Fredericksburg Parent

10 Fredericksburg Parent and Family • June 2025 Within a few hours of publishing a Facebook post asking for donations of instruments for the after-school guitar club he hoped to establish, Peter Mealy had received 14 acoustic guitars and $1,100. That was enough to give a guitar to every student who signed up for the new club at Walker-Grant Middle School, which started meeting in January—and it's also enough to outfit a guitar club at James Monroe High School that Mealy hopes to start up this fall. Mealy and his wife Laurie Rose Griffith, both guitarists, have performed regularly around Fredericksburg for decades and Mealy has also taught individual and group guitar lessons "forever," he said. He was inspired during a January meeting of the Walker-Grant PTO to use his skill and passion for teaching to create a new opportunity for Fredericksburg's middle school students—and give them the gift of music. "Music is very cathartic—it's like a panacea," Mealy said. "Every gig I play with my wife is like the first one ever. It's never any less exciting. It's an incredible gift that I don't take for granted." Guitar Club met for the first time in January and membership has grown from four to about seven students. Each of them gets to take home a guitar, Mealy said. The students came to the club with varying degrees of experience and interest. "One of them can bang out some chords. One is a total beginner," Mealy said. "Some of them already play in the band or orchestra. One of them will ask me about things like the diminished scale and the locrian mode. And there are kids who just want to rock out." Mealy himself is a self-taught guitarist and he's published several books on technique. He's been working with the students on understanding scale and chord relationships. "If you can learn four chords in order—G, D, E minor, and C—you can play hundreds of songs," he said. He's also working with the students on basic music reading and accompani- ment skills. With these basic skills and with practice, he said, they could "go out and get an accompanist gig in six weeks." WRITTEN BY ADELE UPHAUS New After School Guitar Club Aims to Give City Middle School Students the "Incredible Gift" of Music= Rockin' Dad Launches Guitar Club After School

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