Dude, let’s start a band.

We know you’re out there. You’ve been practicing and practicing and you’re finally ready to make the leap from playing in your basement to playing on a stage. But, you don’t have a band.

MRC’s Rock Band is a way to bring together MRC members of all different instrument backgrounds who are interested in meeting and playing with fellow musicians. During Rock Band, which will meet on Fridays from 6-7pm, musicians will come together to 1) learn and practice a cover song 2) write a song together and 3) record the song as a band.

The eight-week Rock Band workshop will start on Friday Feb. 3 and meet every Friday evening for eight weeks, ending on March 30. You MUST sign-up in advance for this workshop. You will not be able to join after the workshop has started. The Rock Band group will operate very independently, but will be supervised by MRC staff and volunteers. Musicians signing-up for the workshop need not be advanced, but should feel like they have a comfortable grasp of their instruments.

Call the MRC at 434-979-5478 to sign-up today! Also, you can check-out our other winter workshop offerings here.

The MRC will be closed Monday, January 16 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Monday, January 23 for building maintenance.

Thanks to a generous donor, we have recently acquired a new electric drumkit. This drumkit can be played SILENTLY, yes silently, for those looking for a quiet rehearsal. But, it also has 64 different drumkit sounds and one thousand other instrument sounds—guitar, piano, even vocals—that let students experiment with drums in a whole new way.

If you have old instruments around your home that you are not using anymore, please consider donating them to the Music Resource Center. Our most needed instruments include: guitars (both electric and acoustic), bass guitars, drums, and guitar and amp accessories (cables, tuners, capos). Please call us at 434-979-5478 for more information on donating instruments or equipment.

Our new electric drumkit

Staff and volunteers assembling the kit

Timmy making good use of our new acquisition

The Music Resource Center will be closed Thursday, Dec. 22 – Monday, Dec. 26. We will re-open Tuesday, Dec. 27 through Thursday, Dec. 29. Our hours for those days will be 2:30 – 7pm.

We will close again Friday, Dec. 30 and Saturday, Dec. 31 for New Year’s. We will re-open on Monday, Jan. 1 with a normal schedule.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

Thanks to everyone who came out to the End-of-the-Year Jamboree on Thursday night. We had an amazing and eclectic night of music with performance ranging from classical guitar, to hip-hop dance, to piano, to hard rock, and everything in between. A huge thank you to our performers: Aimee Moody, Elie Butoyi, Bea Morales, Harli Saxon & Amina Hodzic, Jerzey Boyz Ent., The Barps, Allie Eichelberger, Darius Johnson, Liam Rowland, Hunter Bruton, Olivia Langan, and Poe Raskin.

We’d especially like to congratulate Elie Butoyi on being named MRC’s Member of the Year. The Member of the Year award is given each year to a student who exhibits extraordinarily positive actions or behaviors that set the member apart and demonstrate a genuine desire to help others, both at the MRC and in the community at large. Congratulations, Elie!

A research review by Northwestern University scientists shows that music training has a profound impact on skills such as memory and attention, speech and learning, and the ability to articulate emotions.

Children who have had music lessons tend to have better reading ability and a larger vocabulary than those who have had no music training. The study also showed that the brain’s ability to adapt and change is positively impacted by work with musical sounds.

A piano lesson at the Music Resource Center

Further evidence to come by the Music Resource Center and check out what we’re doing! Fill out a membership application today. Check out the full article on naturalnews.com.

image source

The Music Resource Center will offer a new DJing workshop beginning Tuesday, October 4. The workshop will be held from 5-6 p.m. at the MRC and will run through mid-November. CHS teacher and MRC volunteer, Matt Henderson, will lead the workshop. Call the MRC for more info, or just come by next Tuesday to check it out! The workshop is free and open to all MRC members.

The MRC is currently recruiting community members who are interested in mentoring students and teaching music lessons in our fall session which runs Sept. 19- Nov. 12. Volunteering at the MRC is a fun way to use your musical skills to impact youth in our community.

We welcome volunteers with all musical backgrounds, though, at the moment, we are most in need of volunteers who can work with students on vocal coaching (both male and female volunteers are sought), intermediate and advanced guitar and drums. Volunteers do not need to be professional or classically trained musicians, however, volunteers should feel comfortable teaching and explaining their instruments.

There will be an open house and information session for anyone interested in volunteering on Monday, August 29 at 6 p.m. at the Music Resource Center. To RSVP for the info session, please e-mail Maria Gall, our Volunteer Coordinator. More information can be found on the Volunteer page of our web site.

Our second annual Virginia Wine Crush Golf Tournament at Keswick Hall is over and was a great success! We would like to take this opportunity to thank our incredible sponsors: