Volunteer or Donate your Music, Services or Performance to Charity / Event Planners of .orgs welcomed

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Permalink Reply by Robert Len Stallard on December 29, 2009 at 10:16pm

Great topic Jeff bro! I perform for free at several charity events in the Houston Metro area in Texas. Music heals and inspires people, especially those in need. I'm always available for serious charity events, if I agree with the cause of course.

God bless,
- Robert
.:.
Robert Len Stallard (RLSguitar)
Progressive Acoustic Instrumental Guitar
www.RLSguitar.com
.:.

Permalink Reply by Jeff Williams on December 29, 2009 at 10:28pm

Thanks robert .. i have have had a blessed year and i hope i can share my blessings with others.
I hope this helps ..
I think many of us started playing music to help change the world in the first place.
Times are changing and the structure of the music business is changing so we have to adapt with it.
I think this will be a very positive adaptation.

It would be wonderful if our President Obama could point to this as an example , not only of the charitable nature of the american people , but also and example of how music is an integral part of society that not only creates jobs and drives industry but it also fosters diversity , creativity and social bonds within communities.

I know that's a bit "lofty and dreamy" but .. it's my dream and i'm keeping it .. haha

Hope you have a wonderful new year ,
Looking forward to many happy returns
Jeff

Jeff Williams
http://www.jeffwilliams-usa.com

Permalink Reply by Gil on January 21, 2010 at 2:03pm

Hi Jeff! I read this when you first posted and am just now getting to a reply!
I'm honored you would mention me in your post.
My charity drive for homeless children was a success!
I plan on doing it again for sure.

Cheers, Gil

Permalink Reply by Jeff Williams on January 21, 2010 at 6:53pm

Great News Gil, Homelessness in the USA is way too common.
I'm sure there are some very appreciative children who have a much better chance at life and contributing to society, who knows maybe one of our future presidents was in that group. :)
It's my pleasure to point out good deeds and good idea's,
Thanks , I hope to see this topic grow fast.
Cheers
Jeff

Permalink Reply by John Burr on January 28, 2010 at 4:48pm

Great topic! For the last three years I have been donating time to host some free classes to teach elementary school teachers to play guitars in their classrooms! Not surprisingly, the name of the wonderful organization that has been enabling me and so many others all over the country to do this is GUITARS IN THE CLASSROOM.

http://guitarsintheclassroom.org

This very cool non-profit organization was started by Jessica Barron and it has since become a fairly well known organization supported by some names we all know like NAAM and D'addario Foundation and a whole bunch of famous artists and dozens or ordinary guitar players like you and me who feel it's important for children to be exposed to some live music, ideally live guitar music, during their early years. With shrinking school budgets forcing schools to spend less on the arts each year teaching the "regular" teachers to play some simple stuff on guitar seemed like a great way to fight the darkness to me.

Here is how it works, contact Jessica and others at GITC via the link above. Let them know you want to be a part of the solution and you are willing to start a program near you. If you are volunteering your time you basically just need to learn the program material, (Open G tuning, Hawaiian Slack Key), and start recruiting teachers and find a place to have the meetings. If you want to expand and start paying your guitar instructors you will need to do some fund raising but you might be surprised to find out how cool that can be too. Last year Vicki Genfan offered to do an impromptu House Concert at my place to help me raise some funds, couldn't pull it off as I had just moved a couple of weeks before and just didn't have enough time but she was so cool, she met me on her way out of Orlando and gave me an autographed guitar to sell this year at a concert. She also offered to come back sometime soon if we can pick up her expenses and do the house concert! How cool is that?

The pic in my icon was me with a harem of belly dancers at a concert and bar-b-que for Breast Cancer Awareness, that one was 12 hours on stage for yours truly! Several of the other groups we had planned did not show or could not play due to a flu bug tearing through the area. I was down to playing Hot Cross Buns by the time they decided to start Karaoke for the drunk folks still hanging on.

I also play at Church when needed although lately I have been running the sound board and computer videos while singing my parts from the sound booth. Whatever, I have always tried to look at the entire signal chain as an instrument anyway, it's all music. I don't lump the Church stuff in with the charity stuff myself, not in my own head anyway, i do that for God, the rest I do for my fellow man, my community I guess is a better way to put it. I do really love to play for charity whenever the need arises though, it leaves me with the kind of reward that a 50 dollar bill simply cannot compete with.

