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'The Sweet Sounds of Success' Photo by Jim Craven Peggy Greuling leads Hannah Wilson, 8, right, and her classmates Wednesday at Talent Elementary School. Greuling, a retired music teacher who lives in Ashland, volunteered to teach violin at the school when she discovered it offered no music instruction. Music class is labor of love By BILL VARBLE Peggie Greuling counts the beat as nine third-graders saw with abandon on small violins. Greuling joins in and wraps harmony around the kids' melody as the tune winds its way to a big ending: Shave-and-a-haircut, two-bits! Several spectators, parents, applaud. Preschool-age children play on the floor. Money for music at Talent Elementary School ran out years ago, but you wouldn't know it on the days Greuling and her kids take over the old music room here. Kayla Maziarsji, 6, and Tim Carr, 7, practice holding their violins under their chins. Greuling, 74, found out the school lacked a music program a few years back when school officials asked her to come and do some old-time fiddling for Oregon Trail festivities. The retired music teacher said she'd volunteer to teach if the kids had instruments. Not only was there no money for a music program, she was told, there was no money to buy instruments. Not to worry. Greuling went out and bought a bunch of student violins on her credit card. She shrugs off any suggestion that that was a big deal. "I went out and got donations from individuals and civic groups until I paid myself back," she says. The third-graders she's teaching today started in Greuling's original class as first-graders. With new kids coming up, her orchestra has expanded. It has a name now, "The Sweet Sounds of Success." She's raised some $3,000 now. Parents chip in, too. Greuling has a volunteer helper, Virginia Wickham of Talent. Best of all, the kids are playing concerts (there's one planned for 7 p.m. Friday at the Mountain View Retirement Center in Ashland, another set for Dec. 21, when the group will entertain KOBI-TV employees in Medford). "We play all over," Greuling says. "They'll play at the drop of a hat." Greuling got a Carpenter Foundation grant to study in Japan in 1981 and became a devotee of the Suzuki method, which she's applying here. The system starts children young, puts small instruments in their hands and encourages parents to be present. Children aren't required to learn to read musical notation. In addition to Suzuki, Greuling is a believer in folk music. She says it's important for youngsters to be exposed to the great trove of American traditional music, which she points out doesn't exactly fill the airwaves these days, and which isn't much of a spectator sport anymore. "I want them to know `Old Joe Clark,"' Greuling says. "They'll get Bach and Beethoven later." Jordan Ceremony, 8, has a simple reason for playing violin. "It's fun," she says. Her mother, Danie, says Jordan was scared at first, but the playing took hold. "It helps their self-confidence," Ceremony says. "I believe it helps in other areas, too," says Jill Hobson, another Talent mom. Not every child will bloom, of course. One parent took a child out of the program, saying it wasn't enough fun. Another took her child out because it was TOO much fun. But generally Greuling's volunteer program seems to be working. "She's awesome," Principal Jeff Fagan says. "And she's incredibly self-directed." The secret of this success? "Peggy," Wickham says. "Parent involvement," Greuling says. She says the best part is seeing the kids light up. And the worst? "Getting the music room," she says with a laugh. "They use it for everything." When tax cuts take money from schools, school boards and administrators face tough choices, and music and art are often the first things eliminated. Greuling and Wickham question that. "I think artistic expression is a basic human need," Wickham says. If the program runs a little short, Greuling sometimes antes up for sheet music, posters, the occasional pizza. "What else am I going to do with my money?" she says. There's a principle at stake, she says. "The children are making this a more beautiful world in their own way." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1998, Medford, Oregon USA