Monthly Archives: May 2016

Spring 2016 Guitar Recital!

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The Spring 2016 Student Guitar Recital was held May 22nd at Midwest Drum & Percussion!

GRW 2016 Spring Recital 01 wm I have a blast conducting the recitals. Students are doing a great job gaining experience while playing songs by artists that they are interested in studying. It’s great to give students that are motivated to perform a chance to do so in an encouraging setting. It is a fantastic way to hone performance skills, enhance repertoire, prepare for auditions, tackle a challenging work-in-progress and/or meet some fellow students & parents while seeing results from your guitar lessons as each student progresses.

Over the years we’ve had a wide variety of music performed at each recital from beginner melodies, advanced solo guitar pieces, singing/playing the hits, jamming along with backing tracks and various groups/ensembles. Students often pick a pretty wide range of music to perform!

Learn How to Play Guitar This Summer!

Immediate openings are available! After-School, Evening, Saturday and some select morning times are currently available. In Home Lessons are available upon a limited basis and may be best suited for home-schooled students. See the Contact Link here, above or below for more information. Gift Certificates are available. Let’s get started with the jams!

 

The Electric Guitar: Wichita’s Instrument

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Wichita has a storied history with the electric guitar, and it is on full display through June 5, 2016 at the Wichita-Sedgwick County Historical Museum http://wichitahistory.org . The first public performance of an electric guitar was arguably right here in Wichita, Ks by Gage Brewer fronting his orchestra on Halloween in 1932! It was manufactured by a company RoPatIn that eventually became the company we now know as Rickenbacker.GRW Gage Brewer RoPatIn Display Case 01

The museum recently hosted a weekend-long Guitar Symposium with presentations by notable historians and collectors Here is noted guitarist and music historian Deke Dickerson playing the original RoPatIn guitar with museum director Eric Cale looking on.

GRW RoPatIn Deke Eric Guitar Symposium 01

On the evening of Friday May 6th, during the Guitar Symposium hosted by the museum, Deke Dickerson hosted a jam at Barleycorn’s and was backed up by Marty Stuart and the Fabulous Superlatives (Kenny Vaughan, Harry Stinson and Chris Scruggs)! What a treat! They were passing through town to see the exhibit at the museum among other things, and made time to stop and jam on some Merle Haggard with Deke as well as treat the crowd to some tracks from their upcoming Hillbilly-Surf album. It was great stuff! In the following picture, Marty Stuart is playing Clarence White’s Tele… 🙂GRW Marty Stuart Band with Deke Guitar Symposium Jam 01

The exhibit is open at the Wichita-Sedwick County Historical Museum through June 5th, 2016. Visit http://wichitahistory.org for more details. Well worth checking out in my opinion!

Here is a link to great article by Denise Neil recently published by the Wichita Eagle that offers some further background. http://www.kansas.com/entertainment/arts-culture/article56139290.html  Wichita Exhibits to show why the guitar rocks