding, compassion, and appreciation to help make the best out of an unfortunate situation. There are a few things from our virtual stint that we should all take with us for the rest of our musical journey, whether as teachers or as students.
Communication Is Key
Many teachers and students have been much more communicative with eachother this year. Students have sent mid-week updates, videos of practice sessions, and even just “Hey, check out this band I discovered today!” This communication is very effective in not only building a relationship with your teacher, but receiving feedback and tips during the week in between your lessons.
Parent Involvement
With lessons taking place at home, parents have had a chance to get a closer look at how a lesson works and to be more hands-on in their child’s learning. The life of a parent is a busy one, but a little time spent helping with music practice can go a long way. One of the best ways to reinforce learning is to teach someone else what you’ve learned. Having your child teach you what they learned in their lesson can be fun and a great way to develop a more complete understanding of the material.
External Resources
Not being in the same room for lessons led us to adapt our teaching styles and include the use of many external resources like metronome apps, online music theory games, different method books, sheet music PDFs, YouTube videos, and so much more. There are 10,080 minutes in a week and your lesson takes up 30 of them – use some of the remaining ones to explore some other outlets and then discuss with your teacher and ask questions about what you have learned. Remember, if you have internet access then you have access to the collective recorded knowledge of the entirety of human history, inlcuding that of the greatest musical minds to ever live – use it!
While we can’t wait to get back to the Shed and see your faces(or at least your eyes, for now) in person, we will still be offering virtual lessons for the foreseeable future. We have “Hybrid” lesson times that can be in-person or virtual, as well as some “Virtual Only” lesson times. Remember to reach out to the front desk about whether or not you’d like to return to in-person lessons in May.
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