BSR

Permalink Reply by Jeff Williams on January 28, 2010 at 10:23pm

Excellent, !!!!
I find hearing about the generosity of others leaves me with a warm feeling inside.
Dr Wayne Dyer speaks of a study which revealed, people who witness acts of kindness are positively affected.
People who are observed in acts of kindness help people they have never met and often don't even realize have been affected.
Kindness is contagious and i hope that this topic will help to usher that concept forward to multiply :)
Thanks for your heart warming story and assistance to others.
Cheers
Jeff

PS: Question, the program is an open tuning program ? I'm happy about that, just find that suprising since it seems every beginner guitar class i've ever seen , starts with standard tuning.

Permalink Reply by John Burr on January 29, 2010 at 8:33am

Hey Jeff, yes the initial training starts with an open G tuning so that the teachers can learn some simple, two finger versions of the G, C and D chords, (I, IV and V) and the use of a capo to put songs into a singable key. This lets us concentrate on song construction and rythmn, strumming and so on during the 6 one hour classes. In fact this is the final goal of the class, to provide a method that does not require the teachers, typically non-musician teachers, to do any pratice and still be able to function confidently with the guitar even after a month or two of not picking it up. The basic idea is that we hope they will start using their own guitar rather than putting in yet another CD and hitting play when it's time for educational songs.

I also use the books written by Jessica called the "Smart Start" Guitar method when I am teaching very young kids. In Kindergarten and even first grade the hands are small and the use of letters seems like a lot to add to the process. I use Jessica's method because it works great for kids and I want their first experience in learning an instrument to be absolutely successful. No way I want to be rsponsible for leaving a kid thinking he/she cannot learn the guitar because it was too hard at first.

With the teachers I get about one out of ten that want to go on to learn to actually play in standard tuning and of course we are tickled about that but the big deal is that more than half of the teachers we work with are actually using the guitar in their normal teaching routines a year after taking the course. It works and it's easy to bring into your own neighborhood. It's fun to teach these courses and you do not need to be a great guitarist to be a great GITC teacher, it's more about being enthusiastic and upbeat and really wanting to help kids hear live music in school.

Go to the site and email Jessica and the gang and get it started in your own home town, it is nothing but positive and the few hours you spend will have an effect on hundreds of kids over the next few years. It's a lot of bang for your volunteer buck!

If anyone is interested in the Smart Start books they are published by Hal Leonard...

BSR

Permalink Reply by Jeff Williams on January 29, 2010 at 2:33pm

Nice, very interesting and apparently successful program & techniques.
I will look into it ..
thanks for the info ..
Jeff

Permalink Reply by Brian Henke on March 4, 2010 at 3:51pm

Hi,
This is great topic!

Every year I am in charge of a benefit for The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless called The Woodchoppers Ball which is held every December at The Kent Stage in Kent Ohio. It now features 9 great acoustic guitarists, 3 on stage at a time, playing round robin style, each taking turns playing a song till everyone has played a total of 4 songs each.

Some of the guitarists who have played this event in the past are, Pete Huttlinger, Andy McKee, Michael Kelsey, Tom Shiness, Todd Hallawell, Robin Kessinger, Patrick Woods, David Gillis, Bill Dutcher and many, many others from all over North America.
I'm currently booking this year's event which will be held Saturday December 11th, again at The Kent Stage www.kentstage.org . This will be our 10 year anniversery!!

In 2007 we released a 26 guitarist compilation CD called The Woodchoppers Ball, featuring all of the guitarists listed above plus Doug Smith, John Doan, Stephen Bennett, Neil Jacobs and of course, many others.

There is an enormous amount of fun and comraderie at these shows. It's hard to put into words how much fun this for both the audience and the musicians. The feeling is just incredible!

Now keep in mind that I am not a promoter. I am just a full time working guitarist like so many of you out there so this is the only event of this size that I put together. Just booking and promoting all of my regular shows keeps me pretty busy. I don't have alot of money to donate to causes I deem worthy and underfunded, but I do know how to put on a show.... Just get Mom to sew the costumes, hang some curtains in the barn out back and invite the neighbors....

Anyone wanting advie on how to put somthing like this together please feel free to contact me any time!

Brian Henke

Permalink Reply by Susan Palmer of Lead Cat Press on March 4, 2010 at 4:29pm

I read a cool quote today: Habitat for Humanity CEO Marty Kooistra: "We have to not just teach people to fish but ask, "'who has access to the pond?'"

There's a cool organization in Seattle called, Seattle Music Partners They match high school and college music students with younger kids and offer them private music instruction on a variety of instruments.

Susan Palmer
Author of "The Guitar Lesson Companion"
www.leadcatpress.com