Being a rock musician isn't just a young person's game. An Illinois State University music professor wants to help people of all ages live the rock n' roll dream.
As a music professore at ISU, Kim McCord has taught future music educators for years. Young people who, most likely, would go on to teach even younger people -- school age students. But that wasn't enough for McCord. She felt a significant part of the population was being left out of the joy of making music. So she adopted a type of music education to reach out to older students.
Inspired by a program in Finland that helps anyone who aspires to be a rock musician learn how to play, McCord mobilized her students to teach adults how to play in a rock band using the Figure Note System, which uses a simplified notation based on shapes and colors.
Reaching out to older women, McCord formed what she calls The Grannies Band. The group includes Nancy Brokaw, who plays drums and Joy Schuler on guitar. "With the Figure Note system, you can instantly play rock songs," explained McCord. "I think on the first rehersal we were playing Hey Jude." Now they've gone beyond Figure Notes and they're reading what's called lead sheets, where it's just the lyrics with the chords."
Schuler decided she wanted to be a part of the band right away. "It's the loudness and just the energy. I play electric guitar, so that is so much fun. So I come ready for that energy and everybody else's energy and I go home wired."
Brokaw was excited to join the band. "It looked like a hoot. My dream was to be the drummer. Maybe I was correcting something from my childhood. When I was in grade school, I wanted to play percussion. And I was told that girls played the flute and I was handed my shiny new flute. So maybe in a way this is kind of correcting that old wrong. It's really difficult and really fun!"
