KENNER, LA – Thanks to your donations, Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation donated brand new keyboards to the new K-8 music program at John James Audubon Elementary School. Much to the pleasure of the school and the community, this will be J.J. Audubon’s first music program! “Help me give my students keyboards to provide kinesthetic learning of rhythm, harmony, and melody for enhanced: coordination, memorization, discipline, pattern recognition, auditory skills, and academic skills,” Mr. Earle Brown asks. “My students are extremely excited about having a music program at our school. They absolutely love the experience of doing new and different activities such as music because they love the challenges and being able to overcome those challenges of learning music.” John James Audubon was formally an elementary school. Now, it host students K-8. “Prior to this year, there had never been any type of music program offered at the school, so the lower grades, K-5 were never exposed to any type of music training,” Mr. Brown explains. “Some of the seventh and eighth graders had band in their previous school. Most of them did not have their own instruments when they arrived at my school and were not able to participate in band as they had done in the past.” There were no musical instruments of any kind at the school. Mr. Brown graciously donated his own personal supply of recorders and rhythm sticks for the lower grades. “I [also] donated a tenor sax, three clarinets, and two flutes to my seventh and eighth-grade students.” Mr. Brown’s level of commitment is stellar! “My students are truly an incredible group, and I am so lucky and thankful to have a new group of learners that are excited and ready to learn music!” Mr. Brown’s project will primarily focus on the middle school students. The keyboards will allow these students to physically engage rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, and music theory concepts. “The students need exposure to meaningful educational experiences to discover and nourish their gifts and talents. In learning how to play the keyboards, students gain an understanding of how to read and write musical notation. Students will also learn how to create their own rhythmic patterns and musical compositions through the development of musical ideas on the keyboards. This project will help to gain coordination, memorization, discipline, pattern recognition, auditory skills, and academic skills.” Thanks to Joe Bonamassa fans and music lovers like you, Mr. Brown’s project has been successfully funded and students will enjoy eight (8) new keyboards in the classroom. Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation is a 501c3 organization that makes a donation to a school in need of music instruments, supplies, sheet music, and more every week! Your donations help us keep music in schools, while preserving blues heritage. Without your support, we would not be able to reach as many students around the country. We are grateful for your generosity! As a result, KTBA has reached over 66,000 students across America by sponsoring over 400 various music projects ranging from purchasing new instruments, field trips, guest clinicians, purchasing supplies, and updating music libraries. If you would like to help us to continue to make an impact on music education in America, click here to make a donation! All donations are fully tax-deductible. Thank you for supporting music education for the next generation!

newellton, la – Thanks to your donations this week, students in Newellton, LA will have the chance to experience their first music program in the little town of Tensas Parish. The students of Newellton Elementary School are vivacious individuals that animate the beautiful country-side of Newellton, Louisiana. They are very vocal about their needs and wants. They hunt, fish, and perpetually explore the world around them. The school they attend works very hard to mold their desire to grow.  Although the community does not have a lot of money or resources, the people come together to provide for themselves and their loved ones. It truly is beautiful to see people come together for a common good. Mr. Thomas explains, “I have learned so much in my short time here, and have been inspired to contribute to the development of the community. That is how powerful my students, the school they attend, and the community of which they are a part, are.” As a result of a donation request made by Mr. Thomas via DonorsChoose.org, he requested a classroom set of recorders in the key of C, complete with the lesson books and music stands they needed.  The goal was to start a beginners’ music program wherein they would be able to participate in structural music activities as well as grow as individual musicians despite the lack of project funding through the school’s current fiscal budget. “The students will learn the rudiments of musical notation and theory, putting to use their newly greater understanding of sound with a recorder.  By the end of the year, 4 young ladies and 9 young gentlemen will be able to play simple melodies on a recorder and identify basic musical notations,” Mr. Thomas adds. Recorders may not seem like much to the average person reading this, but musicians and educators know the importance of starting out with this program because it teaches many fundamentals of music notation, breath control, discipline, and ensemble techniques at an affordable cost.  The recorders used in most 3rd grade classrooms are a gateway program to introduce students to the joys of music and camaraderie amongst their peers – catapulting their other studies as well as attendance.  These factors snowball into higher graduation rates, attention spans, and peer relationship building as the students grow older. Thanks to the donations raised, thirteen students will get to take part in music lessons and ensemble rehearsals at Newellton Elementary, and they are excited to begin as soon as possible. Dear Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, We want to tell you thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Your donation will contribute to the development of minds, an exploration of world traditions, and provide an extra outlet for human expression.I am filled with joy to know that there are people around the world that think it is important to provide children with opportunities for creative exploration. These instruments will make a world of difference in the lives of these children. You are a part of this; and for it, I am eternally grateful. Thank you!With gratitude, Mr. Thomas Keeping The Blues Alive is a 501 c3 organization committed to funding music projects and scholarships all over the country.   If you would like to make a small donation to fund next week’s project, click here to begin!

Thibobaux, L.A – Thanks to your donations this week, Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation made a wonderful donation to St. Charles Elementary music program! Mr. Chamberlain, the school’s music teacher was looking for a way to amplify his students’ music performances. Typically, in larger scaled performances, certain instruments such as the flute, for instance, can get “buried” in the band’s overall sound.  As a result, it has been proven necessary to have some sort of amplification system nearby.  The earlier that students learn about how to operate these amp systems, the more versatile their experience will be as they graduate and move on to bigger bands at the high school level.  The mics are also used for solo performances and speeches. Mr. Chamberlain’s fifth grade classroom consists of a beginning band.  Whereas a lot of students end up start in recorder, Chamberlain is starting his students off on another level. “I teach fifth grade beginning band at a small public school with limited funds in southeast Louisiana. Our school has pre-k through fifth grade and it has under three hundred wonderful, bright, eager students. We have dedicated, highly qualified teachers who love their jobs, and the students we get the privilege to teach. We also have great parental and community support with a common goal of going above and beyond to ensure the success of every student we teach.” With the new PA system, the band can strive for better sound quality and intonation as their sound fills up the room. Dear Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, The students at our school and I thank you for supporting our project. We can’t wait to get our supplies in so that we can enjoy listening to music the way it was intended to sound, and create our own music that we can record and play back for both learning and enjoyment. Our annual talent show will also be enhanced by giving all of the students the opportunity to perform on stage with quality equipment which will enhance their confidence with public performance.With gratitude, Mr. Chamberlain