Hello everyone and welcome to the Silver Disbedience Perception Dynamics podcast.

I'm Diane Grissell and today we're going to be talking about music.

Music is a subject, a language that everyone can relate to on one level and or another, no matter where you are in the world.

And we're going to be talking about that world component as well.

And think about it when you know, if you think back in music, you can think of a song, any song.

You probably remember where you were when you first heard it, who you were with, the feeling that it evoked.

And how many times do you hear something as simple as OK, and I Can't Sing, but it brings you to something in your head where you heard that possibly if you were as old as me, it was the high school band that it was probably the only song they could play.

But if they played it all night long, everybody was happy.

So today we're going to be talking with someone who took a wish and made it a reality.

He put in the time, the effort, the community to make something really big, which is music will.

So I want to welcome Dave Wish, who is the founder of Music Will, and we're going to learn all about this today because this is a great topic.

Thank you, Diane.

Great to be here.

OK, I have to start with the elephant in the room question.

Sure is wish your real last name or is it a stage name?

No, it's my real name, David Wish, and often I have to explain.

No, it's just the way it sounds.

WISH.

What a great name.

Thank you.

So you had a wish one day.

I did.

You started off as a elementary school, I believe, first grade teacher.

Were you a music teacher?

No, I was the most unlikely first grade teacher, maybe of all first grade teachers, because I like to joke.

I'm an an expert in first grade because I taught it for 10 years, but I also took it for two years as a kid.

I was so good at it.

They wanted me to show the other kids what was what.

No, but yeah, so I think a lot of teachers that I had would have been like, wait, that guy's growing up to be a school teacher?

Growing up is debatable, but I did become a school teacher and I was a first grade school teacher in a bilingual school.

So all of my kids were Spanish speakers.

And my focus was very much on how do you work with a recently or, you know, these these were recently arrived immigrants from Mexico.

How do you work with a young child who hasn't yet learned to read in their primary language?

How do you help them acquire English and how do you help them acquire literacy, how to read?

Because reading is that's the jam in first grade big time.

And I was very proud that all of my kids for my 10 years read at or above grade level each and every year.

And so my focus was really on how do you make the learning of a second language really fun and natural and easy the way it is when you learn your first language, you're not even conscious that you're learning it.

And how do you make reading something that's really exciting for any child?

So those were the two, those were my 2 areas, but the school had no music program and and that's when I one day I was like, wait a minute, I could teach these kids to play guitar.

And that was really the beginning of the last 27 years of my life.

You know what you're talking about is probably more timely than ever.

I was speaking with a second grade teacher just a couple of weeks ago and she said her class has, and she's in one of the special and gifted New York City public schools teaching 2nd grade.

And she said her class has now nine kids who speak only Spanish, three who speak Russian, two who speak some version of Arabic, and then the rest speak English.

And she said it's really becoming an incredible challenge to try to teach because you've got all these different languages.

And I said, well, can you use Google Translate?

She goes, you'd have to be able to read to be able to use that.

And it never occurred to me.

So you used music?

Well, I used music to, you know, it wasn't so connected to my first.

So it's interesting.

I started teaching my kids to play guitar and I did it by feel because I didn't stick with any music program I ever had as a kid.

I was dyslexic.

I didn't read music.

I didn't really relate to the music that they were trying to teach me.

I mean, I my parents were playing Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Stevie Wonder, and my music teacher was teaching me old King once is lost, three Blind mice and etcetera.

So it I wasn't like, I was like, Oh, I'm cool.

And that's not, I just like I couldn't really find my way and, and I didn't feel especially welcomed in my music classes either because I just didn't fit, fit the mold.

So when I started teaching, I learned to play music outside of school entirely.

Friends in high school taught me older sisters, older brothers, you know, and they taught me in a, in a more informal, culturally forward way.

Oh, you want to play Neil Young?

OK, here's put your fingers here.

Put your fingers there.

Learn a couple chords and the first time I strung together anything that sounded like a song that I loved, I was like, that's it.

You know what's so funny?

What you said, because in your bio I saw somewhere Hal Leonard.

Oh, yeah.

And that brought me back to the what you just said a moment ago about playing contemporary music because I could play a mean version of She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain, which really dates me.

But that's what I could play when I taught myself guitar and when I saw the Hell Leonard thing that triggered that memory.

But then that you focused on contemporary music.

Yeah.

Well, I, I had the same experience when I, when I started teaching my kids to play, I went out and I tried to buy method books like a good teacher, but I looked at it and it was like, yeah, she'll be coming around the mountain.

I'm not doing that.

I mean, I had never heard the song before trying to figure out how to play it, so how do you have a reference?

Well, and and one of the things I'd like to say to people is that there's a saying bread and water can so easily be made tea and toast.

So take a song like coming around the mountain.

She'll be if one chord 1 chord 1 chord 1 chord 1 and then then you go to the four chord back to one.

Yeah, but but also you could also do your insecure don't know what for or or you're turning heads as you walk through the door or whatever.

Now you're teaching a kid same chords, but that is you know, I forget what boy band that, but that was a number one hit.

You know, everyone else in the world can see everyone else.

You don't know you're beautiful.

I think One Direction, so that's, you know, so she'll be coming around the mountain and what this One Direction song, same musical DNA, but a much deeper heartfelt cultural resonance and connection in music, I don't think.

And you feel cooler instantly.

If you're struggling with learning, all of a sudden you feel cool that you can play some song that's on the radio.

Absolutely.

And I also like to think music is not first and foremost an academic subject.

And music doesn't come from school.

Music is a human, is a byproduct of humanity.

And in fact, one of the most beautiful things that humans produce is music.

And they do it all over the world, whether or not they're in school or not.

So music goes comes to school, I believe, not from school, even whether it's being brought there by the teacher who will bring it.

But every child comes.

They're not empty vessels.

They come with the music that is culturally relevant to them and their communities and their families.

And so, yeah, my, my thing was to teach kids music the way that I wished music had been taught to me.

If someone had told me in 6th grade, hey, we're going to teach you how to play guitar, I would have said heck yeah.

And if they said and and we're going to teach you how to play Led Zeppelin, I would have said double heck yeah.

But but what happened to me was I wanted to play guitar, and they didn't offer it.

So I tried this other thing that looked like a guitar was called a violin, you know?

And after a short while, I was like, you know, what am I going to do with this?

And I remember I went into school and I asked my music teacher if he would show me.

I was like, oh, I know I could play that Beatles song.

So I went in and I told my teacher, can you please show me how to play Eleanor Rigby on this thing?

Because that song I like.

And I remember he said, no, you get that at home.

You know, we do serious music here.

And that's when I had realized that I had a serious difference of opinion as to how education in general could be student centered versus teachers.

You know, you've raised such an interesting point.

There was no guitar teaching in the school I went to either, and I don't think I've ever seen that in or in.

Maybe now a little more thanks to the work you're doing, but why was guitar?

Was it related to Rock'n'roll?

Or why is guitar not considered?

Well, I mean, I think that what music?

So it's beyond instruments.

What music is taught and what music is not taught in state schools is reflective of what cultures are and are not valued by state schools.

So there was a.

So right now, if you look in public schools around the country, there are tons of jazz bands.

And jazz is now wild, widely heralded as a American cultural treasure, one of the few truly American art forms.

That's not how it started out.

And in fact, people work really hard to keep jazz out of our schools.

They originally called jazz band stage band so that they wouldn't have to say they were teaching jazz to kids.

That's what progressive liberal educators, you know, did in order to get jazz into the curriculum.

Now, that was true that it was the popular American Music in the 40s and 50s and maybe a little in the 60s.

But since that time, other incredible American art forms, rock'n'roll, hip hop, you know, all of pop music have also come.

And they've also been slow.

It's been slow for the schools to adopt them.

And that's been my mission from day one is to democratize music education and make it reflective, as diverse and beautiful as the schoolchildren that it serves.

And those children listen to by and large, music of their community, Rock, rap, disco, pop, Top 40.

And because I look at it as a cultural treasure as opposed to a subject, it's like the richness of music class actually comes from the students.

And it's up to us to draw that, to draw their music out as opposed to drum any particular music in.

And furthermore, I might add, while I'm sitting on my soapbox here, that this notion of there being a right kind of music to learn or a right way to teach music or a right thing to focus on.

I take a page out of Sergey Rachmaninoff said that a lifetime, you know, music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.

So what does that mean?

OK, I'm the best jazz saxophonist in the world.

Great.

Did you reach the end?

How about this?

Can you play Indian tabla?

Can you play classical Chinese music?

No.

OK, well, guess what?

That would take you another lifetime to get there.

Can you freestyle rap like, you know, Kendrick Lamar?

Oh, you can't.

Well, then there's another lifetime for you.

And so this notion, So I guess my, my central supposition is that to be human is to be musical.

It's almost a synonym.

And that means that if all humans are musical by their nature, there is many different ways of being musical as there are of being human.

And the skillful teacher empowers their student to be musical the way that is most befitting them.

And that that that translates to instruments.

Maybe guitar is not your thing.

Maybe you want to be a DJ, you want to be a rapper.

OK.

Oh, you don't like being a DJ or rapper?

Well, maybe you want to be a bass guitarist or you want to be a songwriter and trying to squeeze children into artistic molds.

I think what happens is the people that don't fit often get left out.

And so there's no shortage of people that I meet adults who, when you ask them if they play.

Yeah.

Do you play in the.

Oh, well, when I was a kid, I took lessons on this or that.

It's always some variation.

I wasn't very good.

I'll hear a lot or I didn't practice, but the punch line is almost always the same.

And now I wish I could play.

I, you know, it's like regret syndrome.

And I think that, you know, I don't blame, I never blame the student.

I'm a teacher.

Like I always blame, blames a heavy word.

But I would say that if you were to find the root of the problem, it's the pedagogy, it's the approach, you, you.

It was a mismatch between a child's natural musicality or an adult's and connecting to connecting that to them in the way that made most sense for them in their learning style.

Well, the other thing too is you're you're pushing music forward and you're obviously can see all the different ways kids learn from it and community learn to communicate better from it.

Yet it's music and art are the first things often cut from budgets.

So what do you what do you think about that?

Because it's not just whether you were were exposed to jazz versus classical, your kids just aren't getting exposed in a lot of situations at all, which is kind of where your your vision came in.

Well, you bring up a really good point.

So I've I have said the same frequently.

You know, that's the you know that music and arts are first to be cut.

There isn't there is a deficit right now.

It's much smaller than most people realize.

So, for example, there's approximately, call it 55 to 60 million K through 12 students in the United States right now, and approximately 3 million of them don't get music of any kind in their schools.

So that's a problem, but but it's not as big a problem as it may be.

It looms in the popular imagination.

That's good to know.

It is good to know and, and like everything like, you know, sometimes the, the problem is not as big as as we think and the solution is small as sometimes is smaller than the problem itself.

And I think with music education, arts education, this is a good example.

So, so I'm going to give your, your audience and you a very a 22nd lesson in music at in the United States, when there's a music teacher, it's compulsory K through 5, meaning you have to go.

So what do you have participation rates of 100% Sounds great.

Now what about middle schools and high schools?

Well, now participation becomes elective.

That means a child has to say, I want to take music.

And what happens?

The statistics show in the United States that schools that do have music programs, often at the middle school level, 20% or fewer of the students will opt in.

And then when high school comes, even fewer will opt in.

Why now?

I I would say I in my my observation is on the surface that makes no sense because teenagers will listen to more music likely than they ever will again in their lifetimes, and many of them will define and remember their use and their identities with that same music as they grow older.

There are studies that show that the music you listen to as a teenager is the most sticky, tenacious music.

And typically you'll continue to listen to and like that music.

You might expand, but that'll be the core of who you are musically.

So why would people drop music just at that moment?

Because the musical pedagogy that is offered at school offers no connective tissue to the musics that children are carrying in their heart.

So if I'm a kid and I'm listening to nonstop rock'n'roll and I get into my music class and my options are classical, jazz and children and folk music, well, you know, I'm not that, you know it's.

Funny you say that because you remind me of our kids when they were little, went to a music and art school and everything was you danced, you play, everyone got some kind of instrument.

It was very interactive.

And he goes into kindergarten and he comes home and he's extremely upset.

Like really upset.

I'm like, how could this kid be upset?

He loves music.

I know he had music today.

And he says the music teacher's terrible.

She doesn't know how to teach music.

She knows nothing about music.

This is like a very well known music teacher the school had recruited.

I'm like, what's the matter?

And she goes, she told me I can't dance when I'm, when I'm singing.

You know the inside of a 5 year old.

You know that she's like, she told me I had to hold the sheet music and stand still.

What kind of teacher would tell someone that Mom?

Right.

Oh my gosh.

Well, it reminds me of of an apocryphal quote attributed to John Lennon.

So John Lennon, this is again apocryphal in the in the land of fake news.

I don't like to, you know, I don't like to pressure, but it's a great quote.

The teacher said, go home and write an essay about what you want to be when you grow up.

And, you know, and he says I want to be happy.

So the teacher says, I don't think you understood the assignment.

And John Lennon purportedly said, I don't think you understand life because let purpose of life is a life of purpose and enjoyment.

So to me, you know, and into your daughter's experience, what?

It's such a, you know, Yeah.

From the mouth of babes there, I think there are certain African languages where to sing and to dance are literally the same verb, right?

And it there it's not as differentiated.

So if you're dancing and you're singing, you use the same word and it's context clues to let you know.

So this notion, that's a very Western Conservatory top down approach to music education, that the music comes from paper and notes.

I would actually posit that music comes from the heart and from the person and the notes and the dots and the paper.

That's an afterthought and not even necessarily a needed afterthought.

If you look at music throughout history and in the human family, if you take Indian classical music, which has traditions that go back thousands of years, in Chinese classical music, same thing.

None of it was notated, none of it was written down so clearly.

Having the ability to write music can be wonderful, but it doesn't.

Music doesn't come from notation.

Music comes from people.

Now from that, let's go back.

You're you're a first grade teacher and I want to go back to those days.

So because you have this vision that you built out.

So you're a first grade teacher and you are getting kids to play music somehow.

What did that?

What did those early days of getting kids to play music look like?

And what did the the teachers in the classroom next door think when you're doing that?

So my first I went to the music store, tried to buy a book to show me how to teach kids to play guitar.

I'd never done it before.

I begged and borrowed a bunch of guitars from my friends, my musician friends who owed me money or favors or both, and I couldn't find anything that was meaningful.

So the first day of my guitar class for my first grade kids after school, I said, I want you to write down the names of your favorite songs on one side of this card and your names of your favorite artist.

And it was Selena and the Backstreet Boys and Carlos Santana and that kind of stuff.

And so I was like, great, that's what we're going to do.

And that's exactly what we did.

I taught them to play the music that they knew and loved.

And because I'm, you know, a fairly advanced player myself, I could simplify things, though.

Selena bitty bitty bumber mints and B flat.

Oh fool, that's a pain on the guitar.

So we'll just do it in a whatever.

And and what, what happened very quickly is that my kids started interacting with music exactly the same way I had, except I was 18 when I started and they were six and seven.

And which is to say?

What they they devoured a few chords and started apply.

Oh, if I can play Biddy Biddy Bum Bum, I can also play Angel by Shaggy.

And if I can play Angel by Shaggy, I can also play One Love by Bob Marley.

And so the kids started playing frequently, in and out of class, out on the lawn after school, the music that they knew and loved.

And all the other kids in the school wanted to be in my guitar class.

Oh, I bet.

And so.

And it's funny too when you talk about, you know, the B flat versus the A you reminded me of.

I'm a self-taught guitarist, but I do credit Mr.

Leora, Mr.

Lorenzo, who ran the church folk group, but let me join.

But I do remember very vividly him one day saying somebody's out of key.

I'm like, I don't know, it can't be me.

But it was much easier to play AC chord than an F.

Absolutely.

So I kept trying to squeeze that C in every time.

Does this work here?

You know, so it's interesting that you talk about, you know, accommodating the music to those hands that are trying to learn because some chords are a lot harder when you're, you know.

Absolutely.

Well, and So what what I would do with things like that, I'd be like, OK, I have a group of 36 kids.

You know, I'd be like Diane, you're going to play a that's all you play, you know, so the song goes AADEDD back to you a cool.

Well, this is what I'm talking about in terms of pedagogy, in terms of approach.

If I think that for you to be musical, you must be able to easily go from A to D to E without pausing, you may fall down at the first hurdle.

And if I think that if that defines success to me, then I may also.

That might be my value.

I guess Diane doesn't have it.

Well, I refuse to think that way.

I can't think that way.

It didn't work that way.

If you.

Just gave me goosebumps.

I love to hear this.

Well, what a wonderful way to teach someone.

But I.

Think that well, I'm glad that it makes you feel good.

This turns out music has that magical power.

It tends to make people feel good.

And I, what I have learned in my study of the human family and how we make music is how few people are comfortable in their own skin with their own music.

I've met some of the best known musicians in the world who when you really talk to them, they'll tell you they, they get nervous and they feel like impostors.

Why?

Well, you know, you're, you're, excuse me, your first chair in the New York orchestra as the, you know, principal violinist.

Why are you?

Well, because I can't improvise.

Well, OK, I get that.

But like, look at what you can do.

And yet you're not.

You don't feel.

Well, one of my favorite interviews was with Mick, with an interview with Mick Jagger.

And it was says they were doing their 50th year.

Maybe that was the steel wheels or something like that.

And they said to him, you know, this is old hat to you now.

Do you ever get nervous?

You know, and he's like, did you ever notice my first song?

I never walk out holding the microphone.

And he said, I don't touch that microphone.

My hands are sweating.

I have no idea if the audience is going to still think we're relevant.

Goes, and I don't want a chance.

It slips out of my hand until I know the crowd's with me.

I thought, Oh my gosh, Mick Jagger says that.

Yeah, and the more that I talk with art, like, you know, I was talking with the drummer.

I'll reveal who he is in a second.

He was told by his middle school he couldn't do the buzz roll on the Star Spangled Banner.

And so, you know, he tried and he tried.

And his drum teacher, the music teacher at the school said, hey, DeVito, hang up the sticks.

You'll never do anything with the drums.

That drummer is is Liberty DeVito, who was Billy Joel for 30 years, one of the most recorded artists in the world, one of the most recorded drummers of all time.

And he still carries the scars and the weight of feeling judge.

So to me, you take people on one end of the and people like Mick Jagger and Billy Joel and The Beatles, who are not classically trained and feel like they're impostors, feel unworthy.

And then you find people on the other side, these incredibly classically trained people, and they feel like impostors.

And what I feel like is when I say I want to democratize music education and just music in general.

Like you're all worthy, everyone of you in the entire continuum.

There's no wrong way to be human other than deliberately harming other people.

But other than that, you'd be yourself.

And that's the beauty of what the arts bring.

They'll never be another Diane.

They'll never be another person will express their musicality exactly like yours, and the more time you put in, the more joy you'll get from it.

And the more the more you're forced to conform to someone else's expectations, the easier it is for you to feel like, well, maybe I'm not good enough.

Maybe I'm not worthy.

OK, so now back in the 90s, you're still in that first grade classroom and you've got the teachers listening in.

How did you start to enroll others in this evolutionary crazy new way you were trying to teach and bring music into kids lives?

Well, we started releasing CD's of the kids original music.

The kids started writing their own music.

Oh my gosh.

So we started recording the my classroom was the recording studio.

Teachers started asking if they could be in my guitar classes as well.

So I opened more and more classes.

I would sell tapes and CD's of the kids original music and buy more instruments.

So then the second graders could have a class or the 3rd or the 4th or the 5th or.

And and eventually those those CD's got played on the radio where they were noticed by local musicians like Bonnie Raitt and Carlos Santana and John Lee Hooker.

May he rest in peace and power.

And all of them came by and all of them supported this weird program, this weird first grade school teacher.

And I started to dawn on me that I was on to something bigger than only my kids and my classes.

And so I, it got to the point where I couldn't take on any more kids.

But I, I had a, a whole phalanx of teacher admirers who were either studying alongside of the kids, which was great for me because I had free teachers aides, you know, or who could play themselves, but didn't have any kids, you know, didn't have instrument seats.

And I said, look, let me train you.

I will, I, let me show you my approach, my pedagogy.

So the thing that you said where you got, you got, you said you've suddenly felt excited to think that you'd be in a class with me where you would play the A chord and you didn't have to go to the D chord right away.

Well, guess what?

A lot of teachers felt the same way.

Like, wait a minute, I never would have thought of that.

And So what really I brought to the table for my peers and what I think I continue to bring is a unique pedagogy unlike any other pet.

Well, excuse me, like.

Well, my one of our supporters is this nice guy named James Hetfield, lead singer and guitarist of Yeah.

You're my favorites.

He sent me an e-mail one time and I loved the sign off, it said.

I'm unique just like everybody else.

I was like, no wonder I like this guy.

But but our, so our pedagogy is unique like every other pedagogy and like every other pedagogy has a lot in common with a little bit from this, a little bit from that.

But the way I've put it together is unique.

I call it music as a second language comes from that classroom.

And so getting teachers involved very easy because they saw the result.

They they saw what was happening for the kids and many of them experienced what it was like for them.

Their own musicality really changed.

They start to look at them selves differently in their own musicianship.

And I started having suddenly I had more resources than I could use because we were only at one school.

So it dawned on me like, wait a minute, there are other schools where there's this problem where kids aren't getting music or if they're getting music, they're getting it in a way that doesn't connect to them.

So I left teaching in 2002 to found what would go what it was called Little Kids Rock at the time.

We changed our name a few years back and since that time.

And now it's music.

Will now it's music.

Will we changed the name back in 2022.

Little Kids Rock was a little misleading because yes, we work with little kids and.

Those kids started to get bigger and they still wanted to rock with Dave Wish.

And all our teachers and yeah, so we have programs in middle schools, elementary schools, high schools, even at the college level.

We now have programs because, well, here I'll just say this, Music will for 24 some years now has been doing the same thing we have.

We, I like to call them the four CS.

We recruit teachers and we certify them.

That's the first C.

We give them our training.

And so they learn about our pedagogy over a period of days and then they're trained.

Then we give them all of our curriculum, which is driven by that pedagogy.

That's free.

And then we give them classroom instruments.

That's the third C guitars, basses, keys, etcetera.

And then we put them together in community.

That's the 4th C.

They are like a community of practice.

So for 24 years, we've been doing that.

And that has been the secret sauce that it is a community effort of teachers who want to see music education be as diverse and beautiful as the full student body that they serve.

And they understand, especially music teachers understand that, that dropping out, that opting out is a problem we cannot accept.

You can't tell me like in in a district like Los Angeles, fewer than 10% of all high school kids will take a music class It's crazy.

It's the heart of the music industry.

There's only one there.

Yes, there are some.

Why?

Do you think that is is it they're not available or is it kids get embarrassed or is it the impact of the Internet?

What I think?

I think there are understandable and acceptable reasons like, you know, so many hours in a day, I want to do sports, etcetera.

But when you can't wait, but you can't, that doesn't factor that 90% of kids who are like, Nope, not for me.

Well, to me, it's like it's, it's the cultural disconnect.

I, I'm listening to this kind of music.

I don't want to learn that kind of music.

And so about 10 years ago, I invented, this is one of my other little creations, a new category of music education, which I call modern band.

Now it's a boring term.

I picked it because it's boring.

And I'll again like a 32nd, you know, edge history music lesson or music education history lesson.

Your listeners will probably have heard of marching band in schools, and they'll be able to pick your da, da, da da or orchestra or jazz band.

What they will not know, likely, is modern band.

They also won't know stage band because no one uses that term anymore.

Stage band is what they used to call jazz band.

Why did they?

Why didn't they just call it jazz band?

Because it was too culturally fraught, the idea that they would take the popular American Music of the day and teach it to American children.

The actual music that was being listened to actually being taught and valued in schools.

So again, progressive educators called it stage band just to slip it in.

So I was like, oh, that worked once in the 60s.

And we are not embracing the cultural music of today.

Rap, rock, pop, Top 40, Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, all of that.

Let's do it again.

And so I came up with this idea of modern band and districts around the country have started writing it into their curriculum.

And we are now also partnering with over a hundred colleges and universities across the United States that have music education majors who are going to, you know, people are going to go on to become music teachers.

And we're training them in in modern band approach in music as a second language pedagogy before they get in the classroom so that when they graduate, today's music teachers will be ready to serve today's students by teaching them the music of today, along with all of these other wonderful things like jazz music and classical and et cetera.

But again, no one of those is going to fire on every piston for every child.

And we have to have music education reflect the students it serves because music serves children.

Children don't serve music.

The educational system serves children.

Children don't serve.

We don't have kids going to school to impress us with their test scores.

We have kids going to school so that they can we can put something of lasting value in their lives that will benefit them for the rest of their lives.

And to me, it's always really bothered me that people miss out on having music, not even because they don't have access to a music teacher, but because it lacks relevance.

And they, you know, so they opt out.

And, and, and that's what that's a big part of what we've been able to do is show music teachers at scale across the United States.

No, no, no, keep doing what you're doing.

That's fine.

But you need other tools in your tool belt.

And we'll happily supply them with them to you.

Yes, you can teach them.

You know, she'd been coming around the mountain.

But, you know, we can also show you how you can use that to teach a Beyoncé song.

It's no different, you know, it's the same language.

It's just putting it in faucets on a different syllable.

But it makes everything feel different to the learner.

Can someone who's not a music teacher or not a teacher sign up to take your course?

So that brings me to a really interesting fork in the road that I've come to.

So I've been with music well now for the past 23 or 24 years as the founder.

And I announced recently that come November, I'm going to be sort of taking my next step into my next adventure.

I'll be joining the Advisory Board of the organization, which is where a lot of our well known musician friends will be serving.

But I'm looking for something, again, a multiplier of my own personal impact.

So I like to joke, although of course most times when I'm joking I'm kind of serious.

At the same time, I have dedicated my work life to building what I like to call instruments of mass instruction.

I like that.

Or implements of mass instruction.

So Music Will is an implement of mass instruction.

Together with the 6000 music teachers that I've had the privilege of supporting and working with, Music World Teachers have brought the transformational gift of music education to nearly 2 million students in all 50 states across the United States.

What an accomplishment.

Wow.

That's 6000 people leaning in for the benefit of their kids and it's an honor and a privilege to watch it.

So that's, that's a far cry from where I was in my first grade classroom.

So, you know, concentric circles of impact.

First it was me just teaching all my kids, and then it was me teaching my my colleagues kids.

Then it was me teaching my colleagues.

Then it was me teaching my colleagues.

Then it was me starting an organization dedicated to teaching music teachers.

Then it was that same organization partnering with colleges and universities.

And during that time we also started some programs overseas.

We have partnerships with orphanages in Haiti through CORE and Music Hills International.

That's a nonprofit that was set up by Sarah Wasserman and also by Sean Penn.

We have programs in Venezuela through them as well.

We have programs in Guatemala.

And today I am, as I think I'm, you know, 57 years young or old, depending on the day of the week.

And when I think about the last part of my career, which maybe I'm entering, maybe I got another 20 years, who knows?

I don't ever plan on, like, retiring.

I'm looking at a world where people are looking inward and at least politically and dividing themselves, you know, I'm, you know, using nationalist rhetoric.

And I believe there's one family and it's the human family and there's nothing as important as family.

So I will be 1 of the things I intend to do in the next next year or so is write a book about our philosophy, about our approach, music as a second language, which will be applicable in schools, outside of schools, inside of correctional facilities, inside of homeless shelters, inside of high schools, whatever.

Because again, the approach is very human centered.

So anywhere that humans are dwelling, I believe this can provide some real value.

And the other thing in terms of that instruments of mass instruction, you know, I do, I do.

I could show you one, but or we could wait till later.

I brought one for show and tell.

Do you know?

Well, we're in the middle here.

I'm going to ask where are are amazing, Chief Engineer Josh says.

You can try pulling it out.

So let's try pulling it out and let's see what can happen.

So when I said I designed.

Because because I do want to say everyone, we're sitting in Manhattan Center and which is a musical icon in the world of New York City and if not the world.

So I'm sitting here with Dave Wish, who is the founder of Music Will, and he has invented something that's quite fascinating.

So we're going to try pulling it out and.

Yeah.

And so let him.

Showcase.

It so So a piece of background in this is that we donate instruments, thousands of them every year to classrooms around the country.

And when I go in, I'll see 20 or 30 kids playing guitar at the same time or keyboard at the same time.

Kids love drums, but drums are big and they are loud.

So what I'll see in our classrooms is 1 drum set and a line of kids who wish it was their turn to play.

And I started thinking, well, what if there was a drum set that wasn't too big, wasn't too loud, it wasn't too expensive.

Then I could teach 20 or 30 kids and our teachers could teach 20 or 30 kids to play drums at the same time.

But there was no such drum set.

So I went into my basement and I invented 1.

And that's what this thing is.

I won't, I won't set it all up for you guys, but you can.

Everything that you see here fits inside of this bucket.

This lid comes up.

You know this, it's a little Inspector Gadgety or you know this.

So everything comes out and goes in the bucket, but you have all of the parts of a drum set.

You've got a kick, you've got a, you know, a hi hat that opens and closes.

You've got a snare.

Actually, I forgot the snare.

This is a Tom, but and you can Add all kinds of other bells and whistles and even it comes with this throne.

I don't know, I can see the camera over there.

Look, so even this throne fits inside the bucket.

I didn't invent it, but you can twist it and close it and there you have it.

OK, getting the thumbs up that that was in frame.

So this thing I call it a ip kit.

Kids can carry it back and forth to school just like a.

Bag and you invented this.

I, I patented it, I invented it, and I the the patents all belong to the charity started.

So revenue that comes from this will benefit the nonprofit profit and that will be a virtuous cycle because then we will be able to purchase more and more.

Is this available today?

This is going to be available for sale in 31 countries around the world starting this July.

Your, your listeners may notice there are some talks about tariffs going on.

So we're trying to figure that out right now, but for sure it will be available come July.

I genuinely couldn't believe the demo that you had done right before we started to film.

I mean, it sounded like a drum kit.

Well, what I found, so it's funny, when I invented, I was like, oh, this is going to be great for teaching kids at scale again, instruments of mass instruction.

What I did learn after building a lot of them is that they're just really fun for kids of all ages.

And there's a lot of places where you can't have a drum set, like a small apartment or on your front porch or you go on a camping trip.

So since I've been inventing it and developing it, I've seen professional drummers play it.

I've seen little kids play it and the reaction is always the same.

It's just fun.

It's really fun to have a kid.

So when so we have people like James Hetfield and Bonnie Raitt and Smokey Robinson and all these other folks that are filming themselves using it are going to help promote it.

So I'm very excited.

This will probably be like it, like I said, launching in July and revenue will go back to the nonprofit.

I also have other instruments and things that I've invented and patented.

And so this again, this next chapter of my own life is how do I help the nation of, you know, the family of nations, right?

Do what I think Pablo Casal's asked us to do.

Pablo Casal's was a one of the world's most famed cellist.

He lived through fascist wars in, in, in Europe, survived and said that his quote is you must work.

We all must work to make the world worthy of its children.

And I would argue that right now we're not doing a good job, generally speaking, as grown-ups, not only in this country but elsewhere.

And, you know, it's up to responsible adults, which is funny to think of myself as such a thing, but perhaps I am too.

To, you know, walk the walk and talk the talk.

If we want our kids to live in a harmonious world, then we've got to invest in harmony.

And if we want our kids to inherit a beautiful world from us, we have to invest in beauty.

And I really can't think of anything that I have any expertise in that makes people more beautiful than music and the arts and putting them in touch with, In fact, that someone smarter than me once said, you know, I'm not that concerned about the fact that children can make music, can make beautiful music.

I'm moved by the fact that music makes children beautiful.

And I believe that's true.

I believe that it's true that when you just the way finger painting makes them beautiful and crayons and sculpture and that that that that very human desire, I think to create and share.

And what kid hasn't come to their parent and been like, look what I made for you.

Look, you know, and it's you know, it's it to me.

It's so moving.

In fact, I'm just thinking of this for the first time, which, you know, when you get to be our age, it's rare that you have your first time.

It's funny how often those first creative outputs are gifts.

I want you to have this, Mommy.

