GS Lakie Guitar Program
About the GS Lakie Guitar and Popular Music Program
The Gs Lakie Guitar program has been running strong for the past 7 years. The program is not an afterschool or lunch time club. It is a sequential three year (6 thru 8) music program teaching music using the guitar as the vehicle of instruction.
Throughout the six scheduled periods a day, 180 students learn guitar in this class. Each term, there are 180 new students. This means over the three terms, 540 students a year benefit from this program.
Learning outcomes consist of music rudiments, sight reading skills, ear training and performance outcomes. All styles of music genre are taught ranging from popular music (rock,blues,folk) to art music(classical/spanish guitar technique).
The students start as beginners in grade 6 and develop technical, musical and performance skills throughout their three years studying music at GS Lakie Middle School.
There are many performance outcomes for students playing guitar,bass, drums and vocals. Each term has a curricular concert called GATORSTOCK named after the school mascot GUS THE GATOR!
Bi-yearly a musical revue called ROCK SHOW is performed in collaboration with the dance, fashion, and other music programming at the school. The show is one massive work usually consisting of 250 students in various roles of singing, playing and dancing.
The repertoire consists of popular music through the decades. Many artists such as Michael Jackson, Elvis, Acdc, and Motown have been covered in these shows. The music making and performing is all done live by the GS Lakie students ranging in ages from 11-14 years of age.
The guitar program feeds many other programs like Recording Arts, Rock/Pop(Rock band class) and Instrumental tour class. To get more information visit our "classes" page.
Mr. Arvay is the teacher and head of the guitar program at GS Lakie. He received a Bachelor is Music Education from Minot State in 1999 and taught concert band for 9 years before moving to GS Lakie. He also completed his Master's degree in Music Education from Anderson University (South Carolina) in 2017.
He has performed and studied music all of his life. Sheldon is a multi-instrumentalist and is diverse in all styles of music. He has studied classical guitar with guitar virtuouso Christopher Parkening and has recorded over 25 cds at his recording studio www.hothousestudios.ca. as a performer and/or mix engineer/producer. He is also still actively performing in various popular and art music endeavours when he can make the time available.