BRITTANY DELONG

Andalusia transplant Aubrey McKee hopes to bring her love for music to local children by using her unique teaching style to captivate their attention.

Originally from Clarksdale, Miss., McKee was whisked away by her “sweet husband” to a new life in Andalusia.

“We canceled our big wedding and got married at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in June 2012,” she said.

McKee’s husband, Tom, has been with the Staplcotn Company for 18 years and when he came back home to Clarksdale, stole her heart, she said.

After the birth of their first child, Margaret Ann-Greenway “Greenie” McKee, in November of last year, McKee found that working was out of the question, she said.

Now, McKee is ready to share her talents with the local community by teaching voice and guitar lessons.

Previously, McKee taught private voice and beginning guitar lessons and was also a music teacher at a private school in Clarksdale, before coming to Andalusia.

McKee said she plans to implement a teaching style that children will enjoy and look forward to, just as she learned from her own voice teacher.

“You hear many stories of children not wanting to go to their practices,” she said. “I want this to be a time that they get to enjoy for themselves.

“When I decided that I would start doing lessons, I would do them for 30 minutes at a time,” she said. “I thought 45 minutes was just too long when I took voice.”

She had received voice lessons from,Mrs. Betty Lou Stribling, a resident of Clarksdale; from the time she was in third grade until her freshman year of college.

Some students are shy and very, very quiet, McKee said, but she wants them to enjoy their lessons and lets them pick songs they enjoy.

“I decided that my approach to this would be allowing the children to express themselves how they wanted to,” she said. “Most of my students like to do what is popular. They want to feel like they are Taylor Swift or Glinda from Wicked.”

Additionally, McKee offers beginner guitar lessons.

“Sometimes you get an awesome guitar player teaching a 10-or-12-year-old that just needs to learn the basics,” she said. “Learning the basics, the core, the notes, the parts of the guitar are important.”

McKee is filling spots for the fall semester, which starts now and runs until the end of November. She offers lessons to children between the ages of 6 and 18 for 30 minutes once a week Tuesday through Thursday.

To enroll in lessons, McKee may be contacted at aubreypmckee@gmail.com or on her Facebook page Singing and Performing with Aubrey McKee.