- Hey friends, I'm here at the Arkansas Symphony Orchestras Summer Strings Camp, where kids of all ages come to play violins, violas, cellos, and harps.

And this morning I found the viola section.

The violas look a lot like violins though.

Can you tell us how they're different?

- Sure, the viola's a little bit bigger, it has a deeper sound that's a bit more soulful, but why don't we just go ahead and show you what it sounds like.

(musicians playing the viola) (soft music) - Hey friends, look who I found.

It's Katherine Williamson, director of the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra String Academy.

We're here at Summer Strings Camp.

Katherine, can you tell us what's happening back here?

- Sure, so behind us right now, we have a group of young string players and what they're doing right now is they're playing a little game of telephone, but with rhythm instead of like a word or something that you might say when you're playing regular telephone.

It really helps to get them listening to each other.

And it also keeps them pretty quiet, which is fun sometimes too.

- [Speaker] Sounds like fun.

What else is happening in the building today?

- We also have a theory class going on here soon and they're going to be playing with a parachute and listening to some classical music and kind of listening for form and maybe some dynamics, which is when something's really, really loud or really, really soft.

So it's a lot of fun.

- Sounds super fun.

- Yeah.

- All right.

Let's go see what else is happening in the building.

(man playing piano) Hey friends, look who I found.

Yeah, it's Briley.

Briley's a student here at Summer Strings Camp.

Briley, what instrument do you play?

- I play the cello.

What I love about it is the deep sounds it can make with the strings.

- How many years have you been playing the cello?

- Around nine.

- So you were little when you started?

- Yeah, I was around five or four.

- Wow, that's really young.

What's your favorite thing about coming to Strings Camp?

- The favorite thing about coming here is I would have to say meeting new people, getting to know 'em and making new friends.

- [Speaker] Yeah, what do you do at Strings Camp?

- What we do here is basically prepare for like future competitions.

- Can you tell us what they're doing back here?

- So back there, they're playing Vivaldi Sonata number five - [Speaker] And I noticed they're playing with their fingers and not their bows.

Is that right?

- Yeah, it's called pizzicato.

- Looks like fun.

What do you want to be when you graduate from school?

Will music still be part of your life?

- Very much hopefully.

I want to become a soloist, to continue learning about music and hopefully a future career.

- Awesome, thanks for visiting with me today, Briley.

- Oh, it's very nice to speak to you.

- Best of luck to you and your cello playing future.

- Thank you.

- Let's go see what else we can find around here today.

Hey friends.

I found Mr. Bruce, he's the conductor of the Summer Strings Camp Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mr. Bruce, can you tell us what's happening back here?

- Yeah, so if you look behind us this is the violin section for the Philharmonic Orchestra and they are working on a piece of music for our concert for next Friday called Electric Symphonia.

- Can you tell us more about what kids get out of studying music and working on these pieces?

- I think one of the important things about learning music is that it's fun and primarily we do this because it's fun, it makes us happy and it brings us this sense of enjoyment and entertainment.

But for studying music, this is something that you can do for the rest of your life and you don't have to necessarily do it as a career.

It can just be a hobby, but it can be a lifelong hobby.

And being a part of a music ensemble like this is something that's going to build a lot of skills and a lot of organizational skills, a lot of group work skills, collaborative skills, that are going to serve them really well in any kind of field or career that they choose to do.

- Well, that's great.

The kids do get a lot out of this.

What do you get out of this Mr. Bruce?

- One of the things I like to see is the amount of growth that's occurred over the past two weeks.

So we started this camp on Monday and when we first read through some of this music, it was a little rough, there were a lot of things that we needed to learn, but already by the end of the first week, I'm seeing a lot of progress.

And by next Friday at our concert, we're going to have made a tremendous amount of progress on that music, and that's what I'm looking forward to seeing is how where we started versus where we end.

- Well, that sounds really exciting.

Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me and good luck with your concert.

- Thank you, Beth.

(musicians playing the viola) - Well, that's a wrap friends.

Thanks for joining us here at Summer Strings Camp.

If you'd like to come next year, you can look us up at arkansassymphony.org for more information.

Until then, have a great summer.

(soft music)