Doris Mason lays down blues for students
Doris Mason had some special accompanists for an educational blues program she presented to Thorburn Consolidated School on Wednesday.
Grade 8 drummer James Swallow and music teacher Bruce Pettipas joined the Pictou County musician on stage as part of Blues In The School, a program put on each year by the Pictou County Blues Society at different elementary schools.
“To have a student get up and a teacher was really wonderful. It brings it all together what Blues in the School is all about,” blues society chairperson Katie MacDonald said.
Education for children was part of their mandate when the society formed seven years ago, MacDonald said.
“They don’t get to hear it. It’s not on the radio very often,” she said, adding that kids aren’t likely to hear blues on TV, either.
The society wants to keep the genre alive, MacDonald said, and they want to involve kids to help do that.
Swallow is already pretty involved in blues. He’s been sitting at a drum kit since he was four years old, taught by his father.
He loves everything about drums, he said, “how they sound, how they feel.”
He’s played on stage with Garrett Mason and Carson Downey at Music Mountain, a music festival in Thorburn organized by his family.
On Wednesday, he played in front of his peers.
“I was nervous at first, then I got up there and the nerves went away. It’s usually like that when I play on a stage,” he said.
While Swallow was the only student to be up on stage, students from grades primary to 8 were all playing a role in the workshop – clapping along, dancing and learning.
Doris said while she has done other school performances, this one offers a chance to show kids different varieties of blues, like boogie-woogie and more jazz influenced. She performed some of her originals as well as classic tunes.
“Once they’ve heard it and had a little bit of explanation, the next time they hear it, it resonates with them and helps develop their understanding.”