Tuesday, October 15, 2024
Bob Shebesta’s love for guitar is contagious.
For the last 27 years, Shebesta has served as the director of the Fox Cities’ Childbloom Guitar Program, providing guitar lessons for children using an educational model that adapts to younger learners’ learning styles.
On September 4, Shebesta received a “Humanitarian” award from the Childbloom Company — the company’s first of that kind — for his “gentle, mentoring, and encouraging” approach to teaching and for his work of nine years with Agape of Appleton, which offers supportive housing accommodations for people with cognitive and physical disabilities based on their individual needs.
“Often, they’re independent enough to live on their own,” said Shebesta, but participants — Agape’s word for their residents — may need assistance with taking medications, running errands, doing chores, planning and cooking meals or navigating interpersonal interactions. Shebesta offers a helping hand and companionship, besides.
“Usually, there’s some time for [games and activities], and occasionally parties, like a Christmas party, or a Memorial party and then I bring my guitar or my karaoke setup,” Shebesta continued. “I’m teaching guitar to one resident right now. I taught her ukulele and I’m currently teaching her guitar.”
While his work with Agape started as a part-time job– 10-12 hours a week — in pursuit of supplemental income — over the years, Shebesta has more than doubled his hours at his particular location, one of five in Appleton.
“Guitar has always been real important,” said Shebesta. Despite having other hobbies as a kid — taking up the trumpet at age 11 and building model cars, airplanes and boats with his school’s modeling club — upon picking up the guitar as a 13-year-old, his interests shifted.
“All of my time went into guitar, and that became kind of a dominant thing in my life,” he said. In high school, he began to play the bass guitar in the school band. At UW-Green Bay, he studied music and began to take formal guitar lessons, having been self-taught until then.
“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with music, so I got an education degree to teach band in high school and middle school.” This required him to learn “a little bit of all of the instruments” in order to teach them to new learners, including the French horn, which he took up for himself.
He also began to teach guitar at area music store Henri’s Music, which closed its doors in 2010.
“I was teaching guitar, and then I started performing with guitar. I started learning classical guitar and I started playing solo guitar for restaurants, events and weddings. And then I was teaching guitar at the music store and then a few years later I came across the Childbloom program.”
The Childbloom Company is a national guitar program founded by Texan guitarist Kevin Taylor geared toward teaching guitar to children in a way that connects with them. Instructors across the United States may train and become certified in its teaching approach.
“I was looking for a particular method for kids and I enjoyed working with the younger students,” said Shebesta, “And then this method is designed to teach kids how to play guitar, so the approach is specific for kids.”
While Shebesta said that teaching kids guitar isn’t harder than teaching adults, per se, it requires a different approach.
“The learning pace is slower and how they acquire things is different, so you can’t throw too many things at them at once,” he said. “It’s more of one skill at a time, one concept, and then you can build upon those, so it’s very organized in the approach. It uses the classical technique in the playing position so that that gives the most advantage for acquiring the guitar. The sitting position is one of the most important things — the left hand. The sitting position has to be with sitting with a guitar on the left leg with a footstool so that the hand is free to position, not to hold the guitar.”
Shebesta noted that the classical technique is also known as “the finger style approach” because it involves the use of all of a player’s fingers on their picking hand, rather than a single pick.
“It’s a very efficient way of playing the guitar, so you’re playing melodically.”
In addition to teaching the classical style, Shebesta noted that Childbloom is unique in that it encourages parents to sit in on their children’s lessons.
“They’re invited to come in and see,” he said. “Kids have a tendency to miss the point on things, so if the parent can see what they’re doing, then they can be more helpful with practice at home.”
Childbloom also makes guitar learning social. Students may be paired in groups of two or three so that they can learn how to play in time with others and share in each other’s learning progress.
“They have more fun than by themselves. It’s more laid back. They’re not as in the hot seat [as with a private lesson],” Shebesta explained.
After COVID-19, Shebesta noted a decline in enrollees into the program, but he said that there has been a recent uptick in the number of families inquiring about lessons. Just this month, he enrolled three new students.
“I do teach adults, too,” he said. He has two teaching studios, one in Appleton and one in De Pere.
As for his favorite part of the job? “Seeing their skills grow,” he said. “Seeing them understand something, and when they can understand something and do well, they enjoy it more and it’s fun to share the enjoyment of playing guitar.”
The sentiment applies to his work with Agape, as well. “Kinda the same thing for working with people with disabilities — improving their lives is important and helping them live on their own and maintaining their independence is a good feeling, when they can maintain their independence.”
For more information on Bob Shebesta, including lesson and wedding rates and samples of his work, visit www.bobshebesta.com.
