Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Bobby Ball.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Bobby Ball.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Before we get go with Mary Ella from Yeah, we
have Josh grob and checking in.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Hey there, Bobby and Hey, hey there, Mariella. We're so
proud to work with you and Bobby. Thank you so
much for having me on. It's a real pleasure.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Hey, Josh, tell me about your foundation, Find Your Light.
What do you guys do? How does your foundation work
and help organizations?
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Like? Yeah, yeah, so, I mean, I'm a product of
a public arts education. I was so lucky that I
had access to incredible music and theater programs when I
was a young kid kind of searching for myself. And
as I began to have a platform with my own
and as I started to discover that I had an
amazing group of fans that weren't just satisfied with being
(00:43):
fans of the music. They wanted to give back, it
became apparent to me that having a foundation was something
that could be really worthwhile and very rewarding. And it
became very apparent to me when my fans presented me
with a check at a concert at the Greek Theater
for twenty five thousand dollars and they said, if you
ever do a foundation, one day, here's your first donation,
and I was so blown away by that. But after
(01:05):
all these years, Find Your Light is thriving, and we're
all about making sure that in school and after school
programs that involve arts education and access to the arts
continue to thrive. And now you know, all these years later,
we've raised millions and we have so so appreciated every
bit of help and excitement that we've had from the
fan base to be able to give to organizations like
(01:27):
Yeah over the years. The nice thing about being well
known now as an organization is that people now know
they can reach out to us. Organizations like Yeah can
reach out. We will get requests for grants, and especially
right now, we're in a time period where those programs
are getting cut constantly, and they'll tell us what they
need and why, and at Find Your Light our biggest
(01:49):
goals to make sure that programs like Yeah and incredible
educators and philanthropists like Marilla have the resources and the
funds they need to make sure that young people everywhere
can continue to find their Light and can continue to
discover who they are and discover more about the world
through arts education.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
Josh, thank you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Bobby and iHeart and best wishes on your future endeavors
and all the brilliant work you do. Madiella. We're so
proud to be alongside you would find your light and Hyundai.
Thank you so much for the donation. Every little bit
counts and we're so proud to be alongside you on
this fight. So thank you also very much.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Mary Alla, really great spits some time with you.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Nice to be here. Thank you so much for welcoming us.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
So like what is Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah? Is an incredible transformative program for youth ages six
through seventeen, and we go beyond just teaching an instrument.
We go into teaching about collaboration over competition, by teaching
different aspects of the music industry, by forming a band,
by creating your own lyrics, and helping kids discover and
(02:52):
explore who they are and what their community has for
them with each other.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, we're reading about Yeah a little bit and
you had some really interesting rules there that I thought
were pretty funny. There was one it was don't be
a donut, be a croissan What does that mean exactly?
Speaker 3 (03:08):
Well? What shape is a donut? Circular? Okay? And what
shape is a croissant?
Speaker 4 (03:12):
Like a half Moon and which was open the croissant.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
And we want kids to be open. We want them
to be flexible. We want them to be welcoming instead
of closed and avoiding others to come into their lives.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
When you say we remove barriers, what are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (03:29):
There are barriers to access music education. And one of
the things we do is we have a scholarship program
where every single applicant, regardless of capacity, we offer them
a scholarship. We try to provide programs in different locations,
not just by having a permanent location, but by having
(03:50):
ten different locations throughout metro Nashville. We don't have barriers
to the kind of person or music skill that they
can have. So from beginner to advanced, from female to
trans from poor to rich, from brown to black to white,
every single person is allowed and welcomed and championed at Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:13):
When you see the kids gravitate to instruments, what's what
are like? They mostly into I have four boys, and
I know some of them are just like I like
the drums, and other ones are like, oh and I
like the guitar. That sounds cool. What do you see
in these kids?
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I think it gravitates people gravitate to what they have
access to, and someone might be interested in beats if
they had access to a beat making machine, which we do,
but mostly guitars because it's what is seen. I think
marketing does a very good job at making it more enthusiastic.
A couple of years ago, no one was interested in keyboards,
(04:48):
and last year are classes at capacity a lot of
vocalists and more and more some songwriters.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
How do you think learning an instrument helps kids with
confident That.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Is a very long answer, and I'm trying to think
of the best way to say that learning an instrument
allows them to discover a little bit further of who
they are and be comfortable with it, and then share
a little bit about that with others. And if it's
done in an environment that is celebrating and championing them,
(05:23):
then that confidence can only go up.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
You think kids are listening to all kinds of music.
Do you think the classical music is still an interest
in some of these kids.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
I think it depends on who they have in their
life to expose them to that. Some people may have
a phone and some people may not. Therefore, they may
have a streaming service like Spotify or Amazon music, and
some may have the radio. Some may come from different
cultural backgrounds and be exposed to Hispanic music, blues, some
(05:59):
may not. I think that social media a good thing
has been to expose them to a broad amount of music,
but as kids, they're also confined to what is popular.
In addition to trying to find who they are by
defying the current trend is do.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
You ever see really shy kids come in and take
to it so well and they end up on stage.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
All the time. And one of the things that the
program does is because of the experience they have at
the program, they do believe in themselves further and see
it as something that they can do and want to do.
