The slow, repetitive bass line of Queen’s “Another Bites the Dust” blares from a classroom at Portland’s Boise-Eliot/Humboldt Elementary where a handful of kids – some of them as tall as the bass guitars they are playing – attempt to pluck strings in unison.
Instructor Dave Shirkhani shows them the basics: how to position the instrument and hold a finger against a fret. Most of the students, ranging from second- to fifth-graders, have never held a bass guitar before, let alone played one.
