Simpedia

Robin K., Washington

Carry Madison and I hosted an Accompaniment ‘Workshop’ at our studio yesterday and we wanted to share because it was so wonderful!

A few months ago I started playing on the Worship Team at my church and had such a great time that I realized that our students need to experience playing in a group. Carry and I hired a drummer (Carry’s husband) and offered our students the opportunity to prepare to play an accompaniment piece with a drummer, keyboard and vocalist.

Students had a few months to prepare and they could pick whatever they wanted to play. We had all types of music including The Beatles, Disney, Steely Dan, Praise & Worship and Folksongs.

Each student signed up for a 10 minute time slot. Family members were allowed, but no one else could observe the session. Students needed to provide music for the other musicians as they were to be the backbone of the group–just as the piano is in a band.

We did this for three hours yesterday and the outcome was just awesome!!

The students loved the experience of playing with a band. Equally exciting was the response of the parents who accompanied their children to the session. It was like all of the work on Accompaniment that students and parents had endured, had paid off–parents were so thrilled with what their children had accomplished.

We will be holding two more sessions so all of our students will have this experience. We’ve decided to make it a mandatory session for everyone–at no charge.

We both highly recommend providing an opportunity like this for your students.