We had a child that thirty minutes before our camp
showcase a couple of years ago, said I'm going to
(06:46):
do this, and it was because of everything they experienced
leading up to it. And again, the showcase is a
wonderful opportunity to end something, but it's also an opportunity
for them to see that they can and accomplish something
and take it to anything else in their life.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
What have you seen firsthand where you've seen a child
pick up an instrument and go from like what is
this for an object to just being like, oh, I
love this, I love how it makes me feel, I
love the sound that it makes.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Just last year, we had someone from out of state
who was transitioning into becoming a male and wanted to
do drums, but our class had enough, did not have
enough capacity, and we kindly asked if we could move
them to the base class and they took to it
(07:36):
and in two days of camp absolutely fell in love
with the instrument. And again we welcome them to be
open to that so that our preconceived notions of an
instrument are not impeding them from exploring or experimenting. This
is not for a grade, this is not for a grammy.
This is for you. And giving them those kind of
(08:00):
gives them the confidence again that word comes up, but
giving them the comfort also and that they trust that
they're in an environment that is not going to judge
them to do that.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Have you seen any of these kids play in a
pretty cool venue.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Well, one of the great things about Yeah Rock's camp
is that at the end of the week we select
a historic national venue for them to perform at. So
from the basement East to the East Room to up
coming now in June the east Side Bowl. They do
perform on those stages that help them understand the power
(08:41):
of performance and share that historic stage with so many
people who are creating positive social change.
Speaker 4 (08:48):
What is your favorite venue?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
My living room? I really do like the first rank
Amphitheater because it's outdoors.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Can kids walk into this program without any experience at all?
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Zero experience at all. We have teachers that give their
heart and soul to trying to meet the kid where
they are and ensure that the class sets them up
to succeed. We don't just also include the instruments, but
we also include beat making workshop, songwriting stage, present gear
(09:24):
so that there are other hooks and other opportunities for
kids to see that they can connect with music and
inspire them to keep going to the next level.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
Obviously it's for all ages, right, but do you ever
see like the small, little little little ones get excited
over music and wanting to just learn because it seems
so cool.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
We have one teacher who's highlight every year is returning
to be the counselor for the younger group because of
the power of their energy that she feels. We have
siblings who come and watch their older siblings that show
and parents tell us we can't wait for them to
(10:03):
be six to come to camp. They are open, they
are excited, they are free without any worries of making
it sound right look right, and so that I think
is very refreshing for the rest of the group.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
What's the dream for Yeah, in the next two years.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
We would love to have more consistent programming during the weekend.
How rock Block program is dependent on funding and venues
that are available to host band based programming. We would
love to extend the camp to a second consecutive week
so that kids can go a little bit deeper into
(10:42):
what they've created during the first week camp. And we'd
love to expand our programming to offer more industry related
skills like audio, lighting, production, recording, so that kids can
be on a track to see where what they may
(11:03):
create with an instrument can lead. But also to welcome
those that may not want to be on stage but
lack the opportunity at school to have an entry point
into music.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
Yeah, talk a little bit about that, because you know,
we were talking earlier about you know, learning instrument, but
not everyone's into learning instruments, but they do love sound,
whether it's in movies or film or video production or
anything like that. Like, there's way more to music than
just learning an instrument.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, Again, we do want people to learn
how to express themselves with the power of music, but
there's other ways to connect to make that come alive
and to be part of that community that is not
just about the person that you see on camera on stage,
but to be able to have that felt by hundreds, thousands,
(11:58):
millions in ways that will also help them understand that
everything's like that, there's always someone behind everything we do.
And if that mentality of collaboration and of being a
soldier amongst soldiers can further inspire kids to take risks
and to worry less about perfection but about progress and
(12:23):
about community and about using music as a filter through
which they can see the rest of the world and themselves,
then those opportunities are, you know, limitless.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
What has Hyundai's involvement allowed you, guys to day to day?
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Without support from Hyundai, we would not be able to
sustain our operating expenses, and it is increasingly becoming limited
given that people's given capacity has decreased. Foundations have cut
their funding to many nonprofits, not only because as they
(13:00):
lack the money, but there's so many more nonprofits applying
for the same dollar, and it allows us to sustain
the people that work with us so that they can
continue providing the programs that we have.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
How difficult is it for you guys to get specialized
instruments like accordions or steel drums, things like that that
are such like so important to different kinds of music
for different cultures.
Speaker 3 (13:26):
We are one of the things in going back to
the original question about what we would like to have
for you guys to increase our world music offerings and
be able to bring those instruments. At the moment, we
continue providing rock band based instruments, so guitar, acoustic and
electric bass, drums, vocals, and keyboard because that is the
(13:48):
equipment we've had for the past twenty years. But for example,
if a use from there, if they have a band
instrument and they want to incorporate it into our program,
we will find a way to We will find a
way to incorporate into the program, but we don't necessarily
(14:08):
have a team member to instruct them in it. Specialized
instruments are not really where we're at just yet. We
are always in need of better equipment and when we
reach that point, I will figure out what to do
next about that.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
You know, Honday's makes it a priority to be impactful
in the community, and so Honday's out a long standing
partnership with Yeah and you know they continue that commitment
to education, innovation and community empowerment. And if you're listening
to this right now and you want to support collaborative
youth centered music and education in Nashville, you can go
to yeahrocks dot org slash donate, So yeahrocks dot org
(14:52):
slash donate. We can go to Yeah dot kindfold dot com.
And if you're listening right now, you can be a
one time donor, you can be a monthly don't. You
can sponsor a program, you can provide a scholarship to camp,
or you can use employer corporate match, so a lot
of ways that you can help out. If you're listening,
then you want to be involved in kids and they're
growing as people and they're growing in education. So we
(15:14):
really appreciate the time you spent with us. Hope the
program continues to flourish, and thank you for all that
you do.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Well, thank you so much, and I thank all your
listeners for believing in youth and what they have to say.
We have a lot to learn from them. CONSI