My Alumni Reflector yesterday had a post from one of my former schoolmates. Her son needs some help with his musical education. With Cathy's permission, I am re-posting her request here. If you or anyone you know can help out, please PM me and I can put you in touch with Cathy. Thanks!

Hello Music friends!

My son Kenny  is passionately set on being a professional rock songwriter and musician. One of the key factors to his process of getting into Berklee or another good music program just fell apart. He had lined up a senior mentorship in songwriting and production with BJ Leiderman who suddenly moved to Ashville , NC . What excited BJ Leiderman about Kenny’s music were his sense of basic songcraft and musicianship at a young age, and his passion for it.

Kenny was going to assist in Leiderman’s production studio, and help with organizing tour info, etc in exchange for mentorship in songwriting and learning the production side of the business. BJ was excited to make a demo of Kenny’s songs for his college auditions. This was all for a few hours a week and credit toward his high school graduation this school year.

His favorite bands at the moment are May Day Parade and A Day to Remember. He claims influence from the music that was played around him growing up from Paul Simon to U2 to The Ramones, and many of you.

Below is a few examples of his earliest songs. He’s long on the intros, but for a kid who taught himself songcraft and guitar after taking bass lessons for a few years, this is a pretty good variety of stuff. He’s a little jangly strummy on the guitar, but he is also President of his HS Jazz Choir and the bassist for his HS Jazz Band. He realized later that he had tuned the guitar lower than his usual vocal range. His music teachers at school and his bass teacher are all very enthusiastic about his capacity to grow as a musician. He has many more songs since these that he has yet to record and post.

The reason I am send you all this message is to network to find Kenny a new music studio and or musician to mentor him for this school year. I know most of you are not local to us, the Virginia Peninsula in Hampton Roads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V....._Peninsula. I know there are active music studios here, but I do not have a direct connection to any of them.

My hope is that some of you touring musicians might have a connection here. Please, I’d be happy to do footwork, if you had some names I could contact in my vicinity. I appreciate you all taking the time to read this and consider if you know anyone here to mentor Kenny.

Thanks,

Cathy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....e=g-user-u

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....38;list=UL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....ure=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....38;list=UL