SOAR offers Americana course

Brad Tisdel, second from right, leads students learning "This Land Is Your Land." photo by Jim Cornelius

Sisters children got a taste of American roots music over the past two weeks through a SOAR (Sisters Organization for Activities and Recreation) music program led by Brad Tisdel.

According to Tisdel, the two-week SOAR music program is part of an effort to expand the wildly successful Sisters Folk Festival Americana Project into the middle school and eventually into the elementary school.

The Americana Project has given numerous Sisters High School students the opportunity to learn and polish guitar-playing and songwriting skills, record CDs and discover the historical roots of American music.

Tisdel said the SOAR program would help put the program in front of younger students. SOAR provided some funding for the summer program, with an eye toward creating a Sisters Middle School Americana Project soon.

"I'm hoping to get guitars into the hands of the kids in the program and maybe do some student-to-student mentoring," Tisdel said.

Tisdel said his main goal is "just to get them excited" about playing and creating their own music.

The dozen students in the program -- ranging in age from about 11 to 14 years -- learned basics such as how to tune a guitar, a little bit of chord theory and got a little exposure to old-time blues, folk and other forms of American music.

The students also did some writing. One is working on a slice-of-life tune called "I Fell and Scraped My Knee."

Then Tisdel got the group working on chord changes and strums, making their own music.

Author Bio

Jim Cornelius, Editor in Chief

Jim Cornelius is editor in chief of The Nugget and author of “Warriors of the Wildlands: True Tales of the Frontier Partisans.” A history buff, he explores frontier history across three centuries and several continents on his podcast, The Frontier Partisans. For more information visit www.frontierpartisans.com.

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