Some students in St. Catharines got a surprise on Monday with a visit from a Canadian country music star.

Singer and songwriter Tim Hicks stopped by Ferndale Public School for a little impromptu songwriting lesson with some music students.

“It’s very cool that Tim is here because it gives us a chance to know someone who writes songs for a living,” one student said.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to see the excitement in the kid’s eyes to see a working musician,” Hicks said.

Hicks is from Niagara but now travels back and forth from Nashville.

He is a Juno award nominee and Canadian country music award winner. He’s released several chart-topping country songs and they’ve been streamed over 200 million times.

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On Monday, he stopped in at Ferndale Public School as part of the Music Monday initiative.

It’s an effort hosted by the Coalition for Music Education in Canada, a champion for keeping music a core part of the educational curriculum in Canada.

The coalition is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Music Monday this year, with almost 200,000 students taking part in events like this across the country on Tuesday.

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At Ferndale, some students got a songwriting workshop and were taught about the components a song, including verses, a chorus, bridge, and how to bring them all together.

Hicks says one of the main components of songwriting is coming up with a the title, so he put these students to work to come up with one of their own.

“I always say the same thing, just keep at it. I always tell them play where ever you can, in front of people, but get in front of people as much as you can, book gigs, and your grandmother’s backyard because that is 1000 times more useful than posting songs from your bedroom,” Hicks said.