The Essential Question that guided our projects’ focus was:
MU:PR 6.1 (k-6th) Perform music, alone or with others, with expression & technical accuracy, & appropriate interpretation
HMS addresses this standard by having students perform music with expression, technical accuracy and appropriate interpretation at a community recital and as part of class. Videos of performances help guide instructor evaluation and student feedback.
At the conclusion of the project, students responded to questions related to the identified Standards:
Music education for elementary aged youth has proven to be a lasting life skill and incorporates all aspects of development in right/left brain growth, eye hand coordination and general love and understanding of playing a stringed instrument. Math skills have also shown improvement by reading sheet music. Thanks to the ICA the instruments purchased will continue to be available for future youth of Valley County.
Impact
We are proud to say that our achievements for the Donnelly area far exceeded our expectation with the number of new students that enrolled in the HMS afterschool music education classes. At the same time Donnelly Elementary completed the construction of a new wing to the school building and now has a dedicated music room for our after school session. Our enrollment grew from just 6 students initially to an enrollment of 20 today. Due to the increase in students the funds were used to purchase additional violins and cases to help support our program in Donnelly. Also the funds were instrumental in helping the Music Society pay for the travel stipend and additional fee paid to our instructors per student.
Reflection
McCall Music Society requested support for our affordable and accessible youth music education program, High Mountain Strings. (HMS) Our main objective through this funding request was to help keep participation in HMS as affordable as possible for any student interested in learning a string instrument. To assist with this goal we offer full scholarships and purchase violins and cellos that we then rent back to students at a very low cost.
This request was to aid in our organization’s ability to expand HMS programming to the Donnelly Elementary School and Tamarack Mountain School which was started during 2022.
Although we have many proven successes, one area we need to develop more robustly is our method for advertising our program to potential youth and parents. Social media is an avenue that needs to be more fully developed for the future.
