Hi this is Vincent James from Keep Music Alive and you're listening to the
Musicality Podcast ever wondered why some people seem to have a gift for
music have you ever wished that you could play by ear sing in tune improvise
and jam you're in the right place time to turn those wishes into reality
welcome to the Musicality Podcast with your host Christopher Sutton hi this is
Christopher founder of Musical U and welcome to the Musicality Podcast today
I'm joined on the show by Vincent James who is the co-founder of an organization
called keep music alive they organize two big music holidays each year teach
music week and kids music day in 2017 they partnered with over 600 music
schools and retail locations to help celebrate those two events by offering
free music lessons and holding other community events including open houses
student performances and instrument donation drives Vincent and his wife
Joanne are also the authors of a book called 88+ ways music can change
your life which features over hundred inspirational music stories from around
the world including from a number of celebrities as if that wasn't enough
Vincent is also the man behind lovesongs.com where he writes custom love
songs on request in this conversation I was keen to find out more about the
musician behind these three fascinating and impressive projects we talked about
the book 88 plus ways what inspired him to take
on such an ambitious project and how it came about I also asked Vincent to share
two of his favorite stories from the book we took about his experience
writing custom love songs for couples and his advice to all budding
songwriters and we talked about the two nationwide events he's organized to
promote music learning Plus Vincent shares the biggest lesson
that comes through all of these projects and successes something that you can
apply in your own musical life I've really loved reading a story or two from
88 plus ways each day recently it's a great way to stay aware of and inspired
by the incredible power of music and I think between the stories Vincent shares
in this conversation and the events he has coming up in 2018 that you can get
involved with you're going to come away from this episode feeling uplifted and
inspired my name is Christopher Sutton and this is the Musicality Podcast from
Musical U welcome to the show Vincent thank you for joining us today -
Christopher's great to be here so you are a man of many interesting projects
but one of them that I particularly love is the book you put together 88 plus
ways that music can change your life I wonder if you'd set the mood for us by
sharing one of the stories from that book sure I would love to the story
comes to us from a songwriter who got involved in music a little more
seriously later in life and the title of the story is called simply thanks mom
strangely enough she had always wanted me to play more music my mom that is I
had been in a band in college and had also done some solo work after that we
were always very close but then I got a business career and that was followed by
having three children in three years yeah life was really busy and I just
couldn't fit music into my days and then she died i sat there looking at her
three grandchildren under the age of five they would never know their sweet
grandmother and she would never see them grow up I didn't know how to grieve
there wasn't a lot of time for that either that very night it started music
and lyrics came to me while I was sleeping it happened over and over again
often waking me up original music I had never written original music before I
started to think I was cracking up I decided to make a therapy appointment
although the therapist gave me validation for my
sadness I left without anything else that was very helpful and then a friend
of mine suggested I visit a producer friend of his to try to make sense of
the music I was hearing in the middle of the night
even though I still cried every morning that was the beginning of my new life I
now had someplace to put my emotions I took the money set aside for therapy and
books to do time instead and that was 22 years ago my mother's legacy I love my
musical life every single minute of every single day not a day goes by when
I don't imagine my mother smiling face I'm forever grateful to her for so many
things even in passing she is still with me giving me a reason to wake up every
day to create music this story is dedicated to the lasting memory but
Beatrice Robert Greenfield always in forever a dear supporter of the Arts and
this comes to us via Bonnie Warren who is basically a Nashville songwriter now
who travels back and forth from Philadelphia to Nashville regularly to
write songs she's had several songs published one song writing contest and
this is something that developed you know later in her life if she decided
you know based on this you know tragic occurrence with her mom passing you know
when her grandchildren was so little to really jump back into music because she
you know she was feeling it in here in her art well fantastic I love that story
and that's one of those from the inspiration and motivation section of
the book if I'm not mistaken and it's just one of 88 plus terrific stories
that you and your wife Joanne put together in this wonderful book before
we go on and talk more about that book as we will I'd love to just get a bit of
background on you who is the man that with his wife put together such an
inspiring book of musical stories how did you get started in music well
Christopher I'm a nut from early on see way back in elementary school you know I
have my memory isn't so great but I have certain memories that stick with me I
can remember being sick home from school I probably had the flu because I was
home for two three days in a row and I can remember being drawn to the AM clock
radio you know on my bedside listening to you know the pop music of the early
70s you know whether it was you know the the John Denver's that the bread the
carpenter Barry Manilow seals and Crofts you know
all these you know what they call soft Rockets
and then just the melodies just drew me in and I really never let go of melody
since that time around the fourth grade I think is in elementary school where
they allow us to start learning how to play an instrument you know we had band
in school we were very fortunate that we could choose an instrument if we wanted
to play and band so you know I came home one day from school and I said you know
it's my parents say I'd like to you know really learn to really love to learn how
to play the guitar I don't even think that was a band instrument at the time
but I just had my idea you know they're teasing in sermons I
want to play the guitar my parents said no I don't think so you know so we went
back to school the next day and I came home I'm like how about that's Rome's
can I play the drums that's a band instrument and they said no even louder
I don't think they wanted the noise so I went back a third time and it came back
and said how about the trombone and you know we were sold on that - trombone
near the slide instrument I was very cool and I have a lot of fond memories
playing you know all the way from fourth grade to senior year of high school and
marching band concert band stage band which was like a jazz you know type in
you know fun memories everything from early you know mr. Don Ramos the band
teacher and elementary school with a little a baton thing you know whacking
you when you're hitting the wrong though you know this is old school days right
but you know he was great and all the way to the senior high school in the
marching band competitions in just a coma rowdy camaraderie camaraderie with
the other musicians and students and really band was kind of my life you know
if it wasn't for band and music I probably wouldn't have had any friends
in high school in high school I also started you know learning to play the
guitar and I think I skipped a little part where probably around middle school
junior high school it was back then my mom had always wanted to play the piano
and so my dad you know agreed to let's get a piano and bring it in the house
and my mom started taking classical piano lessons and I was like you know be
I'm like what is this thing you know I just started pounding on single notes on
the piano I'm like you know when can I start how you know can I get lessons and
I was very fortunate that you know not long after I was able to along with my
sister start taking piano lessons and learning you know the classics from
everything from you know Bach Beethoven Mozart and that was kind of my real I
guess my initial musicality connection where you know trombone you're just
playing off the bass cleff single notes at the time and the piano you're doing
both hands and you know reading all this music in front of you and I got into it
pretty well for three or four years and really enjoyed it and then one point you
know the pop radio kind of pulled my ear again and I got interested in you know
pop more popular songs you know everything from you know the Beatles
which I discovered after they broke up sad to say to you know the rock bands
you know everything from kiss to Queen to Led Zeppelin you know I started to
really enjoy lots of different types of music whether it was soft music hard
music classical music jazz music really got an affinity for anything that I felt
was done well and so I started playing rock band with my friends I can remember
the very first song that I wrote I'm struggling to remember the name of the
song but I could sit there at the piano and play for you now but we had going
for I can't remember the reason to another high school and that was some
other kids and there was a kid there who had a song lyrics for a song and he
needed someone to write music words for a friend what's the name of the song and
it was very Jackson brownish type of lyrics he had written
so I wrote a song that went with that and then our band I've actually started
playing the song out so that was kind of my first experience of writing and
playing a song you know it was originally created out and coming from
trombone and classical piano it's not an obvious next step to join a band and
start writing songs that a bit of a creative leap that I think a lot of
musicians don't make that come easily to you I think it was I
don't see peer pressure but just your peers you know I had friends uh it's
funny just us talking here is bringing back memories when we were in junior
high school there was a deep freeze you know like it is right now here in
January and actually the pipes at the junior high froze
I guess the heating problem and they had to close the school for a couple days
and I had a friend two doors up who was a budding drummer and so I went up and
hung out at his house for like two days and we basically created an imaginary
rock band called atomic power you know we had a notebook with all these ideas
and he would play drums I think he had drumsticks I don't think he actually had
drums at that time and I played our guitar and we just got this inspiration
or idea that we wanted to play in a rock band we were starting to discover bands
like kiss and Led Zeppelin and at that time Led Zeppelin would have been way to
impossible for us to attempt to play but the kiss songs were fairly easy you know
rudimentary for us to start playing so eventually we hooked up with another
friend who had a guitar my buddy mark the budding drummer got a set of drums
and we would go out in the backyard and play you know one note songs you know
one there's a time melodies on the guitar as I was struggling to learn with
him playing on drums and that was kind of the beginning and I think it was just
sheer and joy and excitement of being able to play something maybe it was
because it was loud versus the the classical but the play songs that we
heard on the radio that were popular amongst us and our friends I think
that's kind of what drew us in that's great
we had a great piano teacher called Sarah Campbell on the show recently and
we were talking about how as an adult we often have hang-ups about making
mistakes in music and actually it can be really valuable to remember that
childlike willingness to just try stuff out you know you dabble around you find
the right notes it sounds like that's the kind of approach you guys had you
know you weren't embarrassed or self-conscious you were just kind of
figuring it out by ear and enjoying collabro
anything with it no absolutely that's such a great point you know we do as
adults often you know how to hang up for being afraid to try something new in
particular if it's you know around other people but I think that's something we
can all learn from you know for different activities that were
interested in it's just sometimes you just need to try it and have some fun
with it and and you'll be surprised at how enjoyable the experience will be and
so did you continue with classical piano or at that point did you kind of take a
detour into you know creativity and improv and different styles I think at
that point I took a permanent detour I've never said liking classical music
as far as playing it I don't know that I ever really played it seriously again
a little side note earlier this past year I volunteered to a friend that was
giving a TEDx talk he wanted to have a classical piece played as part of it you
know just a short little snippet so I'm thinking oh well I'll give it a try and
I practiced for several weeks and I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to
get to where it needed to be in time for his live TEDx event so we did use a
pre-recorded piece for that time but for me it was a great experience I kind of
reconnected with my classical roots just a couple months ago where I you know I
really tried to get it up you know I got a lot better in there's several weeks
but I couldn't get it to the point where I thought it's not so much how I would
be embarrassed that I wanted to give him the best possible presentation for his
TEDx talk was about Einstein and the power of music and I felt you know you
really needed to be up to a level that you know matched what he was talking
about and I just wasn't there yet but I totally enjoyed reconnecting with
classical music and I probably will because of that experience kind of get
back into it again just for fun not for serious because I enjoyed reconnecting
with you know reading the music and getting better stuff more complicated
than pop music mmm so tell us about the the detour you did go on then because
you continued to play and you continued to perform I believe and become a
performer yes yes so I continued playing we know in high school with bands and
then you know my musical career kind of went through all different carnate
incarnations everything from at one point I decided I wanted to just
be a songwriter and I spent time working on that writing songs doing demos and
pitching them and then I wrote a song called the rock-and-roll and wrestling
connection and if any of our listeners remember back in the middle 80s there
was this pop culture thing going on with the wrestling World Wrestling Federation
and pop music with Cyndi Lauper it was just this pop culture thing going on and
so I wrote this song that basically as a tribute to that so there was a local
cable TV station that created a video using all the people in the lyrics you
know from their footage that they had from these wrestling events and Cyndi
Lauper and they were able to put it all together to match the lyrics and from
that experience I ended up we ended up creating a band that I wasn't in but
ended up helping to manage the band and that got me in a whole different
direction for a couple years and managing other bands then I got into the
direction of managing recording studio and coning a recording studio for a
while helping to produce and arrange for artists and bands and then I finally got
back to performing a while later initially as solo playing piano and
singing and then having a band for a while and then I kind of going back now
to just playing and singing on my own just as time permits it's hard to keep a
band thing going with everything else going on but you know I've never really
stopped playing I would take pauses along the way and as you can tell a lot
of different directions focus wasn't always my best attribute but I learned a
lot from the different experiences that I was in and with that experience I'm
able to I think give guidance and ideas and feedback to you know budding
musicians or even adult musicians that are you know trying to learn more about
music and how they can fit in and help us to use their towns and how to grow
what they're doing mm-hmm so you mentioned songwriting there helbig apart
is that of the musician you are missing it's probably the biggest part and I
play you know I have played three instruments in my life
four if you count the ukulele that I played beautifully for our TV taping
that I needed to do but I haven't played the trombone in many years I play the
guitar I actually teach guitar just to beginner students quick sidenote my one
and only student is 83 years old didn't start playing guitar until he was 80
years old so I've been teaching him for three
years there's a wonderful experience and you know you can oh it's never too late
we tell people to learn how to play an instrument especially guitar you would
think it would be difficult with the calluses and all trying to build them up
and it was for him but he stuck with it and now he's enjoying playing and
singing some with his favorite songs on the guitar at 83 years old but I don't
play guitar much other than to teach my one student I'm not very good on the
guitar these days piano was kind of my main instrument I sing fairly well but
songwriting I think is my strength where might have probably the best skill set
you know just been because songwriting is something I've been doing more
consistently over the years and I just think I have a better knack for it and I
love creating a song with us something I write you know for me I write for
someone else or whatever it is just having that creation kind of giving
birth to this piece that you know before you came up with it never existed to me
that's a beautiful thing so in a minute I want to ask you about
how you got started with songwriting and any advice you'd have but first I want
to pick up on something you said there which was writing songs for other people
you have a fascinating project at love songs calm can you tell us about that
sure sure probably about 15 years ago or so I realize that you know I was writing
all these different songs and I kind of had this jury Comeau moment where you
know love songs is kind of like my thing you know I kind of just gravitate
towards writing love songs even though I appreciate all the kinds of music but
it's the soft love songs that one like right in that vein it just seems to come
out much better so I just happen to know I don't know how I stumbled upon it but
love songs calm the URL was for sale so I jumped at the chance to purchase that
at the time and since then have been writing custom love songs for weddings
anniversaries birthdays and other special events for couples and families
really all around the world thanks to the internet people will come and find
me and ask me to write a song for their special occasion and and sometimes I get
to go actually perform it live the event and to see the the recipient you know
who's hearing the song for the very first time hear the song that was
written for them you know their eyes light up the tears come down to me
there's nothing more beautiful in that than being able to give a song to
someone you know to be able perform for someone for the very first time a song
that was written you know for them that's lovely
are there any songs or experiences that particularly stand out it's funny there
is wonder are many but there's one in particular that was actually done as a
contest for a radio station here in the u.s. there was a radio station that
wanted to give away a song this part of a contest so I signed on with them to do
this for them for free just something it's felt like an interesting project
and I hadn't done much work with radio stations at the time so they I figured
all right the winner of this contest I don't remember what the contest was what
the parameters were to enter but I'm thinking the winner was gonna be
somebody who wants a song for their wife husband fiancee their children their
parents you know the typical type song that I would write and then I got the
call the next day that the winner for the contest was a mother who had
recently given up their child for adoption and they wanted the song that
they could play for them someday if they ever got the chance as a parent myself
before children my heart just totally went out to this mother so and the thing
about this contest was I have agreed to write a song do a quick demo and they
were going to play it the next day on the air
so I sat at the piano really and you know you can't see me but I'm looking up
just you know for our inspiration from above just the song kind of just came
down from the heavens and a song called so many things came out of it
and I did a quick demo piano vocal demo and maybe a little bit of percussions
just strings it was a very quick turnaround and they played it on the air
the next day and to me that was the most special probably the most special song
that I've ever written for anyone for any reason
because it really touched me you know I'm gonna tear up now talking about it
and then eventually I did a real studio recording of the song and it's on my
full-length CD and it's out there in the world iTunes if you search so many
things you can find it in here a song I wrote for that mom you had just given up
their child for adoption well well we'll definitely put a link to
that in the show notes for anyone who wants to listen and that's really a
touching story to write songs as requested like that is a particular
talent I think as a songwriter a particular skill and compared with you
know just I don't want a little writing for yourself but compared with writing
in a more ad hoc manner when an idea comes to you to have someone come to you
and say I need a song XYZ that really requires I think quite polished
songwriting skills can you tell us a bit about how you learned to write songs if
there were any particular resources or teachers or ideas that helped you along
the way there were some books that I read mmm there was a successful
songwriter named Jason Blum who has a book I can't remember the name of the
book but if you google Jason Blum BL um e to me it was kind of like my Bible at
the time and I believe you know everything he talked back then would
still stand today you know although they may be promoting songs you know going
for publishing deals might be a little different but the mechanics parts of
writing songs I was kind of my Bible at the time and a lot of it is just
experiences getting you know cracked like anything else you learn to play the
guitar you're learning to play the piano you
to practice songwriting you have to write a lot of bad songs sorry to say to
get to the good ones and I listened back to some of the early songs I wrote him
like these are horrible but if I never if I never put myself out there to write
them and to go through the process to actually go from start to finish to
create those songs I never would have become the songwriter I am today without
that and it's funny you mentioned about the custom songs thinking that that
might be harder in a way that was actually easier because I was given the
topic and I would create a questionnaire so you know 8/10 questions to ask the
person who wanted to give the song my client just different things that they
you know you know who is a song for where did you meet what do you guys like
to do together do you have any special memories fond memories of things you
know what do you see in your future just kind of basic general questions but from
that at least the story of the song was easy for me a lot of times we struggle
is the song is what are we write about which so one of the things they teach in
songwriting is to look at the newspaper you know whether it's online or the
physical paper or look at the headlines look at the stories underneath the
headline see what's going on in the world and you'll find situations going
on on in the world so I'm happy so I'm not so happy that you're gonna feel it's
wrong to inspired by to create a song and to me once you have that inspiration
to create the song then the song is going to almost create itself because
you're going to be drawn to write something both the lyrics and the music
that kind of fit the tone of the lyrics of what you're what you're writing so
because I know my own life is not really that interesting which is often I
struggle to write songs like for myself like am I gonna write about I just don't
feel like my life is that interesting occasionally I would come up with
something like okay there's something worth write about but often you have to
go outside ourselves as songwriters to discover our topic that we can write
about that would be meaningful to others because if it's out there in the world
if one person has experienced it other people's we are going to have had that
experience I'm going to relate to whatever you're writing I think that's
great advice do you have any other words of wisdom for the budding
songwriters in our audience maybe those who are too nervous to get started and
those who have made a start but they're not quite sure if they're on the right
path sure some of the other tricks I remember is taking an existing song take
the music from existing an existing song and you know play that in your guitar
piano whatever it is in write new lyrics short so this is a good great way to
practice writing lyrics and then you can take lyrics from an existing song write
new music for it you know sit there with the lyric sheet in front of you from
some famous song you really like and force yourself to write something
different these are great I think exercise is to help force you practice
writing music you can put together songs in a lot of different ways I often
recommend co-writing with someone you like say they you're kind of a lyricist
kind of person you're really great at coming up with lyrics but the music part
you're just not happy with find someone out there through open mikes or other
community you know music experiences or online through musical you where you can
connect with someone who maybe their strengths is music and they just hold
everything is just got them bogged down and you connect with someone you know
you're in person or online where you can collaborate together and you're both
going to create something that's going to benefit both of you because you're
gonna benefit from their music you know if you're the lyric person you're gonna
benefit from the music they bring to the table and seeing how they do it and vice
versa if you're the music person struggling with the lyrics you know
you're gonna benefit from the other person coming off the lyrics in their
process and you might find yourself especially if you're doing this in
person with someone where you're going back and forth where you think that you
know lyrics or your thing but you're coming up with musical ideas because
you've got the other musician in the room with you and it's kind of like
brainstorming writing songwriting by collaboration and co-writing is
brainstorming and together you're gonna come up with something that's much
better than either one of you could come up with alone so I highly recommend you
know collaborating co-writing and with different people you know write a song
with this person write a song with this that's other person you know you may
eventually hook on to one person where you both have you know
mccartney you know what kind of jewel was that for all of us for all time but
in the meantime you know connect with other people I'm sure Paul and John both
wrote with many other people before they hit upon their magic match so and
because music is such a community I think activity where you feel something
so much more inside when you're doing it with other people when you're performing
for other people sharing your music or co-writing you know when you're in the
room with someone or online by a Skype or other means co-writing collaborating
with someone you're gonna have more fun creating music than you will sitting in
your room by yourself you're gonna enjoy the process and
you're gonna want to do it more a hundred percent agree with that and I
reminded of you as a teenager with your friend on the drums you know if you can
custom Cissna so nervousness if there's nothing better than just hanging out and
exploring music with a friend right yes yes because you know the feeling you get
from listening to music you know how many times can you listen to a song and
you get that high you know I think almost any musician or someone who's
interested in playing music and even people that don't care about actually
playing music you need hear certain pieces certain songs certain melodies it
just gives you this high this you know it's the dopamine being re-released in
your brain literally the chemicals in your brain they're making you feel high
and you can enhance that experience by doing it with other people so you were
having a terrific career as a performer and songwriter but around 2014 you took
a change in direction tell us about that where did that come from well there are
some training programs that I would listen to on a regular basis just free
web cast of people that I know would put out and I would listen to it and one of
them was always about how how you should you know everyone should write a book
everyone has a book in them to write and I always thought okay I write songs I
don't write books what would I write about you know the thing I knew the best
is songwriting and this sort of books don't fly off the shelf unless you're
you know an established known you know successful songwriter but I thought this
one day I just had this idea well let me just listen to this one training program
and just you know for the heck of it it was actually during that call I was
listening to that caste where it just came from somewhere
from above I'm like what about writing a book that's include stories from other
people about how music affected them and changed their lives and it literally
just came to me in an instant and like you know I got goosebumps I got
all excited I'm like wow this is this is this is awesome this is something that I
can do that's it's not about me it's not about my music but it's going to share
everyone else's musical experiences and how we've all benefited as a society
from having music in our lives and I you know I just got really excited and
that's how our whole organization will start or keep music alive back then and
the book series was born 88 plus ways music can change your life and you know
it's grown and evolved since then but it's just to me that was the beginning
of where it started writing a book I think it's daunting to a lot of people
that's a big project to take on but writing a book that draws in 88
different people or more to contribute stories is a whole other kind of a
project how did you how did you go about that how did you find the people how did
you get them to contribute their stories how did it all work it must have been a
huge amount of work yes yes well what we did was we literally reached out to over
6,000 musicians for a six month period both famous non famous you know anyone
we could find online who was a musician amateur professional we reached out and
explained to them what we were doing with the concept was about and we were
just very fortunate that we had literally over 150 hundred 60 responses
that came back that we felt were usable that we could include and actually we
ended up using all of those original stories in the first edition that came
out of the book initially in 2015 and just so grateful and particularly with
the celebrity contributors who contribute you included a story in the
book because you know they didn't know us from Adam we didn't have any track
record you know it's the first book you know who are these Kooten keep music
alive people but they were so gracious in
contributing a story because music was that important to them even you know
after all the success that they've had that they really wanted to share how it
started and these different experiences that they had that they feel would
benefit other people and tell us more about the mission of keep music alive
that inspired this book project so the the book project kind of spawned keep
music alive kind of together at the same time and interestingly enough in the
past year just last year we kind of had to split the book is a separate thing
from keep music alive and that over the last couple years we've created two
music holidays teach music week and kids music day and these are holidays where
we partner with hundreds of music schools and music retail and soon public
and charter schools all around the world to offer free music lessons for the week
for teach music week hold different community events student performances
open houses at their facility instrument donation drives instrument petting zoos
all different kinds of things were to try to celebrate more music in the
community and obviously kids music day focuses on kids you know more kids
playing music and enjoying playing music and teach music week is about all ages
because the free lessons that are offered by the participating locations
are for whether it's for kids or for adults because we want to see as many
people from all ages enjoying the benefits of playing music so when we
created the two music holidays at some point we needed to split that away from
the book so that the keep music alive is a nonprofit enterprise now as of last
year so kids music day falls under that umbrella teach music week falls under
that umbrella but the 88 ways music contains your life you know it's still
an ongoing book series but that's separate from the nonprofit it sounds
like the emotion the emotional drive is still coming between the two right you
clearly have a real desire in you to help spread music and help increase the
joy of Music in the world oh absolutely and
mentally it was kind of hard to split because for two three years it was all
together and you know we donate actually 50 percent of the proceeds from the book
to music education - there's three organizations mr. Holland's Opus
foundation guitars in the classroom and spirit of Harmony are all three
organizations nonprofits out there that put more music instruments and musical
instruction into schools and communities that need it both here in the US and
some of them do work over outside the US across the ponds as they say
and so yeah creating more music opportunities more music instruments
available for kids that want to play and adults you know that's central to
everything that we do is just we needed to kind of split what we're doing as
authors and speakers on one side which we continue to donate much of what we
generate to the nonprofit both these other organizations and to what we're
doing on the nonprofit side for kids music dane teach music week wonderful I
think like the book organizing those to the Nashville right there us-wide yes so
this past year in 2017 we had the third annual teach Music Week in March it
always occurs the third week in March and up until last year we were calling
at each Music America week because we started here in the US and then I've
realized it's growing beyond that so we kind of needed to update the name to
make more sense so teach music week last year we actually partnered with over 600
music schools and retail locations in all 50 states in Canada and then October
we partnered with I think over 400 music schools and retail locations for the
second annual kids music day and each of those are like four or five hundred
percent growth over the previous year so we're hoping to grow this so eventually
a long past when I'm walking on this earth you know kids music day and teeth
Music Week will be celebrated as international holidays that will benefit
musicians of all ages for the many reasons many benefits that we get from
playing and listening to music amazing I
what I was going to say was about like the book that's a huge amount of work to
organize something on that scale and if it's growing like that year by year it's
clear there's a real demand for it well there's a real need for it was there
something in particular that drove you to start these two holidays when you
looked around was there a particular lack or a particular opportunity what
was it that gave you the drive to put so much effort in you know it's funny
that's a great question and I'm thinking back I'm trying to remember the holiday
that came first was teach music week you know starting his teach music America in
the Year 2015 and I don't know where the idea came from I just had this idea that
came to me and then that first year we actually weren't partnering with anyone
I just had this idea why don't we take a week in March which March hasn't happens
to be music in our schools month in the air at least here in the US and possibly
everywhere and let's take a week in March and that's encouraged musicians
everywhere to find someone to give a free lesson to you know your friend your
cousin your nephew your child your parent you know you're really having fun
on your instrument and they've kind of been eyeing up a little bit but for
whatever reason they're just you know afraid to take that step you know well
let's encourage them and get them started on playing in this I'm going to
show them how fun it can be so let's just take a week put it out there into
the world and see if we can get musicians helping other non musicians
start to learn how to play an instrument whatever it is and so that was the first
year we weren't really partnering with anyone I was just putting it out there
into social media just spreading the word all by my lonesome and then the
next year I went to do that again and it was interestingly enough a media person
said well know well who else is doing this and then I kind of like oh there's
a great idea I could be involving other you know you know music schools and
music retail that already teach people teach teach music to try to get them
involved in offering free lessons so that's kind of where that started and
and then it's just grew year after year and then for kids music day was actually
another holiday that got me inspired have a friend who created something
called kids yoga day which happens might be the first Friday in April okay I'm
thinking kids yoga day what about kids music day is there such a thing so you
know we pull out the handy-dandy Google when we look it up like wait a minute
there is there's nothing going on like that so it was born at that moment and I
think the first year we partnered with in 2016 about 85 music schools in 23
states in 2016 and went up to 420 song in 2017 and like 40 some states so you
get these ideas from various places and sometimes we don't even remember where I
got the idea but I think the important thing to learn is to sometimes when you
get an idea you just need to actually put it into action and to run with it
because a lot of times we get ideas whether it's you know you can just be
for songwriting and you get an idea and you just kind of like okay and you just
walk away and you know you don't write it down you know you don't push a little
recorder on your phone to capture it you know when you get an idea you know I
think we need to any kind of creator with this musician or otherwise you may
just record it somehow even if so that we can go back to it and you know kind
of go into that idea little bit further and see if it can be something even
bigger because as humans were bombarded with ideas you know bombarded you know
from the outside you know from the news and all these different outside places
of things going on but we also through those things that we're getting you know
we come up with these different ideas and I think it's really important and
valuable to the world and to ourselves to sometimes act on those ideas and
maybe it's not something we can do by ourselves and maybe we need to partner
with someone or you know gift the idea to someone else who you think would be
really good at running with it but the world I think is a better place
when we when we have what we think is a really good idea if we share it somehow
with the world that's excellent advice so I applaud you highly for all of your
efforts on these two holidays I think keep music alive is a wonderful project
and these two holidays you organize are a fantastic idea this year in 2018 teach
music week will be March 19th 25th and kids music day will be the
first Friday in October that's the 5th of October if people listening Vincent
want to get involved or learn more about these how's the best
what's the best way for them to do that probably the best way is through our
central website which is keep music alive org and from there that'll take
you to teach music weeks out of work or kids music day org and on those two
holiday websites you'll see a map currently just a US and canada map but
we'll be expanding that to have maps and areas for other countries where you can
click to see who's participating in your area and maybe you can get involved you
know maybe you're already part of a music school or you're already you know
you know someone who could be involved in just by seeing what already is going
on in your area or maybe there's nothing going on in your area and you want to
start something in your area perfect well that's an easy way for people to
learn more and see how they can get involved I'm definitely gonna be hanging
onto you for a minute after this interview ends to see if there's some
way musically you can contribute or collaborate with you in in one or both
of those events I don't want to guess and guess wrongly but to me it makes
perfect sense that you wrote the book before starting those two holidays
because I myself have been reading and enjoying the book over the last several
weeks just kind of dosing myself a couple of stories a day and it's
incredibly uplifting and inspiring I think it makes perfect sense after
immersing yourself in those 88 stories you have the drive to put together to
such phenomenal music boosting projects like you did I wonder would you mind
wrapping things up for us by sharing another story from the book maybe one of
your favorites sure sure I think one of our favorites comes to us from a very
famous drummer if you if anyone remembers the the hit rock song from way
back called alright now by the band free and later members of free evolved into
bad company which had many classic rock hits from the 70s and in the band back
then and still today is a drummer named Simon Kerr and we were literally blown
away when we got this story from Simon and in the story he talks about he was
doing participating in a drum clinic over in the UK several years back and as
part of the clinic he's up on stage in a large auditorium and he's demonstrating
different drum techniques and cymbals and trying different things and showing
the audience how these different things work and how you can try different
techniques different you know sticks the brushes and the stages all lit up but
the auditorium is dark you know you're in an event you know the house lights
are down but you have the stage lights on so the audience can see you but you
can't really see what's going on out there and as he's starting to play these
different techniques and show these techniques to the audience every time
he's hitting a drum or cymbal or something he's hearing a little clicking
sound going on from somewhere out in the auditorium you can't tell where it is
you can't tell what it is it's just like well what is that you know it's in the
beginning it's mildly distracting you know he's obviously played with lots of
distractions in his career so it's not a big deal but he's continuing he's
pulling out different drums he's pulling out different symbols and demonstrating
different techniques and again continuing that clicking snipe keeps
going on and after a while he's actually starting to get a lil annoyed like you
know or he was making this racket I'm trying to you know I'm not doing this
clinic for all these people in the audience I just don't get it you know so
but he just carried on and you know just tried to check his emotions to the side
but it was definitely starting to affect him so you know he finished up and then
at the very end you know when you're done you know the house lights go up so
for the very first time you can see what's going on in auditorium and in the
very back of the auditorium there is a row of wheel chairs with kids sitting
with muscular dystrophy holding drumsticks and they've been playing with
him the whole time so the clicking sound was the children playing you know he
just I'm gonna cry now tell the story it's just you know his
heart just about dropped out at that moment he's just you know couldn't
believe you know what he was thinking and then what he saw that these kids
were he was providing music therapy for these
children in the back of the room he went back to the back of the auditorium he
knelt down and he shook every one of their hands went in said thank you thank
you so much for playing with me today I really appreciate it
