A History of Modern Band and Little Kids Rock from 2002–2014

A Brief History of Popular Music Education in the United States

While a detailed examination of the presence of popular music in US music education is outside the scope of this paper, it is necessary to provide a brief summary of popular music education in the United States in order to contextualize the introduction of modern band programming at the beginning of the twenty-first century. As detailed elsewhere, popular music entered school music contexts through mandolin clubs in the late 1800s as well as private music schools, such as the Christensen School of Popular Music founded in Chicago in 1903. ¹⁰ As jazz and swing music became popular in the the 1920s and 30s, some music education programs incorporated these popular genres to provide students with the skills needed to play in stage and dance bands.

In 1931, Music Educators National Conference (MENC) President Marguerite Hood wrote in the Music Supervisors Journal that, “Music must be connected in some way with a personal knowledge, feeling or idea on the part of the average listener.” She continued, “Why is there such a distinct gap between the music heard in school and that chosen by the average child for enjoyment?” ¹¹ After World War II, schools of music began to incorporate more jazz into their programs, in part because jazz music began to be seen as more highbrow. ¹²

In late 1967, attendees at the Tanglewood Symposium discussed the need for a variety of styles and cultures within school music curricula and declared that the repertory of music classrooms should include “currently popular teenage music.” ¹³ The Tanglewood Declaration was followed in November 1969 with the publication of “Youth Music: A Special Report” in the Music Educators Journal. This report featured a collection of articles and testimonials from music educators advocating for the use of popular music in the classroom and included a description of the Youth Music Institute (YMI) which sought to connect teachers and students by “bringing educators into contact with youth music and its creators.” ¹⁴

In 1989, MENC published Multicultural Perspectives in Music Education which called for the expansion of school music curricula to include multicultural musics as well. ¹⁵ As a result of this increased focus on multicultural musics in music education, regionally popular ensembles such as Mariachi bands began to appear in high school programs in states such as Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona and California. This was followed by the incorporation of Latin music within the repertoire of high school jazz bands, featuring guiros, claves, recorecos, and surdos. ¹⁶

In the last three decades, MENC, rebranded as the National Association for Music Education (NAfME) in 2011, has published two special focus issues of the Music Educators Journal on popular music, one in 2009 and the other in 2019. ¹⁷ Also in this century, the publication of books such as Lucy Green’s How Popular Musicians Learn: A Way Ahead for Music Education ¹⁸ and Carlos Xavier Rodriguez’s edited book, Bridging the Gap: Popular Music and Music Education, ¹⁹ along with multiple handbooks dedicated to popular music education ²⁰ and the establishment of the Journal of Popular Music Education, ²¹ have advanced scholarship in popular music education.

Purpose and Research Questions

The purpose of this article is to trace the history of the music education non-profit organization Little Kids Rock from its founding in 2002 through 2014, with a specific focus on the development and propagation of modern band in music education in the United States. This article also features data detailing numbers of students served and financial aspects of the organization in an attempt to show how the non-profit grew from a single class of students without a budget to pay a single employee, to an organization that has provided music workshops for over 5000 teachers and has an annual budget over five million dollars. The period of the study ends in 2014 in part because research on Little Kids Rock’s model of modern band professional development and initiatives such as Amp Up NYC ²² begin to appear in 2014. This historical study seeks to address the dearth of research on the early years of the modern band movement. The questions that guided the research were: (1) What events led to, and hindered, the inclusion of modern band in United States music education? (2) What role did the nonprofit organization Little Kids Rock play in the proliferation of modern band programming? and (3) Who were some of the key figures and organizations that led to the expansion of the modern band?

Sources and Methodology

To address these questions, I utilized both artifacts and oral history techniques. ²³ I examined numerous primary and select secondary sources including unpublished, internal documents created by LKR. I conducted semi-structured, personal interviews with key stakeholders responsible for the propagation of modern band in K-12 schools throughout the United States. These stakeholders included Dave Wish (Founder and CEO of Little Kids Rock) and Howard Kerbel (the then Chief Financial Officer for Little Kids Rock). I interviewed Dave Wish two separate times, the first in February of 2020 and again in December 2020 to ask clarifying questions and seek richer detail. The first interview with Wish lasted for approximately one hour and the follow up interview lasted 35 min. The interview with Howard Kerbel occurred in November of 2020 and lasted 30 min. All interviews look place through Zoom. I transcribed the interviews and then used descriptive and in vivo coding to determine important themes and events. The transcripts of the interviews were shared with Wish and Kerbel to ensure accuracy of the data through member checks. I also gathered personal correspondence through email from Julie Corallo (Former K-12 Music Specialist for the Los Angeles Unified School District who implemented modern band programs). Additionally, both Wish and Corallo shared personal emails with me detailing an early partnership between Little Kids Rock and the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) designed to introduce modern band programming into the LAUSD.

