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The Bristol Herald Courier
http://www.tricities.com/tristate/tri/news/consumer.apx.-content-articles-TRI-2007-11-29-0004.html
JAM session Virginia-style
Thursday, November 29, 2007
By Susan J. Kroupa
GALAX – Some say it’s about preserving the past,
others about securing the future. Some feel it’s about helping kids learn to
work together. Others see it as a way to bring not just kids but whole families
together.
Just mentioning the Virginia Junior Appalachian
Musician (JAM) program at the Blue
Ridge Music Center at Fisher’s Peak near Galax
brings an opinion – usually accompanied by a smile.
When the 31 kids ranging in age from 6 to 13 took
their place on the stage at the Blue
Ridge Music Center to give their very first JAM
performance, the results were a resounding success. Holding guitars, banjos and
fiddles, the kids played a couple of tunes, then put aside their instruments to
demonstrate some of the flat-foot steps they’d learned.
"Considering that many of these kids picked
up an instrument for the first time just eight weeks ago, it’s pretty impressive,"
said Tony Hatcher, director of the Virginia JAM program.
Hatcher grew up in Bristol Tennessee
and has been a longtime fan of traditional music and dance.
The "appreciation" concert – for
immediate families only – took place on Oct. 28 and marked the halfway point of
the inaugural, 16-week session of the Virginia JAM, a program designed to teach
traditional mountain music to kids.
On Jan. 19, the Virginia JAM will give a
fundraiser concert at the Rex
Theater in Galax that
will be open to the general public.
From the beginning, the Virginia JAM has been a
group effort.
"We always had it in our minds that we wanted
a youth education program," said Debbie Robinson, director of the Blue Ridge Music Center.
The center itself is a joint project between the
National Park Service, which provides and maintains the grounds, and the
National Council for the Traditional Arts, which funds and runs the
programming.
Robinson had studied the highly successful JAM
program founded by Helen White in Sparta,
N.C., and wanted to bring
something similar to the Galax area.
"Part of the reason for the Blue Ridge Music
Center is to be
educational as well as entertaining," Robinson said.
She procured grants from the Virginia Commission
for the Arts and the D’Addario Foundation, as well as from private donors to
get the Virginia JAM program started in early September. Partnerships with the
National Park Service and the City of Galax
assured that the Virginia JAM would have both a summer and winter home.
Another partnership critical to the Virginia JAM’s
success was with the Blue Ridge Music Makers Guild, an organization of 35 Galax
and Carroll County musicians and instrument builders.
"We provide instruments for children who
can’t afford them or who are interested in learning to play," said Bobby
Patterson, from Galax.
Patterson is chairman of the guild, which
established the Mom and Pop Stoneman Memorial Instrument Lending Library as a
resource for children in the Blue Ridge Plateau area who want to play
traditional music.
Members of the guild take donated instruments,
restore and repair them into good working condition and then loan them out to
children who either can’t afford an instrument or who want a trial period
before having to buy one. Hatcher said that about a third of the Virginia JAM
students use instruments from the guild.
With the funding and partnerships in place,
Robinson and Hatcher hired teachers, local musicians with decades of
professional experience under their belts and recruited a host of volunteers.
Then, it was time to get the students. Another JAM
partner, the radio station Blue Ridge Country WBRF-FM (98.1) in Galax, aired
free information about the program, which was also publicized through local
newspapers and at local bluegrass and old-time gatherings.
"We’ve had a good response," Hatcher
said. "Enough signed up for the guitar that we had to split it by age and
experience level, and we ended up dividing the banjo into two classes, old-time
and bluegrass."
Hatcher said that students get an hour instruction
in guitar, fiddle or banjo, along with a half-hour each of dance and singing.
"There are two reasons for the singing
lessons," Hatcher said. "One of our goals is to help our students
learn to play in a group. When you have a band, harmony and vocals are always
important. And it helps them play the instrument if they can sing the
melody."
Hatcher added that the dance instruction not only
teaches the students an integral part of the history and tradition of mountain
music, it also helps them learn to listen to the rhythm and pick out the beat.
