Scott County Strings, Inc.

Scott County Strings, Inc. We're a non-profit organization which strives to bring joy, inspiration, education and entertainment

Our goals include developing and sustaining a program in Scott County, Mississippi, designed to teach music for instruments including violin, viola, violoncello and string bass. Aside from actual music, the program may also include music appreciation material. Target Participants: School-age children attending classes in the Forest Municipal School District and the Scott County School District. Th

is includes schools in the incorporated municipalities of Forest, Lake, Morton and Sebastopol. It also includes Scott Central Attendance Central located north of Forest. Private lessons to other students are included where and when possible. Objectives: It is our belief that students who participate in artistic programs, whether it includes music, art, choral or other creative activities, excel in academics and overall character-building faster and better than students who do not participate. Music and other arts add a quality of life and inspiration as well as mental exercise that can greatly enhance students’ abilities in many other ways and provide opportunities for receiving funds for higher education beyond high school. It is not our intention to compete with existing music programs currently in place. We recognize that the band programs in Scott County already excel in their activities as indicated at state competitions. We endeavor to augment or supplement what is already in place by providing a different outlet for students’ musical interests. We believe that there are students enrolled in the Forest and Scott County school districts who may be interested in music but not in the instruments currently used in the band programs. We also believe some students in the music programs may be interested in learning an additional instrument to what they already play. Through our program, students not already in music will have an opportunity to participate and those already in music may have the opportunity to expand their interests and talents as well as education. For students not interested in actually learning music itself, but learning more about music, may have an opportunity through our program to appreciate what the art is about through our music appreciation segment. Long Range Goals: If the Scott County Strings program is successfully launched in local schools, we believe there would be potential for broadening the program to include traditional music students. After a sufficient number of students gain proficient skills in strings music, there would be an opportunity to create a Scott County Youth Symphony. Such a program would include the strings students and top members of the local high school bands to combine into one ensemble. In all likelihood, Scott County would be one of only a few areas outside metro Jackson to have such a program.

12/18/2022

Scott County Strings has expanded! We're now Scott County Strings and Percussion, also known as The Baker Family Circus! My brilliant son Aaron joined the middle school band last year and was assigned to percussion. He was discouraged at first--he wanted to play trumpet--but eventually drumming took over his life! He performed in his first school band concert a year ago, and today he is going to do a church gig with me!
It's been an interesting adventure. He's become obsessed with drumming. He watches YouTube videos by EMC Productions aka Eric Carr, a member of the Commandant's Own Marine Drum and Bugle Corps. He talks incessantly about joining a drum corps and being part of DCI. He LOVES playing drums. For now, he mostly does concert snare. When he gets to high school, he will probably be a member of Pride of Forest, most likely playing snare and tenor drum. A couple of weeks ago, he got the opportunity to join the 8th grade band (as a lowly 7th grader) in the Forest Christmas Parade. The 8th grade band didn't have enough people to cover all the percussion parts, and Aaron was invited to play bass drum. It was a thrill seeing him marching along with his 8th grade band friends.
A few months ago, I got the idea that it would be fun for us to do an arrangement of "Little Drummer Boy" together. I set about searching for one and found a nice one by Katherine M. Davis, arranged for cello, snare, and piano by Stephen deCesare. The cello part is fairly simple, and the snare drum part is basic enough that Aaron complained it was too easy. I challenged him to make it more interesting--and as an aspiring composer-arranger like his mother he was glad to take on the project. We're performing it this evening with pianist Theresa Graves at Moore Memorial United Methodist Church in Winona, Chris' home church. We rehearsed last Saturday and it sounded good. Looking forward to playing for an audience today.

08/13/2019

The Beethoven/Schumann recital has been postponed. My talented pianist colleague suffered a (hopefully minor) back injury last week. I'll keep everybody updated as to when we will perform.

07/29/2019

I've been out of pocket and away from cello for a while. Took my son on a whirlwind tour of historical sites from July 8 to July 24. While we were gone, my cello was in the shop in Metairie, LA getting some much-needed adjustments done. While I love my cello, and have always thought it had a nice sound, lately I've felt like I have to work too hard to get that nice sound, because the string height was way too high. My playing was tense from having to press so hard with my left hand, so my sound was tense.
Sal Giardina in Metairie did the work. He came highly recommended and did a good job working out my baby's issues. Because I am used to higher strings, he left them just high enough that coming back to it wouldn't feel totally foreign, but low enough that I wouldn't have to work so hard to press the strings down.
Thumb position isn't painful anymore--other than the fact that I haven't played in almost a month so my hands have to get used to celloing again.
My postponed Beethoven/Schumann recital will be happening two weeks from Thursday. Fortunately, I was pretty well-prepared back in April, and kept working on the repertoire once MSO season slacked off. So my almost-month-long break doesn't seem to have done too much damage to my solo chops.
I guess we'll see when I rehearse with my pianist next week. At least I have some time to practice before then.

