Brooklyn is big enough to incubate more child talent than just a single 8-year old DJ. But it also has pockets of poverty where the will to play is there, but not the means. So Give Kids Your Instruments, a Bed-Stuy group, has stepped up to get instruments into the hands of kids who want to play one don’t have the means to afford one.
We’ve all had dreams of being rock and roll stars or legendary jazz musicians, dreams that have made us run out and buy an acoustic guitar or a grand piano. And what we eventually learn is that playing an instrument is hard and takes years of intense, focused practice to master. Then we give up and the instrument gathers dust and occasionally shames us when we look at it. Give Kids Your instruments will take that unused instrument off your hands and give it to a kid who hasn’t been crushed by the realities of the music business yet.
They then hold workshops where they encourage the kids to jam on the instruments without worrying about technique or going down the path of becoming a String Cheese Incident fan. They’re having a Christmas instrument drive right now, so if you or someone you know has a trumpet just laying around and it hasn’t been touched in years, you’ve got a chance to give it a good home.