Leandro Garcia, a fourth-grade student at Westwood School, vividly remembers picking up his first ukulele at 5-years-old.
“I started trying to play but I didn’t really like it back then,” Garcia said.
Now 9, Garcia said he was willing to give it another try.
Luckily, Garcia didn’t have to look far for lessons as Westwood began offering new ukulele and class piano lessons for students in January.
“It’s been fun to finally again be reintroduced to it and start to learn a little bit more of it in music class,” Garcia said. “I still have pain from pressing with my fingers but it’s OK. You get used to it.”
After returning to classes from Christmas break at the start of the year, music director Tiffany Hunt added both instruments to Westwood’s growing catalogue, which includes xylophones, glockenspiels, metallophones, drums, tambourines, triangles and shakers.
“I wanted students to have an opportunity to experience something new and different,” said Hunt, who teaches general music classes at the school. “Piano is an easy way to get students interested in learning more about music and it also allows them — if they like it — to do private lessons and then continue that throughout the rest of their lives. With ukuleles, it gives the student an opportunity to actually hold and play a new instrument that we don’t usually get to use all of the time.”
The ukuleles were purchased through the Creative Arts Guild’s $2,500 M.B. Seretean Grant (named after long-time Guild contributor Bud Seretean), which is administered through the local Oscar N. Jonas Memorial Foundation.
Hunt, who applied for the grant during the current school year, said Westwood School met some of the remaining funds needed for the ukuleles, which totaled around $3,000.
Hunt said she applied for the grant during the 2022-23 school year but did not receive it.
“This year, I reached out and they said nobody had applied for it,” she said. “So I sent them the same application that we did last year and we were awarded it this year.”
Pianos for the class were provided through the Georgia Department of Education’s Digital Media and Literacy Technology Equipment Grant and offer a unique learning experience for students.
“The pianos work by plugging them into a computer,” Hunt said. “The only way they turn on is if it has a computer to plug into. Dalton Public Schools gives every student their own laptop device, so they bring them to music class and plug them into our pianos and we’re able to do online piano lessons. It’s really fun.”
Hunt applied for the piano grant in the spring of last year and the school was awarded it the following summer.
“The fall was spent getting all of the materials ready and prepared, and ordering the product,” she said. “We had them come in right before Christmas.”
Currently, fourth- and fifth-grade Westwood students learn ukulele through Hunt’s classes, while piano is taught to first-, second- and third-grade students.
“But we may branch out and allow third-grade to do ukulele later this year,” she said.
As part of the ukulele classes, students have been learning how to strum “C,” “A minor” and “F” chords through lessons and popular songs. After a month of teaching the instrument, Hunt said students are adapting quickly.
“It’s been working out really well,” she said. “I didn’t expect the students to be learning as quickly as they have been. I thought we would be on the ‘C’ chord for months, but they already know three chords in about four weeks, which is amazing, especially with the amount of time that I see these kids. It’s been impressive.”
Hunt said the students have progressed so well that they will soon be preparing to learn songs and perform their first concert during the school’s upcoming science night.
Ultimately, Hunt said a major motivating factor for the inclusion of the new instruments is to see students take their newfound skills beyond the classroom.
“I think by allowing them to experience these new things, this will help them want to stay in music and accomplish something,” she said. “It would be a dream of mine to have a student come back and say ‘Mrs. Hunt, I’m still playing ukulele today.’ I’ve already had students tell me their parents got them a ukulele to play at home since we started. Really, to just know that after high school, they could come back and say ‘I’m still doing something musical,’ that would be the dream.”
“This (class) was my first time playing ukulele,” fourth-grade student Meredith Barton said. “I got my own so now I can practice at home.”
Barton said the classes were “hard” at first, “but when (Hunt) teaches it, she makes it fun and easier.”
Garcia said his favorite aspect of the ukulele classes is “the strumming.”
“Because you can do that with a lot of instruments like the cello or the guitar,” he said. “Once you get used to it on ukulele, you can move on to more instruments.”
First-grader Bridger Chitwood said learning songs such as “Hot Cross Buns” on the piano has been “fun,” if not a little challenging, while first-grader Cora Elliott said she “likes learning how to play songs and different keys.”
Finley Souther, a fourth-grade student learning ukulele, said the most challenging part of the class was “learning the different chords,” while his favorite part was learning the song “Ho Hey” by the Lumineers.
Fourth-grader Tatiyana Paniagua said “practice is very important” when it comes to learning any instrument, something first-grader Sibgha Choudhary said the classes involve a lot of, including “watching videos that show us how to do it.”
Souther said the classes have been a worthwhile addition.
“Mrs. Hunt has done a very good job,” he said. “And for kids who want to learn, I’d say just have fun and try to do your best.”