I made this for you.

And we're, what do we do?

Oh, that's the greatest one of these I've ever seen.

You put it right up on the refrigerator.

And if you nurture that seed in a young person again, now, I can't think of a better way of putting something of lasting value into another person's life.

And it's just as easy to turn that switch off.

Like, what's that?

A drawing of houses aren't pink, dogs aren't orange.

I mean, it's you know, now I'm not saying that music programs are that reductive and so but but sometimes they can be.

Sometimes we give a wrong message to a young person about whether what they're what they want to do and their their way of expenses is appropriate or not.

And I like to point out that those are lessons that, you know, you tell it what what you tell a young person they will believe.

Well, it's interesting the point you just made because I'm going way back when I don't remember which one of our kids was in that music school, Music and art school.

And it was a snowy day and the second support teacher hadn't gotten there, but we had gotten there because we were in easy walking distance to the school.

And I said, I'll help out.

And, and the teacher had put this big table that all the kids sat around and everyone had a piece of paper and they had all different paints in the middle.

And one of the kids said to me, can I please have more red?

So I pick up the red and I'm about to just put it on the page.

And the teacher just gently went like this in my arm and said, did you ask her where she wants that red before you squirt it on her painting?

That's.

Smart.

I have never forgotten that lesson, you know, because a good teacher recognizes that in a child, which is clearly something you're recognizing.

And another thing you talked about, you know, the, the innate aspect of music.

And I think of little kids and little babies.

I mean, you hand them a wooden spoon and they're going to figure out some place to bang that and be fascinated.

And I have a a nephew, a younger nephew who has significant vision issues, but his ability to what he hears.

And I'll never forget one time watching him when he was only about 18 months old.

He was at her home and there was a metal like clasp on a trunk.

And he stood there clasping that metal thing down until he got it into some kind of rhythm.

And he's 18 months, can't really see, and there he is just getting a rhythm with this metal lock.

Isn't it something?

Isn't it something like we are all born with a with a drum that keeps time for our whole lives?

It's our heart.

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

And that rhythm.

Boom, boom.

That's the rhythm of the Blues.

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

And you, you can't really notate it.

You can try.

I've talked to music theorists.

You can't really quite notate it, but you sure can feel it.

And again, it's a great example of how the music comes from us, not to us.

The instrument that I most play is the guitar.

And you know, most you know, no one really knows where did the first stringed instruments come from, but it's a very solid bet that it came from bows and arrows.

You and I are out hunting Boing, boing.

Hey, wait a minute, boing, boing.

Hey, the way that sounded to get let pull your string Boing.

Oh, wow, that sounds cool.

Then you start playing with the different lengths, just like your your beloved one started playing with the click, Kitty click, Kitty click.

I like the way this sound is.

Well, another one of our supporters is a guy named Tom Waits, wonderful musician, and he once said music is just doing interesting things with the air.

Interesting thought.

Interesting thought.

It's just and, and what do we share more readily than the air that we breathe that connects us, that sustains us in any room?

You know, we're, we're, we're sharing this air.

Music is something that only travels in that air that goes between us, right?

I can only, you know, if we were in space, which would be cool, and we each had our oxygen masks on and I was playing my guitar, there'd be no sound.

There'd be, you can't have music without air.

So, you know, like there's something profound for me about are we going to share the air and show that we care about every other human being?

And are we going to live in a world where every child is valued and every country is valued, or are we going to pretend that some people are less human, some musics are less important?

I, I just won't, I can't play that game.

I don't believe in it.

And I don't think it's healthy for children and other living things.

And I think music has an incredible potential to call us back to our common humanity and to these things that are so basic to who we are.

You don't want this episode to end, but that was one heck of a conclusion.

That was phenomenal, Dave.

Well, that's music.

That's the power of music.

It's like a magical force in the universe, you know?

I want to thank you so much for joining me.

I seriously, we could, I could talk to you for another two hours.

I'll come back, we'll do a.

Part we are going to have to do that and we have to do a full demo.

And as you go on to this next adventure and phase of your life, I want to stay in touch.

And everyone, I want to thank you all for tuning into this podcast.

I've been with Dave Wish.

He's the founder of Music Will.

He's got all kinds of new adventures planned, including that really cool drum kit that he showcased.

And you should definitely check out more.

It's coming out in June or July, July, and you'll find all kinds of links to learn more about what he's doing below this podcast.

And thank you so much for joining me.

Diane, it's been a real pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

This has been the Silver Disobedience Perception Dynamics podcast.

We're recording in Manhattan Center, which is the home of many musical geniuses throughout the years, the many years that it's been open.

And I want to thank you all for watching.

Please hit subscribe and definitely share this episode with your friends.

Thanks.

Thanks, Dave.

Thank you, really appreciate it, so fun.