ACMP members Jan Knudsen on cello, Ron Lofton on guitar and voice, Lynn Vogel on flute, and Thomas Cappaert also on cello, tried a new method for fundraising for the ACMP Home Coaching grant program. All four of us have greatly benefited from wonderful teachers in the ACMP Coach directory, and we wanted to come up with an innovative idea to benefit ACMP. We raised a little over $200.00, but the greatest part was how much fun we had doing it.

The musicians organized a music trivia night for a local retirement community by presenting tunes, arranged in 3 categories. After listening to short excerpts, participants were asked to answer questions related to the tune. Our three categories were: 30s/40s and musical tunes, classical music, and music of the 50s/60s). We had nine tunes in each category (with varying difficulty that helped keep our participants on the edge of their seats). We played arrangements that worked well in assisting the identification of the piece. Some of our selections, along with our questions include: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (who is the composer?); Yakety Yak (What is the title? To assist their identification we added “The grunting ox makes a sound that goes Yakety_____?); and Sitting by the Dock of the Bay (Our question was “where are we sitting?”)

Our benefit was funded by anonymous donations; however, if we had chosen to charge participants $5 each we could have had a $25 prize for the winner and would still have raised $350.00.Our event was held on Trivia Night at Oakcrest Community Retirement Center in DeKalb, Illinois.

A complete list of songs for this is available on request. (Just tell us where you will do your ACMP event when you write to us!)