The first section of this paper provides working definitions of popular music, popular music education, and modern band before detailing the history of Little Kids Rock and the establishment of modern band in United States public schools. Following the description of the history of LKR, the curriculum and pedagogy of LKR is examined before looking at the impact LKR has had in terms of number of teachers trained, students served, and instruments donated. Finally, the article concludes with a discussion of implications for music education.

Defining Popular Music and Popular Music Education

“Popular Music” is a term that can have different meanings in different contexts. While it can describe music that is commercially popular and on the Billboard charts, the term can also describe music that is connected to the people who engage with personally meaningful music, whether that music is commercially popular or not. In this way, popular music is the music “of the people” ²⁴ and reflects the lives of those who use it. As explained elsewhere, ²⁵ the term popular music education (PME) is a large category under which many communities and practices reside. Of these communities, there are those who engage with PME as school music teachers or pre-service music teacher educators who seek to use popular music as a way to “bridge the gap” ²⁶ between music in schools and music in society. These educators incorporate popular music instruments and some technology to facilitate opportunities for students to play popular music and engage in songwriting in school settings. There are other music educators, mostly in higher education, who engage with PME with a focus on artist development and preparation for vocational opportunities within the music industry. This article will focus on the definition of popular music as it pertains to K-12 music classrooms, and will examine the role of modern band in expanding school-based PME.

About Modern Bad

Modern Band is a term coined by Dave Wish, the founder of LKR to describe a stream of music education that includes technology and popular music instruments (guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, ukuleles, and vocals), and focuses on student-centered music and songwriting. The nonprofit organization Little Kids Rock has expanded the presence of modern band programming in United States public schools by offering teacher workshops, curricular resources, and instrument donations to public school music teachers who participate in their professional development sessions. ²⁷ As of the 2019-2020 school year, Little Kids Rock reported they have reached over one million students in over 400 school districts throughout the United States. ²⁸ Recent research indicates that the inclusion of modern band in school music programs can increase overall participation in school music, especially among non-White students, students not currently participating in traditional music ensembles such as band, choir, and orchestra, and students who receive free and reduced lunch assistance. ²⁹ Since modern band classes often attract students who were not currently participating in school music ensembles such as band, choir, or orchestra, modern bands are not likely to negatively impact the enrollment in existing music ensembles. ³⁰

While there is great diversity in regard to the pedagogical approaches used in modern band programs, many school-based modern bands focus on playing culturally relevant music that is chosen by the students. Recent research on modern band professional development has shown that participating in modern band led to an increase in teachers’ positive perceptions about their music programs, specifically, their level of excitement about the state of their music program. ³¹ Each individual modern band teacher is responsible for their program and individual student assessment, and LKR is not engaged with measuring individual student musical growth, although they do administer an end-of-year survey where they ask teachers to reflect on their students’ social, emotional, and musical development throughout the year. ³² Examples of modern band student performances, video lesson plans, and teacher testimonials can be found on the Little Kids Rock YouTube page ³³ as well as LKR’s curricular website the Jam Zone. ³⁴

Dave Wish and the Hawes Elementary School Family Guitar Class

The non-profit organization Little Kids Rock was founded in 2002 by Dave Wish, who at that time was a first-grade English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher at Hawes Elementary School in East Palo Alto, California. When Wish started teaching at his school in 1994, East Palo Alto had one of the highest murder rates in the USA and had a very diverse population of African Americans and recent Latinx immigrants. ³⁵ Hawes Elementary School also sat only 10 miles north of Silicon Valley, home to companies like Google and Apple computers. In 1994, Hawes Elementary school did not have a music class for his first-grade students, nor was there a full-time music teacher at the school. ³⁶ The lack of funding for arts programs in East Palo Alto in the mid-1990s highlighted the discrepancy of funding for education in California, compared to the immense wealth only a few miles away in Silicon Valley. The lack of funding for arts education in his school led Wish to take action. He started teaching guitar to his students after school to provide them with some access to music making. Wish’s approach to teaching focused on instant success for students and teaching them to play music that was personally meaningful to them. ³⁷ Wish did not have any formal preparation in teaching music, and he had negative experiences with school music ensembles growing up. Wish remembers his music teachers in school making him feel “unmusical” since he was not interested in participating in the school’s band or choir. ³⁸ With the help of friends, Wish taught himself to play the guitar outside of school and described his own musical education as “so haphazard and random.” Since Wish did not have any formal preparation as a music teacher, he recalled his initial guitar lessons consisting of “lots of clapping and stomping” to keep the beat. He did not focus on teaching rhythmic or music staff notation since he did not know how to read music staff notation himself. His approach instead incorporated iconic notation and focused on teaching students the shapes of the guitar chords so that they could play music of their choosing. ³⁹