Students pay $10 for each two-hour session, but
that is pro-rated down if a family can’t afford the tuition or if a family has
more than one student. The cost for the students is much lower than what it
would be for private lessons.
"Students can learn to play through this
program that might not otherwise be able to play," said Stanley Widener,
from Galax, the guitar teacher with the Virginia JAM.
Both Widener and fiddle teacher Scott Freeman,
also from Galax, first encountered the JAM program through the one run in Sparta, N.C.,
by White, founded in 1999.
White, a musician herself who sometimes performs
with Grayson County
master instrument maker and musician Wayne Henderson, was a guidance counselor
working for the Sparta
Elementary School.
"I have way too many sad stories about life
in these mountains," said White, who was looking for "positive
alternatives" for her students.
She tells the now almost legendary story of how
she founded JAM.
She had noticed that very few students attended the local bluegrass and
old-time concerts, but when she realized that kids were studying pictures of
traditional string instruments in their school music class rather than the real
thing, she asked the teacher if she could show the students her own
instruments.
After demonstrating the various instruments to the
students, she said, "I gave each one 15 seconds to play the instrument of
their choice."
"The class came alive," she said.
"There was buzz about it for days, requests to do it again. I knew then I
had to get instruments into their hands."
With a grant from the National Endowment for the
Arts, White was able to start the first JAM classes in Sparta as an after-school program in the
spring of 2000.
"We were born big," White said. "We
had 45-50 kids the first semester."
Now, the Sparta JAM has more than 90 applicants
for the 60 slots available, and the program has spread to 10 other counties in North Carolina. White
has a grant this year to bring all the programs together and set a standard for
JAM so that "the name becomes meaningful."
"We’ve needed something like this in this
area," said Freeman, who taught with the Sparta JAM program for three
years before joining the Virginia JAM to teach fiddle and vocals. "I have
nothing against high school sports, but there are other things that show team
effort and how to get along with people."
Noting that many kids who play sports end up with
injuries that last into adulthood, Freeman said, "Lots of times you play
that last football game in high school and it’s over."
By contrast, what the kids learn through the JAM
programs "they can take with them. It’s something they can do
forever."
Widener agreed, adding, "You can tell the
kids are having fun. Teaching them is a breeze. They pick it up faster than
adults. And they’re good at helping each other."
That sentiment is echoed by parents and kids
alike.
"It seems like kids teach kids," said
Vickie Boyd, from Laurel Fork, Va.
Her son Jared, 11, is in the old-time banjo class.
Elizabeth Greeson makes the hour-and-a-half trip
from Guilford County, N.C.,
to the Blue Ridge
Music Center
every week with her son Daniel, 10, so he can study fiddle with the Virginia
JAM.
"It’s a neat opportunity for Daniel to
connect with kids his age," she said. "There’s nothing
comparable."
Virginia JAM student Jesse Allen, 11, from Laurel
Fork, said that though he’s studied guitar for about three years, he likes the
chance the program gives him to play with others. But his aspirations go beyond
just having a good time.
"I’m hoping to make a living off it when I
grow up," he said.
"JAM has built a sense of pride across the
generations," White said, noting that almost all of the kids in the
various JAM programs have someone in their family who plays either bluegrass or
mountain music, whether it’s a parent, grandparent, aunt or cousin. "I’m
always hearing students say things like ‘my grandma said my great grandma had a
fiddle and she’s going to see if she can find it.’ "
With the Blue Ridge
Music Center
closing for the winter, the Virginia JAM will move to the Galax Recreation
Center for the last eight
weeks of this session. After the concert at the Rex Theater
on Jan. 19, the program will take a short break, and then begin another session
in late February or March.
Founders and participants hope to see the Virginia
JAM become an established part of the community, and both Hatcher and Robinson
are seeking grants and donations to continue the program permanently.
"We want to have a way to pass history and
tradition to the next generation," Hatcher said.
Vickie Boyd, Jared’s mother, put it another way:
"We’ve got to keep the music going."
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