Tucson Kitchen Musicians Association: Music in the Schools

TKMA's program Music in the Schools is continuing its tradition of bringing free music into Tucson's schools to spread the word not only about the annual Tucson Folk Festival, but to talk about how great it is to play and listen to music.

Music in the Schools Visits Craigin Elementary

On Friday, March 9, 2007, the TKMA Music in the Schools (MITS) performance team demonstrated several acoustic instruments and popular songs to the students at Cragin Elementary School in Tucson. Ray St. Clair ("Cowboy Ray"), Kathy Harris ("Chicken Fiddle") and Roger Mikulas ("Racer Roger") demonstrated six and twelve string guitars, fiddle, five string banjo, hammered dulcimer, electric bass and autoharp to very enthusiastic groups of students and teachers, through songs and tunes like The Unicorn, Marvelous Little Toy, Ragtime Annie, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly and You Are My Sunshine. There were two 25 minute "concerts", the first for K - 2nd grades, and the second for 3rd - 5th grade.

The children really seemed to enjoy the music, and expressed a lot of interest in the instruments. The school staff was very helpful and welcoming to our team, and gave us some good feedback for continuous improvement, as well as telling our team that they would welcome us back next year. The students participated in singing the songs as well as in providing percussion for the tunes "on stage", and were a delight to sing and perform with. Chicken Fiddle, whose motto was "If a chicken can play the fiddle (which she did), any of you can, too!" was clearly the hit of the event, and will continue to appear with Cowboy Ray, Groovy Gail and Racer Roger in future MITS outings!

We have several more "mini-concerts" at other schools yet this year, and are looking forward to playing those as well as adding even more to the schedule over time, with the continuing goal to bring the joy of making music to the young people in our schools.

Chicken fiddle makes her entrance