The summer program for kids.

I did my last school in the county wide summer program for kids this morning. The school today was clear down in the south east corner of the county, about thirty-five miles. I've been having three age groups per school but at this one I had five groups. You can tell that this school is somewhat isolated from the rest of them. They did have sticky rolls for breakfast when I got there and they fed me peperoni pizza before I left. They are the first ones to feed me.

The theme of this summer's youth program was music. So I had one group that was quite a bit older than I've had in the other schools. They were teenagers. I ended up playing some sixties and seventies songs for them, instead of "Wheels on the Bus" and stuff like that and they liked them. I didn't have much planned for them, as I didn't know that I was going to have those two older groups, so I did some Bob Dylan stuff, like "The Times They Are A Changing", "Blowing in the Wind", and "Positively 4th Street." Probably songs from even before a lot of the people here. I played "Look What They Done To My Song" by Melanie and "500 Miles" by Peter, Paul, and Mary. They had never heard those songs before and they really felt that they were relevant to them. They also wanted to talk about how dark "My Darling Clementine" is. That was an interesting conversation. They really listened to the words to the songs.

I'm done for the summer now. I had a lady ask me if I did birthdays for teenagers. I didn't know what to think of that, a 68 year old geezer singing and playing protest songs from the sixties and seventies on a ukulele to teenage kids, but I gave her my email. I might give it a try if she wants. Life is crazy sometimes.

Good on you to spread the music!

Hey if you do the teen party you could find some music on the net I'm sure that is more modern.

Also ask to have laptop at the event. Make the connection between the instrument, how much fun it is to play, and the easy accessibility to getting on line and learning how to play. The kids I deal with like the technology so might as will show them how to make connections and use it.

Hey aren't some of us older than teen folks doing the same thing???

Rllink said:

They also wanted to talk about how dark "My Darling Clementine" is.

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Yes, my uke group always gets a kick out of some of the wording of that song. It depends on how you interpret the words.

Another one I find funny is a line from Five Foot Two - "Now if you run into a five foot two covered with fur" Covered with fur? Really? That sounds like a female bear. : )

Take a look at "Careless Love." That's an old traditional song you probably don't want to explain to kids.