Tuesday, January 06, 2009 From the Ledger -Dispatch By Bethany A. Monk
Photographs accompanied this story.
A student musician, one of the students in the "Pick up the Baton" lesson led by Jeff and Steve Chambers of Pioneer, plays during a recital in a music performance at Faith Lutheran Church in Pioneer.
Amador County student Kellsey Long, 15, performs during the Amador Save the Music Fund's inaugural "Save the Music Concert" fund-raiser in June.
Over the Edge, featuring Adam Gottstein, guitarist and vocalist, and Dave Holob, electric violinist and vocalist, perform at "Save the Music Concert."
Lynnette Lipp, who taught for 30 years in the Los Angeles Unified School District, remembers using music to help teach her students English.
Most of those years, Lipp taught elementary school, but for a slice of that time she taught English language learners, then referred to as ESL (English as a Second Language) students. "They loved it," she said of having music in the classroom. She also took them on field trips to symphonies and other music-related events to help enrich their education and expose them to various types of music.
Because of dire cuts in education, funding such events is not as easy for teachers and districts these days, said Lipp, now retired. This, coupled with her passion to keep music programs in the schools, is the reason she helps run the nonprofit Amador Student Music Fund with co-founder Michael Smith.
Members of ASMF, an umbrella of the Amador Community Foundation, are dedicated to raising money for music programs and opportunities for public and private schools and homeschool programs throughout the county. ASMF also helps underprivileged students rent musical instruments so that they may participate in band programs.
Those who wish to contribute to the foundation may sign up to contribute $5 a month via Lipp's "$5-a-month" club. "If they can't pay it each month, I don't go after them," Lipp said, adding that the donation program is very flexible. Donors may also pay in six-month or one-year lump sums, she said. "The main thing is, if they want to see music in the schools, every penny helps."
Last month, ASMF awarded its first grant, which went to the Amador County Unified School District for use by the music/band teacher Chris Tootle, "in the form of the purchase of a very upscale, highly accurate hand-held recording device," Lipp stated.
The recording device, technically an H4 Zoom Handy Recorder, was given to the school district for use in the instrumental classes, according to the ASMF Web site.
Tootle is quoted on the Web site saying that as a music educator, he is able to "use the H4 to record concerts into MP3 or audio format and then burn them to disc for fund-raising or just personal archives. The H4 can also be used to record student auditions for area honor bands - very useful!" He has already used the H4 to record rehearsals and as "instant playback to the ensemble so that students can immediately critique their own performance. (It's) great for standards-based learning."
Lipp said that the recording device is a great learning tool for student musicians. Tootle, she added, can record individual student musicians playing. These students, she said, can use these CDs in college applications.
This month, Lipp will be applying for several grants to help fund music in the schools.
Lipp recently sent out a press release stating the needs for various grade levels throughout the county. Kindergarten through second-grade classes need CD players, CDs to sing along with, song books, classroom rhythm instruments and more, the release states. Third- through fifth-graders are in need of song books, recorder music books, and more.
"Your gift of any amount at all will help us to provide these 'extras,' especially those normally provided by the school districts, whose budget woes are headlines these days," Lipp stated in the release. "The state has made so many cuts, the schools cannot even use certain funds they used to use to provide any and all of the above."
ASMF is also seeking new or used (but playable) instruments. "Please contact us and we will be glad to see that a child has use of your old instrument," she said. For more information, call 296-4754.
FROM THE ABOVE ARTICLE CAME AN EXTRAORDINARY GIFT!
An extra ending, not printed .... to this story comes from a phone call made to Lynnette Lipp by a Calaveras retired Music Teacher named Jane Hess. Ms Hess, after reading the article in the Ledger-Dispatch picked up the phone and called the number printed in the paper. Ms. Hess was a full time music teacher in Seattle, Oakland and other places around the country and was the itinerent traveling music teacher for 6 schools in the Calaveras Unified School District. As her husband moved from place to place working on space projects for Boeing..she had many music school experiences.
She worked full time until an accident left her disabled and she was forcibly retired by her disability. However, over the years, Ms. Hess had amassed a huge amount of music materials, from cd's to song books for various grade levels, electronic keyboards for classroom use, childrens plays with scripts for each child, music tapes recorded by Ms. Hess for performing the plays and record albums of sing-a-long varieties for the classrooms. Many teacher manuals for teaching music came with all the materials for all grade levels. Additionally a bass drum was given to us for use in a marching band.
All of these music items and materials were given to the Amador Student Music Fund for use with children in Amador County on the first trip to meet Ms. Hess in Moke Hill. Lynnette and Michael Smith will have to go back at least two more times to pick up the remainder of all the items being donated by Jane Hess. Once all the items are catalogued and listed, the many items will find their way to classrooms in Amador County.
We just cannot thank Ms. Hess enough for contributing music materials so useful and so needed today in classrooms. Our Amador teachers are just going to love their new music materials.
A second extra surprise, also the result of this article, was a gift made by Benita Asher , a Jackson resident. Ms. Asher gave a donation of a open hole Sterling Flute that she had used when she was in the marching band at school. It's a beautiful flute and will be available on loan to an Amador child studying music in need of an instrument.
Thanks to the Ledger Dispatch for printing the story on the Amador Student Music Fund. AND BETHANY MONK!
