A room full of students and parents pack the music room of Central Elementary School in Waynesville on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.

In addition to the regular collection of instruments used during school time, there’s an assortment of guitars, banjos, fiddles and a stand-up bass. Local music teachers welcome incoming students to hold these instruments, strum along, and see what it feels like to make sounds with strings.

Some of the students have never held these instruments before and handle them delicately like a newfound pet. Pretty soon, these young musicians will be fingering new chords, playing new songs and understanding the basic fundamentals for the instrument of their choice while continuing the time-honored tradition of learning Southern Appalachian music.

It’s the start of the fifth year for Junior Appalachian Music (JAM) in Haywood County, a Tuesday after-school program from October through May that teaches students in grades four through eight how to play the fiddle, banjo or guitar. Classes cost only $2 and are held once a week from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. in classrooms at Central Elementary. Parents are responsible for getting their children to and from the school. The classes are divided up according to the instruments, so there’s a room for fiddlers, another for guitar players, a room for banjo pickers and a new space for the more experienced young musicians who want to play together as a string band.

A state arts grant pays for the music teachers, and the Haywood County Arts Council administers the program. There are similar JAM programs in other counties in Western North Carolina.

It’s a great way to introduce young people to an instrument without having to commit to paying for it, says Lorrie Worrell of Waynesville. Her fourth-grade daughter Sydney came to JAM to learn how to play the fiddle. Sydney’s been taking piano lessons for a year. At home, her older brother plays the guitar.

“I think the fiddle’s going to be fun to try,” Sydney said.

Like many of the students who come to JAM, Sydney has little or no experience in playing a stringed instrument but arrives with an eager and open mind to learn.

Meanwhile, Dawson Hannah, a fourth-grader at Central Elementary, is signing up to play the guitar.

“She’s excited about it,” says Selena Hannah, Dawson’s mother.

Thanks to flyers sent home through the schools and word-of-mouth publicity, more than 60 students registered this year to take the music classes — more than twice the number that signed up last year and the best turnout ever in the program’s five-year history. In fact, the guitar class has become so large it needs an extra instructor.

You notice part of the reason for this year’s success when you walk into a JAM class. Students and parents are greeted by down-to-earth, easy-going instructors like twin brothers Trevor and Travis Stuart, who have been with the program since its inception in Haywood County. Both are young (in their 30s) and have been playing traditional Appalachian music since they were as young as the students they now teach. They’ve been performing together for more than 20 years — Trevor on fiddle and Travis on banjo — and have played throughout the United States and in England, Ireland and Russia. This summer, Trevor was playing at a music festival out in Montana while Travis played with a band in California. Music is in their blood, and they both carry the passion to pass on that love of music to the next generation.

Travis, who started playing banjo at 12, remembers listening to recordings of Bill Monroe, the local legendary Smathers Family Band from Canton, and gospel music.

“My dad brought home some bluegrass and old-time records,” Travis recalled. He took lessons from June Smathers, but it was more like private lessons, not like the group lessons with JAM where young people can learn and share what they’re learning.

This year, the Stuart brothers are accompanied by Trevor’s wife, Caroline (on guitar), Robbie Roberson (who will lead the string band class) and Jimmy Burnette, a former JAM student who has come back to help out with the string band class. Violinist Mary Henigbaum helps volunteer with the more experienced fiddle players.

After JAM started at Canton Middle School, it moved to Clyde Elementary School for a year and then came to its current location at Waynesville’s Central Elementary, which has an arts-based curriculum and a central location in the county. Students in JAM come in from all over the county to learn the basics of their instrument — how to hold it, how to play basic chords and scales, and how to keep the rhythm by ear — before learning songs. It may seem like a lot of repetition at first, but the instructors have the patience and humor to keep their students interested.

“It’s a slow process on the fiddle,” Trevor says, adding that it could take two to three sessions just to work on getting those initial sounds.

“You’ve got a mule over there,” he calls out to a young girl testing the groans and squeaks of a fiddle that can sound like a beast of burden.

There may be a few who drop out, but the majority of students stick with the classes over the course of the school year. Some can’t get to the school until 4 p.m., and some have scheduling conflicts like soccer practice. Trevor doesn’t seem to mind though. Walk-ins are welcome, as long as they’re registered to take the class.

“You’re welcome anytime,” Trevor says.

Unlike the stereotype of the strict piano teacher who reprimands her students at the slightest mistake, Travis tries a gentler approach. With small class sizes, he’s able to give one-on-one instruction, and there’s no forced sense of urgency if they don’t get it right off the bat. After reviewing some of the basics, students might get paired off to play alongside each other.

“We just try to have a lot of fun with it,” Travis says.

For their first lesson, he teaches them how to grab the top and bottom strings of a five-string banjo using the clawhammer style. They sit in a circle, each with a banjo. One pair of boys shares a banjo. They repeatedly practice the clawhammer style, shaping their right hand like a claw over the lower end of the strings and grabbing at the top and bottom strings.

After learning their instrument — and students can shift over to another instrument if they want — JAM students celebrate what they’ve learned at a picnic and performance at the end of the school year. This summer, some of the JAM students got together to perform for a Waynesville street dance. With more public performances and a larger pool of performers, JAM’s popularity continues to spread.

According to Travis, some of the JAM students from last year are already playing in church programs and forming local string bands.

“It just makes you real proud when they start taking it on themselves,” he said.

For more information about the JAM program, contact the Haywood County Arts Council at 828.452.0593 or go to the arts council’s website at www.haywoodarts.org to see photos of the JAM students.