A key component of Law Rocks’ mission is to promote music education for underserved youth. In 2023, due to our increased sponsorship and fundraising, Law Rocks was able to offer a new grant at each Law Rocks show: The Music Matters grant. This grant, continuing in 2024, is given to a local nonprofit that supports youth music education in each of our U.S. tour cities. Omi Crawford, director of Law Rocks, says of the grant initiative:
“Since our 2009 founding, Law Rocks has supported hundreds of incredible nonprofits, with an emphasis on youth music education organizations. The Music Matters grant is a natural evolution of our mission and a chance to formalize our support of amazing music education nonprofits across the country.”
Today’s spotlight is on our Inaugural Dallas grant winner, the Dallas chapter of Music Will. Law Rocks is thrilled to be extending the Music Matters grant to the 2024 tour, further increasing our support for youth music education. The Dallas chapter of Music Will exemplifies our mission in every way and we are delighted to celebrate the hard work and heart behind this exceptional organization.
Keep reading to learn more in our spotlight interview with Music Will CEO, Mike Wasserman.
Our Inaugural Dallas Music Matters Grant Recipient: The Dallas Chapter of Music Will
1) Can you tell us a little about the history of your nonprofit, as well as its mission and focus?
Music Will is the nation's largest music nonprofit program providing musical instruments, curriculum, teacher training, and music education resources to public schools for over 20 years, impacting over 1.6 million students in all 50 states.
Our founder, Dave Wish, first started teaching kids how to play guitar in 1996 when he was a first-grade teacher because the school didn’t have a music program. He begged and borrowed instruments from friends to launch the first class, and focused on the music that the kids knew and loved. The class became so popular that he had to train other teachers to keep up with the demand.
Over 20 years later, what started as one elementary school in a single city has expanded to 6000+ schools, in 928 cities and towns. Several state departments of education have now partnered with Music Will to grow music education programs in their schools, and our mission has grown into a national movement.
We believe every kid is a music-maker inherently and that music education is a right –not a privilege. By removing traditional barriers, we strive to provide access to music-making opportunities in schools and among students who have historically been underserved, particularly those in marginalized communities.
2) What is the best example of the way you’ve seen your organization’s work make a difference?
Our programs turn classrooms into safe spaces where students feel represented and heard. One teacher shared, “I had a student who rarely came to school. He seemed depressed and uninterested in school. Giving him the tools to listen to his favorite songs and play those songs by ear reinvigorated his love for school. Now he begs his parents to come every day, shows up early, and is quickly becoming a musical protégé. His life is changing, moving in a positive direction because of the Music Will program.”
Image courtesy of Music Will
3) What are some upcoming initiatives that you are planning for?
Music Will aims to bring the gift of music to a million more kids annually within the next five years. We are expanding our workshops so that we can provide free training to more teachers nationwide and create more opportunities for our students. We are creating more online resources so that both teachers and students can get access to our tools and programs outside of school. We’re also collaborating with our teachers, empowering long-time Music Will teachers to be leaders in their community and help us address unique challenges that their schools and students are facing.
As a leader in the field of culturally responsive, student-centered and inclusive music education, Music Will is also partnering with colleges and universities to help develop leadership and coursework using our approach. The Modern Band Higher Education Fellowship (MBHEF) is an opportunity for tenure-track music education professors to receive instruction in incorporating our modern band pedagogy into pre-service music teacher education programs and receive hands-on instruction in playing popular music instruments.
4) What is the greatest challenge your organization faces?
One of the greatest challenges our organization faces is when the schools we serve are not properly supported, particularly when policymakers and administrators view arts and music education as non-essential or less critical compared to core academic subjects like math and language arts. Consequently, when budget decisions are made, arts programs are often among the first to face reductions or elimination. Without exposure to the arts, students suffer academically and miss out on opportunities for creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and self-expression. Please visit our website at www.musicwill.org , follow us on Instagram @musicwill and tell a friend.
5) What does the power of music mean to you?
Music is a universal language, a way to process grief and share joy. Music brings hope into dark times and unites us as families and communities. What is a wedding without music? A birthday? A holiday? We believe that the power of music is that it provides all people a voice to express themselves, an opportunity to shape their identity, and a bond that can stand the test of time. Music in schools is powerful because self-expression and identity formation are two of the core goals that we hope students leave with at the end of their education. While we would never take away from the importance of math, science, or other subjects, we also believe that an education without the opportunity to develop every student’s innate ability to be a music maker will always fall short of developing the next generation of humans in the world.
6) How will the Music Matters grant be used?
Over the last 22 years, Music Will has grown from one inspiring educator teaching others how to engage students in music-making from a young age to a national community of educators changing the way that millions of students build a relationship with music. There is so much impact we can have as we expand nationally. And yet we also know that some of our most powerful work came from building networks of music teachers locally. As we continue expanding, we’re working to find ways to achieve our broad goals (impacting millions of students annually) without losing the investments at the community level that make our programs so powerful. The benefit of local organizations like Law Rocks Dallas is that they help us continue to invest in local communities like Dallas so that educators can get the benefits of a national organization with a local community of practice. The Music Matters grant will help support the 70 teachers and 16,500 students we serve in Dallas through professional development, instrument and curricular donations, community-building, and performance opportunities.
Learn more about Music Will.