and I think his heart he was changed you know from that experience and even today
and he lives here in the US and Simon helped kids kids that have had you know
different drug and addiction problems and just trying to give back you know
for all the benefits he's had as a musician over the years and to me just
that's a story just demonstration of the power of music you have these kids that
are having extreme disability you know they're in the wheelchair they can do
hardly anything but they can hold drumsticks and they can play along with
whatever musics going on and they are benefitting from that you know it's an
outlet for them that they wouldn't have otherwise without music so to me that
kind of that story kind of just sums up why we do this why music is so important
to us for children and adults of all ages and all goals is why I feel the
more people that can play music and enjoy the benefits of playing music
whether there's the educational benefits or the therapeutic benefits or just
putting a smile on our face you know music is so powerful and the more we can
play and enjoy it I think the better wonderful that was another story from 88
plus ways music can change your life you can find that on Amazon but we'll have a
direct link to it in the show notes if you want to read more of these
incredible stories thank you so much for instant for joining us today oh you're
very welcome Christopher and thank you so very much we want to know how musical
you are and how to improve find out free musicality podcast.com
slash checklist it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day of music the practice the
schedules the routine but once in a while you have a moment where you're
powerfully reminded of just how amazing music can be talking with Vincent and
reading the 88 plus ways book I find I'm reminded about that again and again I
hope you found the same with this conversation let's recap Vincent himself
got started with music early when he was inspired by the melodies he heard on the
radio after being turned down by his parents for guitar and drums
he chose trombone and spent his school years enjoying playing in the school
band he also took up piano and guitar and as
well as the classical sheet music reading he found a more creative side to
music making where he was figuring out rock songs by ear with his friend who
was a drummer he went on to pursue songwriting making his way into the
music industry through the song rock and roll and wrestling connection in the 80s
and then later founding love songs calm providing bespoke love songs often for
couples and at weddings he shared the story of one memorable song which was
written for a mother who'd given their child up for adoption titled so many
things we'll have a link to that song in the show notes
Vincent shared some really insightful advice for aspiring songwriters he said
you need to write a lot of bad songs to get to the good ones you can look for
inspiration outside your own life for example in newspaper stories and as an
exercise you can try taking the lyrics from an existing song and writing new
music for them or taking the music from a song and creating your own lyrics and
he really emphasized that music is about community and sharing so collaborating
with another musician can be a great way to round out your skill set and provide
you with new learning and it's also just a particularly fun way to explore music
making the trick is to shake off our adult inhibitions about making mistakes
and be willing to just try things out in 2014 the
was inspired to write a book collecting the stories of people around the world
about how music had changed their life people from all walks of life including
some famous musicians he and his wife Johanna reached out to over 6000 people
to ask if they had a great story and then whittled it down to a selection of
powerful and memorable ones for the book 88 plus ways music can change your life
it's freely a wonderful book that I would highly recommend for keeping your
own musical inspiration tank full vincent shared two stories from the book
one from the successful songwriter bonnie warren who wrote about how her
songwriting inspiration stemmed from her music loving mother passing away and
Simon Kirke of the band's free and bad company when he was teaching a drum
clinic and was confused by hearing a clicking sound from the audience only to
discover afterwards that he'd inadvertently been providing powerful
music therapy to a group of children with muscular dystrophy
they'd enjoyed playing along with him Vincent and Joanne are currently working
on volume 2 of the book and would love to hear from you if you have your own
story of how music has changed your life you don't have to be a famous musician
to contribute get in touch via the book's website eighty-eight ways music
calm that's the number eight eight eight ways music calm and we'll put the link
in the show notes for this episode at musicality podcast calm after publishing
88 plus ways Vincent's organization keep music alive went on to start to national
and soon-to-be international holidays to promote music making teach music week
which this year 2018 is March 19th to 25th and kids music day which is October
5th these both offer countless free opportunities to get involved in
learning music or to contribute your own music teaching to those who want to
learn and you can discover what's happening near you this year at keep
music alive dot org Vincent said that the big lesson from his experiences
including these two fast-growing and hugely successful music events is that
when you get inspired by an idea go go ahead and put it into action take
that step give the idea a chance to shine like being willing to make
mistakes when figuring out songs with a friend and like being willing to write
bad songs to get through the good ones it's not that every idea will be an
instant homerun but by taking that choice to act on the idea you give
yourself the opportunity to find the really good ones and reach your full
potential in music thanks for listening to this episode stay tuned for our next
one where we'll be kicking off a very special month here at musical you all
dedicated to improvisation thank you for listening to the musicality podcast this
episode has ended but your musical journey continues head over to
musicality podcast calm where you will find the links and resources mentioned
in this episode as well as bonus content exclusive for podcast listeners
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