String Music

Published 11:35 am Friday, May 19, 2006

The sounds of music emanating from Dawnville Elementary have taken on a decidedly classical bent in recent years. Thanks to a strings class taught by music teacher Eric Smith, students can begin violin lessons as early as third grade.

“I started the program out of love for the instrument. I grew up in this area with no program ensemble,” Smith said. “The Creative Arts Guild occasionally teaches the Suzuki Method (a philosophy of violin teaching), and they’ve been a great support for strings, but there’s been no real emphasis in the area. I wanted a stronger strings program.”

Smith studied at the Shenandoah Conservatory in northern Virginia, where he received a degree in music instruction and piano. He teaches the traditional music classes at Dawnville and currently has 11 students in his strings program in third through fifth grade. Fifth grader Vicki Hijar, 11, said she was inspired by her brother, Chris, 16, a Southeast High student who plays trumpet.

“Before we started these lessons, I was horrible,” Hijar said. “My brother tried to teach me, but he wasn’t that good either. Even though I’ll be in middle school next year, I want to come back to keep learning from Mr. Smith. He’s a pretty cool teacher.”

Smith said strings help students improve their focus and listening skills.

“Elementary curriculums are oftentimes dependent on voice instruction. We teach a lot of instruments, but this is a new teaching tool,” Smith said. “On a lot of band instruments, students can push a key or a valve to produce a specific pitch, but strings are very similar to sliding trombones in that way. Students can look at their fingers, but they have to hear the pitch, and these students have impressed me with their intonation.

Smith said the “method book” he uses teaches mainly the classical style, but he doesn’t mind students delving into the bluegrass style of regional “fiddle” music popular in the area.

Student McKinley Poteet said her grandmother, Patsy Weber, encouraged her to play because of a family tradition with the instrument.

“At family reunions, everyone brings their instruments and plays, and my grandma told me her folks played the fiddle,” Poteet said. “I want to keep on doing it. In the media center, I went on a Web site that showed people playing who started when they were really little.”

Smith has been at Dawnville six years and said he started this program two years ago. While such programs are more typical in metro-area schools, Smith said some Atlanta-area schools have recently had to drop their strings lessons because of budget cuts.

“That’s sad because students really lose out on a lot of traditional music. We appreciate Whitfield County Schools supporting this program. We hope to eventually open it up to other schools in the system, with a central location and instruments,” Smith said. “Each year, I lose a few students when they move to middle school. I hope these students keep it up. Their talent has made me a better strings teacher.”

Student Tori Rogers said even though she and her classmates have other interests such as cheerleading and sports like soccer, basketball, and softball, she plans to keep practicing — despite the blisters that sometimes cover their fingers from violin practice.

“I started because I thought it would be fun and because I heard that people who play an instrument are better educated,” Rogers said. “I want to stick it out and teach little kids one day and play in an orchestra, even though there aren’t as many orchestras as there were in the old days.”

The students’ repertoire started with tunes such as “Jingle Bells,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and “Hot Cross Buns,” and has grow to include Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

“Our principal, Mr. (Bert) Coker, encouraged us to play the inspirational at a school board meeting this year, and we pulled together ‘Ode to Joy,’” Smith said. “We used a viola, two cellos, and another teacher played the second violin part, so we had a four-part harmonized piece.”

Several of the school’s half-size violins were donated by Chatsworth Dentistry, and music shops locally and in Chattanooga have given students good rental rates on instruments, Smith said. And the program continues to grow — Hijar said her second-grade sister, Isabelle, and Monica, her five-year-old sister, want to learn to play, too.

“These students have sports and other activities going on, and I’m all for that, too, but I hope they can work around that,” Smith said. “Our ultimate goal in the future is to build a full, four-part orchestra and include other schools, with students from all grade levels.”