“Music for All”, how to democratize access to music at scale
By: Arnault Martin
Tags: Music, Ideation, Ngo, Education, Social

Photo by Kari Shea on Unsplash

Nearly 8 years after I co-founded “Musique pour Tous” — “Music for all” — the adventure has now come to an end. Yet I take with me some exciting years, from high-school to college, and I wish newcomers to the project start their own movement. I would like to share my understanding of the problem we are trying to solve, from the perspective of my own personal experience, as well as how we were able to create a collaborative model that I believe is scalable. This article presents the vision, the mission, the social need, and the operations behind the idea. Link towards the French version of the article. — Feel free to copy the idea and do it yourself!

Disclaimer: this piece is a sole reflection of my own thoughts and opinions and does not intend to reflect the current strategy of top management.

Vision: the musician at the heart of social change

The vision is to put the figure of the musician at the centre of the functioning of society and to place the benefits of music at the heart of the development of young people.

Mission: music is for sharing and its multiple benefits are key for youth self-fulfilment in the long run

Our mission is to build a community of committed musicians and support them in facilitating free, playful, collective local weekly musical workshops for kids that can’t access the practice of the instrument due to social, cultural or economic obstacles.

In our mission, music is a means to create social value, not the end purpose.

Social need: musicians search for meaning and young people search for living an artistic experience

We bring together the superpowers of musicians with the curiosity and unlimited potential of youth.

Why musicians?

Passionate musicians often look for opportunities to play and share, as this performative and collaborative space is where the intensity in music lives. Yet, musicians often have a limited amount of time to play during the week because of the need to earn a living. If they do not play in a band, the passion for music is often expressed in isolation, e.g. in a bedroom or living room.

There is room to help them get out of their home/workplace and commit their limited amount of time to a social purpose.

Why youth?

For our project, many young people cannot access music for economic, social or cultural reasons. This category is broad, heterogenous and voluntarily not-bounded.

Some examples of situations: Parents have incomes too low to pay for music education; Children do not have a good command of the language, which prevents them from fully participating in cultural or social activities, including music; The family or school environment does not allow them to project well and demanding activities such as music are set aside; Some children are in hospital for an indefinite period; Some young people are out of school or experiencing another form of isolation; Parents have made other educational choices, etc.

The idea is to provide them with a practical, personal, and social experience of music, and to let them choose whether to pursue music further.

First, studies have proven that music provides kids with multiple benefits (concentration, creativity, self-expression, self-reflexion, self-esteem, empathy, group interaction…), hence it makes sense to help young people have such a music-driven meaningful, yet not mandatory, hands-on experience.

Second, music often serves as a pillar within any diverse community or culture. Ken Robinson says “music yields the highest social recognition” in so-called Western countries, and both expected and unexpected opportunities come along with it (meeting other musicians that are professionally well positioned, learning certain cultural codes, etc.).

Third, empirical statistics show that musical education rarely leads to a music career. It may sound obvious, but more often than not, music becomes this good-old-friend that you carry around with you in your life, but not your livelihood.

Based on these three remarks, music carries with it an ever-untapped potential to foster good in society. It has the power to create meaningful linkages between people on a local level, by bringing musicians together with curious kids living near the musician’s home/workplace. Music serves as a “conversational” tool and propels in-depth introspection, rather than serving as a professional purpose that is reserved for a certain elite.

Inclusivity is at the core of music’s DNA, and so it is in this model.

Operations: “local impact” from start to finish

Our low-cost and pragmatic approach helps us fill a social need in a scalable fashion.

We bring about a musical workshop in three steps:

1. A musician applies on our website and tells us where they live or work.

2. Based on this location, our beloved team of volunteers will locate the closest social welfare institution that is already accompanying youth and suggest a “Musique pour Tous” workshop. These institutions within the existing social welfare structure are (list not exhaustive): hospitals, social centers, socio-cultural places, schools, refugee shelters, associations for the support of school dropouts, associations for the support of children with disabilities, rehabilitation centres, etc.

3. If the musician and the partnering institution agree on a time slot — such as every Tuesday, from 5 to 6pm — the “Musique pour Tous” association will purchase the instruments (one for each kid) and ship them to the workshop site, and the workshop can begin! The partner institution keeps the instruments locally, allowing for kids to play between sessions.

It is important that everything stays local, because this is the start of the “conversation” I mentioned at the beginning of this article.

The presence of a micro-warehouse nearby is important to store or move the instruments if necessary… but most of the time it will be empty because kids play with the instruments, which limits the costs!

Final words

These past years have been the most enriching years of my life. I was given the opportunity to meet with hundreds of people from different countries, different backgrounds, different paths, different worlds — from corporate to non-profit, and government.

I started this project when I was 16 years old, and I hope many more students (or adults!) take the opportunity to have a sustainable local impact — through music or otherwise.

I would be happy to help any changemaker get their idea or impact off the ground. Let’s get in touch!