BUILDING MUSIC CURRICULUM:

 

To me, music at camp is as or more important than water activities, arts and crafts, or any other activity. I live and breathe music, and chances are, your many of your campers and staff do too.

 

So whether you are starting from scratch with no strong camp music culture, or you have a robust program, there is always room to grow.

 

I taught at the Dayjams Music Academy in LA, and then was brought in by Beber Camp to start a music program from scratch. They had old, outdated equipment, but great facilities, but most importantly they had campers with the desire to make music.

 

Within 3 years Beber went from a camp with no structured music program, to a camp with an impressive equipment list, and campers who were doing everything from forming bands and playing their favorite songs in front of camp, to writing and recording songs in a recording studio, learning guitar and other instruments, and so much more.

 

For the last 7 years, Beber’s music specialists have been primarily made up of former campers who came up through the music program.

 

I recently worked with the newly-appointed music director of Perlman Camp in Pennsylvania to help structure a music program that would engage campers to make great music and have fun doing it. It was the camp’s first year with an official music curriculum, and the campers had an amazing time, performing for camp and learning how to play together in groups.

 

At Beber we recently hit the point where the requests for easy access to the campers' recordings led to me creating BeberRocks.com, a web portal to highlight the songs, photos, posters, and videos made by campers during the year. A dedicated music website for a camp that isn't a specialty music camp is unheard of, but this kind of connectivity to the community and to social media through the BeberRocks Facebook group, takes a program to the next level.