As part of an annual outreach program sponsored by the Kingston Chamber Music Festival and designed to help bring music appreciation into area schools, New York City guitarist Jordan Dodson performed for students at Stadium and Edgewood Highland elementary schools during his five-day school tour this week.

“Cranston has been part of this program, which generally focuses on schools in the South County area, for the past two years, after music was cut from Cranston’s elementary school budget,” said Brian Mitchell, managing director of the Kingston Chamber Music Festival. “The music outreach program was started by David Kim about 22 years ago. Now the coordinator is Pat Peterson, a retired music teacher from the North Kingstown Schools and a viola player with the Rhode Island Philharmonic.”

Dodson is an award-winning musician and has studied under the direction of several musical greats. He brought his guitar to the schools and spoke to the students about the instrument itself, the origins of the music he played, and connected it to both science and geography as he described the vibrations that create sound and challenged the students to use the world map to find the countries from which his music came. He discussed the languages spoken in, and the music that originates from, each country.

Dodson played songs from Argentina, Germany, Spain, France and Brazil during his visits, and featured composers both past and present.

As he played, he interspersed his performances with tips and techniques about playing an instrument and showed the students all the parts of his classical guitar. He discussed how his classical guitar differed from an acoustic guitar, which is also a type of guitar he’s played in the past. He spoke to the students and asked them about their own interest in music, and was pleased to see many who also take music lessons, including guitar lessons.

“I started playing guitar when I was about 10 years old,” he said. “I received a guitar for my birthday, and I’ve been playing ever since. I practice about four hours a day. At first, when I played for other people I was very nervous. My hands would shake and I’d wonder if the audience could tell how nervous I was. Now, though, I practice so much that I know my pieces and I’m confident when I play for an audience.”

Prior to each song, Dodson spoke to the students about the mood of the piece, asking them to let him know what they were visualizing as they listened to him play.

“This piece makes me feel very relaxed and peaceful when I play it, but maybe when you listen to it you will feel something different,” he said. “There’s no wrong answer to how a piece of music makes you feel.”

He played a piece that was written for a Lute guitar, rather than a classical guitar such as his own, and talked to the students about the other types of instruments he plays.

“I play the guitar, but I also play the banjo and the mandolin,” he said.

As he played, Dodson pointed out different techniques he used throughout his performance, including when he used his hand to drum on the wooden parts of the guitar.

“This piece was written with a mini drum solo, where I was tapping on the guitar, midway through the song. Did you see that?” he asked.

While in Rhode Island, Dodson visited as many as 16 schools, including the two in Cranston. Originally from Ohio, he is an advocate for contemporary music.