As an ESL teacher, Wish’s approach to teaching music was largely influenced by the language acquisition theories that he learned in college. Wish credits the work of Stephen Krashen and James Asher as being particularly influential in both his teaching of English as a Second Language, as well as his approach to teaching music. As discussed below, Wish would eventually use the second-language learning theories of Krashen to develop his approach to teaching, which Wish called Music as a Second Language®. ⁴⁰

Wish’s guitar instruction for his 1st grade class led to interest throughout Hawes Elementary School. Students in Wish’s class were writing their own songs and recording them onto CDs. He sold these CDs to raise funds to purchase additional guitars to accommodate additional classes. By 1999, Wish was teaching guitar classes before and after school, and during lunch. Wish called his guitar class the “Hawes Elementary School Family Guitar Class” because family members were invited to participate in the guitar class as well. Wish recalled, “Once we got started, there were moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, and grandparents involved”. ⁴¹ As demand to participate in class increased, Wish realized that he would need help from additional teachers. He first reached out to local musicians, but they ultimately proved unreliable due to their busy schedules and their lack of pedagogical understanding when working with children. Wish then invited colleagues within the school who had some experience with music. He provided these teachers with the curricular resources he developed based on a framework that focused on student-centered instruction, which allowed learners to choose the songs they wanted to play. ⁴²

The Early Days of Little Kids Rock

As interest in the Hawes Elementary School Family Guitar Class increased, Wish realized that he had tapped into something important. According to Wish, he realized that there was the potential to expand access to his approach to guitar instruction for students outside of Hawes Elementary if he could expand his model of guitar instruction to other schools. ⁴³ In the summer of 2001, Wish decided to leave teaching to establish a non-profit organization that focused on providing professional development opportunities for teachers to facilitate guitar classes with their students. Wish founded Little Kids Rock (LKR) in 2002, which coincided with the signing into law of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), a law that increased focus on student assessment and measured achievement. The implementation of NCLB ultimately led schools to increase funding for core STEM subjects, often at the expense of school music programs. ⁴⁴ Wish was aware of the adverse effects of NCLB and the law’s potentially damaging effect on school music programs. He shared, “budget cuts were decimating music programs in public schools across the country, sharply limiting children’s access to music education. As an educator, I was inspired by dedicated arts leaders who advocated forcefully for the continued funding of existing music programs.” ⁴⁵ Wish also shared that he started LKR not only to increase access to music for more students, but also to increase the relevance of music in schools so that more students would want to participate. ⁴⁶

For the first three years of LKR, Wish amassed a group of 40–60 volunteers who worked with LKR to raise awareness and funds from individuals and local businesses to support the teacher workshops that provided professional development and a donation of guitars to each school. ⁴⁷ The initial Board of Directors for LKR was comprised of residents from Palo Alto and the San Francisco Bay area who had experience with either grant writing and/or business. For both the programmatic volunteers and the board members Wish would barter guitar lessons in exchange for their expertise. He recalled, “that is how I got all of my earliest volunteers, by bartering guitar lessons in exchange for their work.” ⁴⁸ Wish shared that he used the earliest version of the website Craigslist to request assistance with items like web design, creating the LKR logo, and everything else involved with starting a nonprofit organization. For the first three years of LKR, Wish did not take a salary. All of the money that was raised went to providing guitars for local area schools. The first paid employee at LKR was a grant writer who was hired in 2004. Over the next few years, LKR would hire additional staff members to help out with both the programmatic and organizational aspects of the work. ⁴⁹

