Kids NEED to Know

       The houses seemed to sage, like shoulders when people sigh, or the skin beneath your eyes when you don't get enough sleep. Everything appeared to be coated in a translucent grey film, like the sun was tired, droopy eyed. Some porches were decorated for the holidays, the lights, unlit. The shitty white Chevy I drive, adorned with a giant dent in the side, didn't look out of place. There was a cop car parked outside the church.

       When I stepped inside that church, it was merry. There was a children's choir warming up in the basement, and the faint smell of sugar cookies. The Christmas celebrations were in full swing, and it seemed as if the entire neighborhood was participating.

       Of course, my quartet chose to perform selections from Lady Gaga.

       We played in the church cafeteria while everyone ate cookies and made small talk. Occasionally, a woman in a red sweater would stop us to make an announcement about a craft session, or family portraits in the atrium. We played, for maybe 

about half an hour.

       Like I said, we didn't play Christmas music. Our set list included Scottish tunes, One Republic, and of course, one song remotely pertaining to the holiday season: Cannon in D. It wasn't traditional, or appropriate, really, but it was cool. There's this one part, in a song called “Zombie”, where the key changes, and for like, twenty measures it builds up to this brilliant, BRILLIANT, break through, that, when I play it, makes me feel like a rock god or something. It's probably my favorite thing to play honestly, because it moves me so strongly, like I could rise up and start a rebellion. It's one of those songs.

       As I was drilling into some eighth notes, just as we were approaching the key change, I realized something: the kids watching this, have probably never been exposed to something like this. They've probably never gotten the opportunity to play a stringed instrument, or any instrument, really. They've probably never gotten to feel the way I do, swept up in a key change and some eighth notes. And this performance, just might be, their first exposure to that.

       And that's not based on where they live. It's based on the fact that a lot of the kids there were still in elementary school. In my town, most kids aren't introduced to music until they reach middle school, when they are required to join band, orchestra, or vocal. That's how I was introduced to the viola. I'd never had piano lessons, or even, like, a kazoo to dink around on before I was eleven.

       I've been playing for five years now, and I know that feeling, when the music just washes over you, when you are the music, how it feels like flying, and your favorite dessert, and going down hill on roller coasters. Every time I play, I wish I would have known it sooner.

       I have to wonder: Was there a kid watching us, thinking, 'I want to do that'? Did any of them tell their parents, “Mom, I want to play the violin”, or “Dad, I want to play that really big violin”? Could a few uplifting, nontraditional pieces, have ignited something in some kid in some church in some city that won't give them music sooner?

       I think that it I assumed that none of the kids in that church really cared at all, I may have been right. But, it would be wrong to just assumed that, and never try to expose kids to the wonders of music. Just look at Violins Over Violence in South Carolina, or Music & Youth's 13 music club houses in Massachusetts; if we assume that music is not a need, an immediate need, of the youth in our community, how will they ever know it?

       The truth is, it is an immediate need. Kids need to know music, before it is a required class, before it is forced upon them. So let's get moving and shaking, folks. It's time to make some music.