Little Kids Rock
Encyclopedia
Little Kids Rock is a nonprofit organization that provides free instruments and lessons to children in under-served public schools. The organization is supported by a number of music industry luminaries including Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, Slash
Slash (musician)
Saul Hudson , known by his stage name Slash, is a British-American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the former lead guitarist of the American hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During his later years with Guns N'...

, Joe Satriani
Joe Satriani
Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...

, BB King, Jason Newsted
Jason Newsted
Jason Curtis Newsted is an American bassist known for his work with Metallica, Voivod and Flotsam and Jetsam. Joining Metallica in 1986 after Cliff Burton's death, Newsted remained a member until 2001, making him the band's longest-serving bassist...

, Linkin Park
Linkin Park
Linkin Park is an American rock band from Agoura Hills, California. Formed in 1996, the band rose to international fame with their debut album, Hybrid Theory, which was certified Diamond by the RIAA in 2005 and multi-platinum in several other countries...

's Brad Delson
Brad Delson
Bradford Phillip "Brad" Delson is an American guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist and one of the founding members of the Grammy Award winning rock band Linkin Park. He is also the A&R Representative for Machine Shop Recordings....

, Bob Weir
Bob Weir
Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead...

, Ziggy Marley
Ziggy Marley
David "Ziggy" Marley is a Jamaican musician and leader of the band Ziggy Marley and the Melody Makers. He is the oldest son of famed reggae musician Bob Marley...

, Paul Simon
Paul Simon
Paul Frederic Simon is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist.Simon is best known for his success, beginning in 1965, as part of the duo Simon & Garfunkel, with musical partner Art Garfunkel. Simon wrote most of the pair's songs, including three that reached number one on the US singles...

, Steve Vai
Steve Vai
Steven Siro "Steve" Vai is a three time Grammy Award-winning American guitarist, songwriter and producer who has sold over 15 million albums. Steve Vai is widely known as a flamboyant guitar virtuoso....

, Carmine Appice
Carmine Appice
Carmine Appice is an American rock drummer of Italian background and is the older brother of drummer Vinny Appice by 12 years. He received a classical music training and was influenced by the jazz drumming of Buddy Rich and Gene Krupa early on...

, Liberty DeVitto
Liberty DeVitto
Liberty DeVitto is an American rock drummer. He is best known as the drummer for Billy Joel, but has also played with the NYC Hit Squad and has been a session drummer on recordings of other artists.-Career:...

, Stefan Lessard
Stefan Lessard
Stefan Kahil Lessard is an American musician, most famous as the bassist for the Dave Matthews Band.-Early life:Lessard was born in Anaheim, California, to musicians Ron and Janaki Lessard. After moving a number of times during his childhood, Lessard and his family eventually settled in...

, Mike Stone
Mike Stone (musician)
Mike Stone is an American heavy metal guitarist, best known for his previous involvement in the progressive metal band Queensrÿche. He joined Queensrÿche for their 2003 Tribe tour, and made his first appearance on the 2003 album Tribe, with writing credits for the song "Losing Myself"...

 of Queensrÿche
Queensrÿche
thumb|250px|right|Queensrÿche's classic line-up performing at the [[Sauna Open Air Metal Festival]] 2011 in [[Tampere]], [[Finland]]. Left to right: bass Eddie Jackson, lead vocals Geoff Tate, drums Scott Rockenfield and guitars Michael Wilton....

, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Trans-Siberian Orchestra is an American progressive metal band founded in 1993 by producer, composer, and lyricist Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli and keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel to form the core of the creative team. Since then, TSO sold nearly 8...

, Rick Springfield
Rick Springfield
Rick Springfield is an Australian-born singer-songwriter, musician, and actor. He was a member of pop rock group Zoot from 1969 to 1971 and then started his solo career with his début single "Speak to the Sky" reaching the top 10 in Australia. In mid-1972, he relocated to the United States...

, Jesse McCartney
Jesse McCartney
Jesse McCartney is an American singer-songwriter, actor and voice actor. McCartney achieved fame in the late 1990s on the daytime drama All My Children as JR Chandler. He later joined boy band Dream Street, and eventually branched out into a solo musical career...

, Dave Mason
Dave Mason
David Thomas "Dave" Mason is an English singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Worcester, who first found fame with the rock band Traffic...

, Les Paul
Les Paul
Lester William Polsfuss —known as Les Paul—was an American jazz and country guitarist, songwriter and inventor. He was a pioneer in the development of the solid-body electric guitar which made the sound of rock and roll possible. He is credited with many recording innovations...

, Gregg Rolie
Gregg Rolie
Gregg Alan Rolie is an American keyboardist, organist, and singer, who is one of the founding members of the bands Santana, The Storm, Abraxas Pool and Journey, for whom he was the original lead singer. He currently performs with his Gregg Rolie Band...

, Marcus Henderson
Marcus Henderson
Marcus Henderson is a critically acclaimed rock and heavy metal guitarist from the San Francisco Bay area. His previous bands include Drist and Hellbillys as well as work for En Vogue and Simon Stinger. In 2005, he was chosen to take the role as one of the lead guitarists for the Guitar Hero series...

, Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin
Joshua Radin is an American recording artist, songwriter and actor. He was born and raised in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and is of Swedish, German, Polish, Russian, and Austrian descent. He studied drawing and painting at Northwestern University, following his college years with stints as an art...

 and others.

Mission

Little Kids Rock's mission is to restore and revitalize music education in public schools throughout the United States.

Organization History

Little Kids Rock formally became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2002. However, the roots of the program date back to 1996 when David Wish, an elementary school teacher, began giving free guitar lessons to his students. After a short time, he started recruiting other volunteers to help him with his efforts. In 2002, he left the classroom to found Little Kids Rock.

The Little Kids Rock Program

Little Kids Rock brings popular instruments (i.e. acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, drums, bass, etc.) to schools serving high concentrations of low-income students, enhancing the schools’ capacity to bring music education to children who otherwise might not have access. The Little Kids Rock method helps align music education with contemporary musical styles and trends, emphasizing music that the students are already familiar with, including: rock, funk, blues and hip-hop. Heavy emphasis is placed upon composition, improvisation and recording.

Public Resources

In addition to providing free music instruction in public schools, Little Kids Rock also offers free lessons to the general public through www.littlekidsrock.org and www.littlekidsrock.tv, an on-line educational public resource.

Pedagogy and Curriculum

Little Kids Rock may be partly understood as an educational reform initiative. The pedagogy is informed by ideas from scholars whose work is familiar to schoolteachers from their professional training. The Little Kids Rock methodology is rooted in linguist Dr. Stephen Krashen’s five theories of second-language acquisition, and educational theorist John Dewey’s student centered learning ideas on the subject of student-centered curricula.

Little Kids Rock's pedagogy is similar in some ways to ideas expressed by music education reformers such as Suzuki
Suzuki method
The Suzuki method is a method of teaching music that emerged in the mid-20th century.-Background:The Suzuki Method was conceived in the mid-20th century by Shin'ichi Suzuki, a Japanese violinist who desired to bring beauty to the lives of children in his country after the devastation of World War II...

 and Orff
Carl Orff
Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

. Both of these pioneers argued that reading music was a skill to be broached by students only after they had developed facility on an instrument. By weaving these ideas together with the theories propounded by Krashen and Dewey, Little Kids Rock has synthesized its own, unique pedagogy.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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