Thursday, June 15th Annex Charter School held a fiddling program for parents and the public. The school is currently running their yearly STEAM Summer Camp and this past week has been focused on art. The Art Center East out of La Grande, Oregon helped bring in this year’s artist in residence, Kelly Thibodeaux.
Thibodeaux has been teaching for about twenty years. He teaches all over the state of Oregon and often in other states as well. He has taught entire elementary schools how to play. He has created a four day program, three days of instruction and then the fourth day they perform. He shared, “The thing is they sound like they have been playing for months and they haven’t.” Thibodeaux says his program is based on rhythm, not melody. “Melody takes too long, but rhythm we are all born with it. Most of us anyways. It’s how we walk, talk and breathe, so I tap into that and a way we go.”
Thibodeaux supplied the fiddles and taught students from grades first through sixth. Students had forty-five minute lesson sessions each of the four days. Thibodeaux humorously stated, “That’s not a lot of time for much of anything much less taking on an instrument like this, nevertheless, Weiser ain’t got nothing on this. Let me tell you. They learned enough sound effects to illustrate a little folk story.”
Students were broken up into a young and older group each supplying the sound effects using the fiddling techniques they had learned to illustrate their part of the story. After the story, older students who wanted were able to one at a time come up and play a little song along with Thiibodeaux who played his guitar.
Joe Burris, a teacher at Annex Charter School, shared his thoughts on the experience stating, “It’s been a lot of fun. Some of the kids have really come out of their shell with it. It’s a really nice opportunity for them to get a little music in with our STEAM, that’s kind of the arts part of our STEAM Camp.” He continued stating, “It’s been a great opportunity for them to pick up an instrument that they are completely unfamiliar with and be able to make some fun sounds with it. That’s kind of what this camp is all about, just exploring new things and new ideas.”