04/25/2019

Update on the Beethoven/Schumann recital that was scheduled for last Thursday and postponed due to tornadoes:
The performance is tentatively rescheduled for Thursday, August 15, in the evening. Stay tuned for more updates in the next couple months.

Future performances:
1. The third and final installment of the Music and Scripture series, featuring Bach Cello Suites 5 and 6, is tentatively scheduled for Holy Saturday (April 11) in 2020 at Forest UMC.
2. Vivaldi concerto for two cellos with former MSO principal cellist Bennett Randman and the Metropolitan Chamber Orchestra, tentatively scheduled for fall, 2020 in Jackson.
3. The second installment of the Beethoven sonatas series, tentatively scheduled for fall semester 2021 at East Central.
4. The third and final installment of the Beethoven sonatas series, tentatively scheduled for fall semester 2022 at East Central.
Stay tuned for more updates.

04/18/2019

Sadly, the threat of tornadoes has forced us to postpone the Schumann sandwich on Beethoven bread concert until August. Stay tuned.

04/16/2019

Two days left.
This Thursday, I will be performing Beethoven's two opus 5 cello sonatas along with Schumann's Fantasiestucke at East Central Community College with my talented friend and colleague Dr. Justin Sharp. Looking forward to it.

03/09/2019

I finally got around to reading the story on my talented colleague, Dr. Justin Sharp, in the Scott County Times' "Profile" edition. Thank you, Dr. Sharp, for the shameless plug of our Beethoven/Schumann recital!

03/04/2019

Recital coming up in just under seven weeks. Yikes! Had two good practice sessions today. I've been working with former MSO principal cellist Bennett Randman on my repertoire. He's given me some great advice that I hope I can remember to follow on April 18 (LOL). Also got to try one movement of each of the pieces with piano this past Wednesday with my talented colleague Dr. Justin Sharp--who was fighting a minor hand injury at the time, poor guy. (I'm no stranger to that myself. I recently got stabbed in my left index finger while trying to fix a bulletin board that fell off my refrigerator and broke, and a couple of years ago I sliced a tiny chunk off my left thumb while cutting potatoes for Cub Scout chicken plate fundraiser. We have a saying in this business: The show must go on.) Next rehearsal with piano is set for next Sunday, the 10th. Hopefully we'll all be working with 100% of our digits LOL.

01/19/2019

New project.
Doing a concert series featuring the Bach Unaccompanied Cello Suites wasn't enough for this over-achiever (even though I haven't finished it yet--more on that later in this post). So I am starting a new series featuring the Beethoven cello sonatas with pianist Dr. Justin Sharp, a talented colleague and friend at ECCC. The first installment of this series will be on April 18, 2019 in the afternoon in the recital hall in the Ovid Vickers Fine Arts Building at East Central Community College. Check this page soon for more details, like performance time (probably 2:25pm but I am not 100%).
The final installment of my Bach series will happen around Easter, 2020. I'll post more about that after the Beethoven recital.
Also check back here later this year for details about other performances in my Beethoven series. (The next one might happen in late 2020 or early 2021 after I recover from the final Bach performance.)

09/15/2017

The Vivaldi concerto for two cellos performance this past weekend went great. Thanks to the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Crafton Beck, and my dear colleague Janette Sudderth.

08/23/2017

So I realized I never elaborated on my "big news" post from a few months ago. The "big news" is that I was offered an adjunct position as orchestral strings instructor at East Central Community College in Decatur, MS. Hoping to start a string orchestra program there. Only a couple of students so far, but there is potential for the program to grow...I hope.

06/26/2017

In a lot of ways, musicians are like athletes and dancers. Over-use and repetitive-use injuries like tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome and arthritis are common. Throw in scoliosis and bursitis and other back problems when we have to sit on chairs that are less-than-ergonomic. As injuries go, a pinched nerve isn't really that serious. However, this one sidelined me for three days. I didn't play at all. The day it happened it was literally too painful to move. The next two days I had better range of motion but didn't want to aggravate it. Today, even though I'm still a bit sore, I came back to the cello, limiting myself to about 2 hours to work on music for a gig and Vivaldi. I hate to say it but the Vivaldi is sounding ROUGH!!! I hate it when stuff like this happens. Fortunately, most professional musicians can "get back on the wagon" pretty quickly if they haven't taken too much time off for an injury. Also fortunately, I don't have to perform the Vivaldi for two months.
The common incidence of injuries surprises a lot of non-musicians who think what we do is sedentary and relaxing. Yes, I sit down to do my job, and listening to music is certainly relaxing for people who aren't performing it or working to understand its intricacies. But make no mistake, this job isn't relaxing and it isn't easy. It's definitely not for the faint of heart. Many times I'll end a performance sweating, mentally drained, and physically exhausted. Sometimes it is actually difficult to stand up to acknowledge the applause. But while I often feel like taking the next day or two off and not touching the cello, there's always another performance on the horizon--just like athletes who have to be ready for the next game. At least I'm not likely to get hit by a wild pitch or suffer a concussion from an overly-exuberant tackle, so there's that...

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206 Sanders Street
Forest, MS
39074

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