[HANASHIR:14832] guitar class and song leading

[Scott Sloter <Scott...>]

Hi all.

I would like to get some advice from the members of this list on the
process that I might use to go about doing the following.

In my opinion, my congregation is in great need of more music.  The kids
in the religious school are lucky if they ever get exposed to much of
it.  The youth group suffers because the kids have no interest in music.
  I've been trying to come up with a way to bring more music, preferably
on the guitar, to the kids.  My thought is to start a guitar class.  A
lot of kids want to learn to play, however there are a lot of parents
who don't want their kids to play rock and roll.  I figured that if the
guitar class taught the basic chords and did it with Jewish and NFTY
type music, the kids would end up benefitting as well as the
congregation and the youth group, not to mention, parents might be more
apt to let their kids play guitar.  Perhaps one of these kids would turn
into a song leader for the region.

Being from Ft. Worth, Texas, there are not a lot of opportunities to
find Jewish song leaders nor guitar players / teachers for that matter.
  Does anyone have any suggestions for an approach to creating such a
program?  Please keep in mind that small Jewish population that exists
in my area of the bible belt.  Do you think it would be easy to find an
guitar teacher in town that is not Jewish who would learn the songs?
  How might I approach someone who is not Jewish with this concept?  How
should I run this type of program?  How should the congregation be
involved, if at all, with this?  What might help make it successful?

I appreciate the feedback.

- Scott Sloter
FWFTY Advisor
Beth-El Congregation
Ft. Worth, TX


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