Local Merchant helps a school strike up the band08/6-13/08. Baltimore Guide. Cue all the puns about making beautiful music together. About harmony and playing in key and hitting the right note.
And once you've gotten all that out of your system, get serious and think about a local business that is helping a new school have its first band, instrument by instrument.
Ken Crowley who together with his wife Lillian owns Lombard Hardware, has been spending his spare time this summer refurbishing violins, violas and cellos—some in such bad shape that they're missing entire panels - so that Patterson Park: Public Charter School's kids can try their hand at music come fall.
Crowley, a musician and lifelong guitar enthusiast, responded to an item in The Baltimore Guide seeking someone to fix the instruments.
The instruments, which were donated to PPPCS by schools, groups and individuals, were in various states of repair and, sadly, disrepair. Crowley estimates that he has worked on about a dozen violins, 10 cellos and three violas. And should the opportunity present itself, he adds, he'd be more than willing to work on brass, woodwind, percussion or any other kind of instrument that comes his way.
(By the way, in case you missed it, that was a shameless hint from your friends at the Guide to anyone who has an old musical instrument-any kind-lying around, just waiting for a kid to pick it up and discover a hidden talent and a new love. Got an instrument? Call Danielle Pille at 504710-1847. Pille is the music teacher at PPPCS and would be most grateful to have your donation of a musical instrument).
Crowley, who was born and raised in the area (attended the old General Wolfe Elementary, then Hampstead Hill Junior High, then Patterson) says that repairing instruments is the least he can do to help bring music into kids' lives.
"Music helps kids," he said. "It helps them with science, it helps them with math, it helps them learn to concentrate, it helps them be patient It's good for them."
And in his case, it helped him discover a lifelong love.
"We had a band back in the 70s," he says fondly. "It was called Abstract Cherry." He snorts. "You have to remember it was the hippie decade."
The band may be gone, but the memories are still with him, and so is the love of, and fascination with, instruments.
"I wanted to know how to fix a guitar, so I took one apart," he says. "I took it apart piece by piece and then I reassembled it."
Refurbishing the school band's instruments, he adds, is no different.
"I just love to bring an instrument back to playable condition."
He hasn't yet had the opportunity to work on anything other than string instruments for the school, but'· should one be donated (hint, hint) he'll hit the books and do research.
''That is what the public library's for;' he says happily.
Danielle Pille, who is entering her second year at PPPCS, will be the organizer of the school band and orchestra. Students in the fourth to seventh grades will have the opportunity to become involved "until we get more instruments." Editorial note: Hint. Hint. Hint.
Although a few students at PPPCS have taken music privately, most will be starting
from scratch.
"For right now, we should have enough instruments for one class at school, and students will share the instruments. Hopefully in the future, we'll have enough for students to be able to take their instruments home and practice them." Pille noted.
Younger students will take general music, which includes music theory, learning about composers and musicians, and even a course on how to recycle materials into instruments for a small concert.
Pille, a violinist in her own right, is especially excited because she knows that now that the students are aware of the presence of the instruments, they will be eager to learn.
''A lot of students didn't believe we were actually doing it until they saw the instruments which had been donated. I was really happy when I saw that. They're actually going to have that experience."
In part, they're going to have that experience because of Crowley. And he'll be listening for the sounds of that first concert.
Note: Have a musical instrument you want to donate to the PPPCS orchestra and band? They'll be glad to have it. Call Danielle Pille at 504-710-1847. By Mary Helen Sprecher
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