[HANASHIR:14842] Re: guitar class and song leading

[jdkrheum <jdkrheum...>]

My experience living in an area with few Jews would lead me to be very
careful asking non-Jews to teach Jewish and NFTY songs. You have to make
sure they really understand what being Jewish means (I had an experience
when my kids were in a private but non-religious pre-school, w/a teacher
who read a story about Jesus to the class. She had no idea that there
were some kids whose parents wouldn't appreciate that.) You have to also
think about songs that embody prayers - does it make sense for a non-Jew
to sing/teach songs that are not meaningful to them? - that might be a
question for the congregation or its board or clergy. (Just my 2 cents.)

On another topic, I thought the list might be interested in an experience
I just had. I'm teaching in a day camp in a conservative congregation
this summer (preschoolers). The director asked me to do songs for a
pretend "camp out" next week. She asked me if I know generic camp songs,
like "The Ants Go Marching One by One." I said that I normally just do
Jewish songs, like "Rise & Shine." She said, "Oh! Great!" Funny. But she
seemed happy w/the idea.

-Amy

On Thu, 10 Jul 2003 20:21:03 -0500 Scott Sloter <Scott (at) Sloter(dot)net>
writes:
> 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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