CMTE O – This Is Country Music (For Our Clients) takes place on Thursday, November 21 – 1:30 – 6:30 pm and is presented by Cowboy Bob & the Rangers: Robert Groene, PhD MT-BC; Sharla Whitsitt MME, MT-BC; Susan Tilbury; Matthew Lloyd; Margaret Rodgers, MT-BC
Register for this session here.
Cowboy Bob & the Rangers give us the run down:
What will you be sharing?
We are presenting on Country Music (our third conference doing this) because we have observed and are concerned that many music therapy students know little about it, and even avoid it (going for pop music instead), despite that many of our clients love Country.
Country’s roots are deep in America.
We open the Session with Brad Paisley’s “This is Country Music” to get an idea of the breadth of the genre. Country has blossomed into multi sub-genres, including blues, mountain, folk, Gospel, swing, bluegrass, and rock. We now know that when assessing client music preferences, we must delve deeper into their response, “Country”, due to its historical/stylistic diversity.
We start in the 1920’s with the rise of country from hillbilly and Texas fiddle styles (Fiddlin’ John Carson 1923) to the first country recording stars in 1927, (Jimmie Rodgers, the Carter Family). As we proceed, we teach the guitar stylistic characteristics of the time, practice them, and then all play and sing together with our “Bunk House Band” (guitar, bass/bass uke, banjo, Dobro, and vocal harmonies). Throughout, we talk about the therapeutic power of Country, and invite dialogue from our participants. We move into the Singing Cowboy era (30’s Gene Autry) followed by Country Swing in the 40’s (Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys), touch upon Bluegrass (Bill Munroe), and move into the Honkey Tonk era of the 50’s (Hank Williams). This leads to the Nashville Sound (60’s, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash…). We’ll hit the 70’s highway with the Outlaws (Willy, Waylon, David Allen Coe), grab some new Country (Garth, Randy), and end up in the current Superstar era (Tim, Kenny, Carrie, Taylor, Miranda…). We also hope to have the Rangers and the Participants get together and create (and play) a Country song!
Beyond our stated assessment objectives and our PowerPoint, we have created extensive documentation with our Country database on Google Docs (with timeline, guitar tech tips, stylistic conventions, video links, and therapeutic intent information) and we offer to share this with our participants.
Where will attendees be able to implement the information you share?
Our hope is that all of our clients who love Country music will benefit from this knowledge from their music therapists, and we hope that Educators and Clinicians can also impart the information to their MT students and Interns.
Tell us something that makes your CMTE unique or different.
Susan has actually worked in the Nashville music industry, and has lots of stories about country artists from many eras! We all have stories about the power of Country and Gospel music to touch the hearts of our clients. I have mashed together two country songs originally released 27 years apart by Hank and Hank Junior into one duet that I believe has never been attempted (except by us), and you all can sing and play it with us!
Why is this topic of interest to you?
Because it serves a real need for clients, AND it is a hoot! Country music goes back at least 90 years, and we are covering it in our workshop through ten milestone eras of Country.
Who should attend your class?
Anyone interested in increasing their country guitar skills and enhancing their repertoire and history of country music; Anyone who has clients that love country music. Anyone who wishes to teach their music therapy students about country music.
What kind of information will attendees be walking away with?
A PowerPoint slide show with historical facts, links, Guitar Tech sheets on several milestone songs (we’ll give it or mail it you); An opportunity to join our extensive Google Docs MT Country Music database. Also, a note to our participants: As Participants, we want you to sing and play with us, but we also want you to share your stories on how Country music has affected you and affected your clients in music therapy.
We look forward to having a great time with you while learning!
Happy Trails!
About the presenters:
CMTE O – This Is Country Music (For Our Clients) takes place on Thursday, November 21 – 1:30 – 6:30 pm and is presented by Cowboy Bob & the Rangers: Robert Groene, PhD MT-BC; Sharla Whitsitt MME, MT-BC; Susan Tilbury; Matthew Lloyd; Margaret Rodgers, MT-BC
Register for this session here.
