Tag: WVU School of Music

Sing It, Sisters: Discover the Ethereal Harmonies of Sibling Duo Whiskey Victor

“It’s fun to see how we can use the [WVU School of Music] techniques we spent so many years perfecting for something completely different. It’s interesting to show people what you can do with classical music.”

From West Virginia Public Broadcasting and A Change of Tune, this is 30 Days of #WVmusic, the interview series celebrating the folks who make the West Virginia music scene wild and wonderful.  

And today’s interview is with a dreamy sister folk duo with rich roots in the Mountain State. This… is Whiskey Victor.

Whiskey Victor will have a new release later this summer. In the meantime, listen to their singles on SoundCloud and follow them on social media. Hear more #WVmusic on A Change of Tune, airing Saturday nights at 10 on West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Connect with A Change of Tune on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. And for more #WVmusic chats, make sure to go to wvpublic.org/wvmusic and subscribe to our RSS / podcast feeds.

Credit Courtesy of the artist
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Whiskey Victor

Interview Highlights

On beginning to play music together:

Anna-Kate Bean: We’ve always just played around, but our cousin started a cystic fibrosis charity concert last year and needed people to play for it, so we formed the band so that we would have an official thing to play for. And we needed an official name, so that was the first time we give ourselves a name. But we’ve played together forever.

Shannon Bean: We both started classically. Anna started in elementary school playing the viola and, of course being her younger sister, I followed in her path. So she started with the viola and started studying voice, and I did the exact same thing when I was old enough. We’ve kind of gone down the same path, but she’s gone into a guitar singer-songwriter thing, and I’m still being classically trained.

On the music of their youth:

Shannon: We kind of just listened to whatever our parents listened to. We listened to a lot of Cake and Gillian Welch, stuff like that.

Anna-Kate: There’s a variety of different things. Our family is from central West Virginia, so they’re more bluegrass-oriented. When we had family reunions during the summer, we would all get together and have a big bluegrass jam session.

On recording music with Morgantown legend Mark Poole:

Anna-Kate: Mark Poole played in 63 Eyes in Morgantown, and my dad was in a band called Granny’s 12 Gauge, and they used to play shows together around town at 123 Pleasant Street. When I told my dad I wanted to record, he reached out to Mark.

Credit Courtesy of the artist
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Whiskey Victor’s favorite show occurred at Jerry Run Summer Theater in Cleveland, WV.

On playing in the #WVmusic scene:

Anna-Kate: My favorite part has been the community around the music scene. Everyone wants to help everyone out, and everyone is super supportive. We play at Jerry Run Summer Theater in Cleveland, West Virginia. It’s beautiful. It’s my favorite place. And Dusty and Renee who run it are the nicest people, and it’s really cool to see the community they’ve made there because it isn’t a big town, but people come out to support it.

Starting in Morgantown as a small band, the only place you can really get booked are restaurants, and that can make it difficult to start off. An easier system to help out smaller bands would be useful.

Credit Courtesy of the artist
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Anna-Kate Bean graduated from WVU School of Music in 2017. Oh, and did we mention Bill Withers was there?

Shannon: I think not only our education, but the community of WVU School of Music has really helped because we have very supportive professors and friends who are trying to help us get out there and make a name for ourselves.

On their creative process:

Anna-Kate: I like to say I draw the picture, and Shannon colors it in. I’ll write the lyrics and the basic chord progression and kind of hand it off to Shannon to fill it in because she plays so many instruments, and I can’t figure out what goes with it. She can always say, “I don’t know if it’s working out.”

On advice to newer artists:

Anna-Kate: Market yourself, keep active social media, keep sending e-mails. Make sure your friends tell people. It’s all about networking and marketing. The more people that hear about you, the more shows you’ll get, the more people will spread the word. 

Music featured in this #WVmusic chat:

Whiskey Victor- “The Answer”

Whiskey Victor- “Hello Brother”

Whiskey Victor- “Oslo”

Whiskey Victor- “Everything is Free” (Gillian Welch cover)

Support for 30 Days of #WVmusic is provided by Kin Ship Goods, proud supporter of DIY music and the arts. Locally shipped worldwide at kinshipgoods.com.

WVU Partnership Aims To Fill Gap in W.Va. Music Therapy Education

There has been a surge in the practice of using music as a medical treatment during the past 10 years. In fact, Pennsylvania has the highest number of music therapists in the country, at around 400. But there are only eight in West Virginia. A new program at West Virginia University is trying to change that.

Dena Register is the new professor of music therapy at WVU. She says she has worked with a variety of patients, from helping children with Autism Spectrum Disorder communicate better to helping hospice patients manage pain.

One of the examples Register uses with her students is a patient she treated in Thailand with cerebral palsy. Although compliant with his physical therapist, he showed little motivation during his treatments. With this in mind, Register brought music into his regular physical therapy session.

“He was almost five but he couldn’t sit up by himself, he needed a lot of physical support. And so she was doing his exercises with him and he was laying there but he also wasn’t initiating a lot of the movements. So we added music to what the physical therapist was directing,” Register said. “She was stretching his leg up and then stretching it out. So what we did was put a drum at the bottom of it so that when his leg came down, it hit the drum. And he was very motivated by that! So we went from her really guiding him to him initiating hitting that drum with his foot.”

Register says that on that particular day, his therapy session went much longer than normal and instead of thinking about how exhausted he was from standing, he engaged in making music.

Music therapists can work in a variety of locations, such as hospitals, rehab facilities, schools, prisons and assisted-living facilities.

Shortage of W.Va. Therapists

Amy Rodgers Smith is a music therapist who works with clients in northern West Virginia from Morgantown to Parkersburg in her private practice, called On A Better Note. She says she’s not exactly sure why the number of music therapists in West Virginia is so low, but she thinks part of the problem is that there is no formal music therapy education in the state.

“West Virginia is in a different stage of growth with music therapy so all of these other places, all of these other states have started where we’re starting and that’s okay, we have to start somewhere,” Smith said.

For the past two years, Smith has been working closely with the WVU School of Music to create the state’s first music therapy degree. The degree is still in the approval process, but the music school’s director, Keith Jackson, says he’s hopeful that the degree program will launch this spring.

“And I think because the university has a mission as part of its land grant status, we’re the right institution to help make sure this gets out there and is available for the rest of the state,” Jackson said.

The lack of a dedicated music therapy degree program in West Virginia has forced residents who are interested in the field to go elsewhere. Smith, a native of Parkersburg, was one of those people.

“I was a student who had to leave West Virginia to get my music therapy degree,” she said. “And so it really means a lot for me that high school students and people who have grown up in West Virginia can stay here and get this music therapy degree and then continue to contribute to the growth of music therapy across the state of West Virginia.”

Both Keith Jackson and Dena Register say they are excited to work more closely with WVU Health Sciences and Smith’s private practice to expand music therapy education in West Virginia.

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