7/6/2023 0 Comments Showoff tuning festival![]() ![]() “I may only sell a guitar a week,” Harkins said, “but lessons are ongoing.” Giving lessons has become the life blood of the shop. If you’re playing a Guns and Roses solo and you’re 8 or 9 years old, it’s pretty cool,” he said. And you put them in a band, you put them on stage, and they open up. “I’ve seen kids who you’d say hello to and they’d be scared to say hello back. The performance aspect of the ensemble is a confidence builder. Harkins said he’s noticed his students picking up more than musical ability. It was really fun,” she said after her ensemble’s time on stage at Zippity-Do-Dah. “My favorite is probably ‘Eye of the Tiger,’ especially the way we did it today. “I hope she decides to major in music.”Īmelia especially likes singing with her music companions, mostly boys. “Every time she gets on the stage she gets better and better,” Haydel said. Her 12-year-old daughter, Amelia Haydel, has participated for two years in voice lessons and the rock band and made dramatic improvements in her skills. If you don’t practice, sound good or show up by stage time, you don’t play.Īngela Haydel said the hard work is worth it. Students in the ensembles must also participate in additional one-on-one sessions, practice at home and commit to performing during their specific time slots at festivals.Īnd, of course, they have to fit all these into busy school schedules. There’s an emphasis on fun during the practices and performances, but it’s no goof-off session. Harkins thought it would be cool to give his young students a chance to play among their peers. When he started playing, the guys in his groups were always much older. Harkins, who grew up in Jackson, got the idea for Fondren Guitars Student Rock Band from his time gigging as a teen. “We’ve spent the better part of today trying to clear out a new lesson room because we have so many people who want to learn,” Harkins said recently from his office that also doubles as rehearsal space. He has numerous assistants that help with the teaching. The number has grown to about 20 kids comprising six ensemble groups. “I can see people walking up and they think it’s a regular band, and they look up and see it’s a bunch of kids up on stage.” “The festival-goer will hear us before they see us,” he said. Harkins said the program is a success and growing. Shortly after opening his boutique guitar shop, Fondren Guitars, in 2006, Harkins started offering music lessons in addition to the repair work and sales the shop offered.Īs the number of children taking lessons in voice and instruments grew he got an idea: How about taking these kids and forming a band? Or, even better, several different bands? And, why not show off their talent and skills at local festivals?įor five years he’s been doing just that. Shop owner Patrick Harkins, 33, leads some of the practice sessions and takes the rehearsals seriously. Among rows of guitars, old amplifiers and keyboards for sale, bands of kids weekly polish their sound, rehearse and learn songs just as any professional band would do. The kids gather at different times Monday through Friday at Fondren Guitars, a small mom-and-pop-style guitar shop in Jackson. The ensembles play regularly at local festivals, such as Zippity-Do-Dah, Fondren’s First Thursday and the upcoming Ridgeland Fine Arts Festival. The Fondren Guitars Student Rock Band is a series of ensembles comprised of music students from as young as 6 to as old as 17. Family, friends and strangers dance and applaud as Ricky and the Fondren Student Rock Band fill the morning air of the recent Zippity-Do-Dah kid’s carnival with a four-song set list of classic rock and modern pop songs. ![]() With a rollicking measure from his drummer’s snare and high-hat, Ricky glides like a boss into the main riff of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock-And-Roll” without a single muffled note. But they are about to rock your face off. This little mop-topped redhead and his band mates all rehearsed and ready to go are cheek-pinching cute. Biting his lips in concentration, he checks the tuning one last time. He must fully extend his left arm to reach the bottom of the instrument’s neck, where its tuning keys reside. ![]() JACKSON – Ten-year-old Ricky Miller stands on a stage dwarfed by the candy-apple red Gibson electric guitar slung over his shoulder.
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