Musician Shannon Tanner will never forget how a kid with Down syndrome named Joey in his elementary school often strung a Wiffle ball from a tree and would hit it by himself because no one would play with him.

While there wasn't a lot of bullying in his school, he said that kids were often exclusive, not letting some of their classmates play with them. Tanner called it an indirect form of bullying.

"I was always one of the kids who felt sorry for the kids, the ones that got picked on," Tanner said after a musical performance at Roaring Brook School in Avon Monday during his Wish to Be Just Who You Are Shannon Tanner School Tour. "It's amazing. He left a huge impression on me."

So, Tanner, who considered himself to be in the "in crowd," would go play with him. He also remembered a girl in high school who students teased because she was overweight and he would stick up for her.

Now Tanner stands up against bullying in a different way – through music, which he uses to teach kids many other life lessons, as well. He wrote the anti-bullying song that he sang for Roaring Brook students on Tuesday in a hotel room after seeing increasing bullying reports in the news.

"I think it's more of an epidemic now, for whatever reason. Maybe kids have become desensitized to violence and to violent language." Tanner said. "It becomes common place to hear kids talk like that or to see violence and to act that out at school."

Tanner began his music career singing in coffee shops when he was 16. After college and marrying his high school sweetheart at age 21, he decided to make music his career. He has done a family show in an amphitheater at Shelter Cove Harbour in Hilton Head, SC for 24 years.

He does one school tour a year, stopping predominantly in Pennsylvania, this time around. The tours are his favorite part of his career, he said.

"The songs are all surreptitious learning, is what it is," Tanner said. "They deal with all the buzz educational topics, very important topics that we have to discuss with kids, like the bully issue, getting along with others, self esteem mainly."

The Roaring Brook students seemed captivated by Tanner's music, as he played with a constant smile on his face while delivering songs with humor and positive energy. He even got some of the teachers to dance and sing with him, as well as Principal Crisanne Colgan.

Mixed in with the anti-bullying song and an island melody about stopping, dropping and rolling in the event of a fire, Tanner also played "Purple People Eater" as a bonus song per the request of Roaring Brook student Tess Jepsen, whose mother, Jennifer organized the event.

"To walk up on stage and see through the medium of music that they actually get it and retain it, it's very rewarding," Tanner said. "You actually feel like you are making a difference."