PHOTO: Cheryl (Rockettedog)

Cheryl posed for Amy Foster with her Baritone Ukulele

and she was kind enough to share this piece with us.

I get the chance here to introduce Cheryl as a person and to share some of her special gifts. She sings professionally with a few different bands but has only been playing ukulele for a few years. She started playing during breaks the band took, and people loved it! I first saw her videos in a format that she calls “The Messy Desk Concert Series” where she gets her talented musician friends to perform with her on YT videos.

Cheryl and I have passed a few e-mails back and forth across the country. I learned that she was in a program which used music to reach struggling teens between the ages of 11 and 14. The "musical therapy" program was paid through a grant. They bought (4) Baritone Ukuleles and removed the low 2 strings off of two guitars. She had four classes and ten students in each class.

Cheryl used her musical background and Bari skills to squeeze a G, Em, C, and D7 out of them. These were kids that had little or no music education. She says, "It was the best thing I've ever done and I want to do more. They all played. Even the ones that vowed they couldn't." She also said there were, “...so many moments through the year really touched my heart! I would play and sing a song or 2 for them every week. Some of the kids had never been sung to before. Really heartbreaking, but they loved it.”