Wednesday, November 6, 2019
By Brian Foley, Marketing Supervisor
We have featured customers and instructors alike in our various spotlight stories over the years, but long-time Recreation participant Dennis Eden has successfully donned both hats in his two decades with the department.
Eden began his Recreation journey in the mid-2000s when he signed up for an advanced guitar class, which he stuck with for several years. As his interest in music and performance grew, Eden added a host of Recreation classes to his customer catalog, including music theory, voice, piano, bass, songwriting, and rock band. He even tacked a few Recreation dancing classes onto his resume, joining in on the available ballroom, swing, and salsa dance sessions.
Eden preaches Milwaukee Recreation’s affordability and convenience. “The taxpayer really gets a lot of bang for their buck by attending Recreation classes.”
From there, instructing was the obvious next step. Eden moved into a Recreation teaching role at the popular Hamilton High School Community Center, where he leads an introductory harmonica class for youth and adults.
“Harmonica can be a somewhat adjunctive instrument; it seems to go well with guitar,” Eden, who plays guitar while his students are on the harmonica, said. “One of my classmates suggested taking lessons, and after years of playing in bands, [Hamilton building director] Mike Biba thought it would be a good idea for me to teach.”
Eden’s classes are dutifully researched and well prepared, and he engages with each customer throughout the evening lessons. For each class, he comes with folders of song sheets and basic harmonica techniques, though he does still weave some flexibility into the structure of the session. Eden tries to mold each class to those participants’ preferred genre of music. This fall, the class has played songs from Neil Young and Bob Dylan, as well as old classics like the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and simpler tunes, such as “Happy Birthday,” “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and “Farmer in the Dell.”
“I consider [instructing] to be the apex and the culmination of my many experiences, and I further consider myself extremely fortunate to be involved with possibly making a difference in the lives of my students.”
Eden will be back at Hamilton again this winter leading his Introduction to Harmonica class on Tuesday nights. Winter registration opens on Tuesday, Dec. 10 for Milwaukee residents, and Tuesday, Dec. 17 for non-residents.