LKR’s Curriculum and Music as a Second Language®

When Dave Wish first started teaching guitar to his 1^st grade students, he gradually created his own guitar instructional resources for the Hawes Elementary School Family Guitar Class. As he transitioned to providing workshops for teachers, Wish put together all of the teaching resources that he had previously used along with new resources that explained his approach to guitar pedagogy as well as its application on other instruments involved in popular music making. This approach to teaching the guitar focused on instant student success by using simplified three-string chords, simplified strum patterns, and strategies for allowing students to eventually switch between chords more easily ⁵⁰ though the incorporation of approximation and scaffolding techniques. ⁵¹ Similarly straightforward lessons on piano, drums and bass were incorporated within the first few years of LKR’s workshops. Wish’s approach to teaching guitar provided the foundation for the way all LKR workshops would be run.

The workshops that Wish offered focused not just on showing teachers how to incorporate guitar instruction in their classroom, but also on how music instruction could utilize the same approaches promoted by theorists working in the field of second language acquisition. Wish had learned about Stephen Krashen’s Five Hypotheses of Second Language Acquisition Theory ⁵² during his preparation to become a bilingual educator. Wish shared that Krashen’s views shaped his ideas on music education and became the cornerstone of how he taught guitar. ⁵³ Wish took the familiar descriptor of “English as a Second Language” and altered it to coin the phrase “Music as a Second Language” in 2001. ⁵⁴

Little Kids Rock Guitar Workshops

Wish offered his first guitar workshop for teachers using the name Little Kids Rock in the summer of 2001 in San Francisco. He brought along a videographer to film parts of that first workshop to use in promotional materials for his new organization. ⁵⁵ During the first five years of Little Kids Rock (2002–2007), Wish provided teacher professional development workshops focused on incorporating guitar instruction and popular music into the classroom. Although the teacher workshops focused primarily on guitar instruction, instruction for piano, drums, bass and vocals were included in these workshops as were lessons in composition and improvisational techniques. Wish used a 164-page guitar curriculum created by LKR in 2006 which included a “Cool CD-ROM” (see supplemental document 1). ⁵⁶ In addition to the teacher workshops, LKR donated a class set of guitars to each teacher who attended the workshops. ⁵⁷ The reason that guitars alone were first provided was largely a financial and logistical consideration. LKR was able to procure guitars at a heavily discounted rate and it was easier for LKR’s few initial employees to handle the donations of only guitars as opposed to multiple instruments from different manufacturers.

To set up these teacher workshops, Wish approached school districts about providing professional development sessions for their teachers. While many districts agreed to become early adopters of the LKR guitar program, many other districts declined to get involved. According to Wish, much of the resistance to the incorporation of LKR programming in schools throughout the United States focused on perceived lack of teacher interest, lack of room in the schedule to add another music element, perceived lack of rigor associated with popular music, and skepticism about adopting an approach to music education created by an individual with no formal music training or a music education degree. ⁵⁸ By the end of the 2007-2008 school year, LKR had provided workshops for over 1000 teachers and had donated over 10,000 guitars to these teachers. Teachers who received instrument donations from LKR had to agree to report the number of students they were working with each year, as well as complete and end-of-the-year survey. Half of the teachers trained were full-time music educators while the other half were classroom teachers who were incorporating guitar instruction as an afterschool club or as part of their daily instruction. ⁵⁹

A New Stream of Music

In 2008, Wish had a conversation with Melanie Faulkner, then Supervisor of Elementary Music for the Hillsborough County School District in Tampa, Florida. Faulkner explained that the students’ participation in the LKR program was up across schools in her district, and the approach of LKR programs was adding a new ‘stream’ of music education to her schools. Faulkner explained to Wish that school music programs in her district were divided into streams that included band, jazz band, choir, and orchestra. Faulkner pointed out that calling the guitar programs “Little Kids Rock programs” separated them from the other traditional ensembles. This conversation provided the impetus for Wish to start thinking about LKR guitar programs as part of “The Fifth Stream,” placing them alongside the other four streams of music education: band, jazz band, choir, orchestra. ⁶⁰ In later years, Wish admits that he was unaware that many music educators consider general music to be a stream of music education and stated that had he been aware of the presence of general music as a classification, he would have referred to LKR programs as “The Sixth Stream.” ⁶¹

At the same time, Wish also planned to rename Little Kids Rock programs in schools, calling them “contemporary band” programs as part of a movement to make LKR guitar programs fit in more with the naming conventions of concert band, marching band, and jazz band. This change in the name of the ensembles was also a strategic move to help scale LKR programs so that school districts would see these programs as an initiative of the school district, and not an ‘add-on’ program from an outside non-profit. ⁶² As part of his efforts to scale “contemporary band” as part of the new “Fifth Stream,” Wish wrote a position paper that would serve to situate Little Kids Rock as a partner to school districts in expanding access to music for students in their school districts. The position paper was titled “Let’s Rock Their World!” and was sent to school districts in 2008 and later published in the online magazine Life as a Human. ⁶³ The letter outlined the challenges of expanding access to music education in a time where budget cuts were having a negative impact on existing music programs. The letter stated,

At a time when the conversation of concerned citizens and educators often centers upon the simple conservation of existing programs, Little Kids Rock is pushing the envelope by expanding these offerings and pioneering an entirely new kind of music program in the nation’s public schools…. The concept of a fifth stream of music education is so new that, like jazz band before it (aka “stage band”) it lacks a definitive name. I have taken the liberty of naming it, for the time being, “Contemporary Band.” Contemporary band can and does bridge the unnecessary chasm existing between the music that our children experience in schools and the music they experience in their communities… The “Contemporary Band” stream re-imagines music education from the ground up. Drawing liberally from the teaching practices and learning dispositions of the rock ‘n’ roll laity, we have codified an approach that is replicable in public schools and yet maintains the core value of the “pop approach” to music making. ⁶⁴

The letter went on to discuss popular music’s focus on creating new music and valuing students’ identities so that students might see themselves reflected in the curriculum. Wish stated: “By validating and leveraging their cultural capital, we can forge stronger bonds between traditionally marginalized students and the schools that serve them.” ⁶⁵

In addition to the above letter that LKR sent to school districts, they also applied for a grant from the North American Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation in 2008. In that grant, which was successfully funded by the NAMM Foundation, LKR spoke of expanding their current model of funding guitar programs to include funding other popular music instruments including electric bass, drum set, and keyboard. The grant referred to these programs as “Little Kids Rock Contemporary Band Programs.” The grant characterized the programs as follows:

“Contemporary Band” is the chosen nomenclature for this initiative, because it encompasses a wide variety of musical idioms and is adaptable to shifts in aesthetic sensibilities that occur with changes in time and geography. The music that students were clamoring to play in 2002 is passé in 2008. Likewise, the ranchero music favored among students in Dallas is not the choice of students in Chicago, who prefer hip-hop.

From “Contemporary Band” to “Modern Band”

In December of 2009, LKR received a grant for $500,000 from the Dr. Phil Foundation to support an initiative called Little Kids Rock Across America (LKRAA). ⁶⁷ This initiative funded teacher professional development workshops in 2010 for schools in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Tampa, New York City, Philadelphia, Dallas, Chicago, and Washington, DC. LKR also launched new chapters in Minneapolis and New Orleans as a result of the LKRAA initiative. ⁶⁸ LKR shared the news of this grant with teachers and supporters through their new newsletter, “The Quarter Note” (see supplemental document 2). ⁶⁹ Also in this newsletter, LKR announced a new “interactive kids page” on the LKR website. According to the newsletter, “The fun, flash site is complete with all the LKR curriculum and games, including Start To Rock: Guitar, Drums and Keyboard, Build a Beat, Beat Box and Drum Along. Be sure to check out music videos made by LKR students, as well as our free downloads, including rockin’ desktop backgrounds and the LKR Activity Book! Now, you can bring the jamming home with you and rock out in your own home. How cool is that?!” ⁷⁰

Also, in 2010, Julie Huff Corallo, the K-12 Music Specialist for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) reached out to Wish expressing interest in bringing LKR’s contemporary band project to LAUSD. LKR and LAUSD partnered together on a pilot initiative to fund workshops and instruments for LAUSD music teachers. Huff expressed a desire to expand LKR programs in LAUSD, however she expressed reluctance with the name “Contemporary Band.” She felt that the word “contemporary” had strong musical connotations with “Adult Contemporary” music. Wish agreed that the name might not be a great fit and together Huff and Wish decided to call the pilot program “Modern Band.” ⁷¹ On March 11, 2011, Judy Elliott, the Chief Academic Officer in the Office of Curriculum, Instruction and School Support for LAUSD sent out a document titled “Revised and New Middle and Senior High Visual and Performing Arts Courses,” which listed ‘Modern Band’ among the approved list of courses that LAUSD schools could offer (see supplemental document 3). ⁷² In August, 2011, the Arts Education Branch of the LAUSD released a course syllabus for their Modern Band course (see supplemental document 4), including the following description:

The major emphasis of this course is to develop student achievement through the exploration of a modern band ensemble. The course will introduce the skills necessary to perform on electric guitar, acoustic guitar, electric bass, keyboard, drums and vocals. Many styles of music will be discussed, demonstrated and performed by the students. The course will also foster peer to peer development in the band setting while encouraging each band to perform cohesively as a single unit. Students in Modern Band will also be introduced to the art of Songwriting. End of term projects will culminate with each student having their song performed by the ensemble. ⁷³

This shift to the term “Modern Band” represents the culmination of attempts to provide a description for the types of ensembles promoted by LKR. At various points, LKR referred to these ensembles as “guitar club,” “LKR programs,” “The 5^th Stream,” and “contemporary band.” With the establishment of the term “modern band,” LKR found a description of their programs that music supervisors from school districts across the country could support. Initially, LKR capitalized the term “Modern Band” in all publications, outreach materials, and on their website. However, starting in 2017, LKR stopped capitalizing the term modern band since other music ensembles (e.g., band, choir, orchestra) are not capitalized.

While Los Angeles was the first school district to incorporate “modern band” into their list of approved courses, other school districts soon followed suit. Up until the 2010s, many school districts had teachers offering modern band classes, but the name “modern band” had not yet been incorporated into the approved list of course offerings for the school district. Since modern band was not yet listed as an approved course in many districts, the majority of modern band teachers taught these classes under the course description ‘general music’ or ‘guitar’. Chicago Public Schools, New York City Department of Education, the Dallas Independent School District, and the Miami-Dade County Public Schools all added modern band as an approved course in 2014. ⁷⁴

Despite LKR’s desire to expand their programs to include popular music instruments beyond the guitar, their instrument donations to school districts focused mostly on guitars during the 2010-2011 school year. In a newsletter called “The Power Chord” published in the spring of 2011, LKR touted their expansion of programming into six new cities including Washington D.C., New Orleans, East Palo Alto, Minneapolis, and Newark. In the description of each donation, the newsletter mentions the donation of “guitars and curriculum,” but does not mention other modern band instruments such as drums, bass, or keyboards. ⁷⁵ In the same newsletter, LKR described the release of a “newly designed LKR Drum Curriculum” which they would soon be releasing. ⁷⁶ LKR did promote the drums, bass, and keyboard in curricular posters that they gave to teachers who attended their workshops starting in 2010. In the image below, Jersey City, NJ music teacher John Flora teaches a modern band class using LKR provided curricular posters (Figure 1).

Modern Band in 2010–2014

LKR continued to expand in its second decade in terms of teachers served, students reached, and instruments donated. Seeking to provide more professional development opportunities for modern band teachers, LKR began hosting an annual summer conference called Modern Band Rockfest. Held in Fort Collins, CO, this conference featured workshops offered by both LKR staff members as well as modern band teachers from across the country. As detailed in an article in SBO Magazine (see supplemental document 5), the first Rockfest in 2013 brought together over 100 public school teachers from 22 cities across the United States. In the article, Wish emphasized the importance of the conference to solidify the work that modern band teachers were doing in the classroom. Wish stated:

RockFest [sic] represents a pivotal step forward in fostering a focused and collaborative community among the nearly 1000 LKR teachers nationwide who are helping us pioneer unique approaches to teaching music. After this conference, we are one step closer to revolutionizing the way music education is offered and taught in our public schools. ⁷⁷

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Figure 1.

Modern band music teacher John Flora teaching in Jersey City, NJ, February 12, 2015. Photo courtesy of Little Kids Rock.

This conference, now called the Modern Band Summit has occurred each summer since 2013, and has grown to over 500 yearly attendees consisting of modern band K-12 teachers, arts supervisors, and members of the higher education community. ⁷⁸

The year 2014 was a pivotal year in the expansion of modern band in US schools. In 2014, the term “modern band” began to appear in college and university course offerings, starting first with Professor Sheila Woodward at Eastern Washington University (EWU). Dr. Woodward worked with LKR staff members to create a course dedicated to modern band instruction titled “Teaching Modern Band.” The course featured a focus on “exploration into modern band through performance, composition, improvisation, and Music as Language theory,” and included “familiarity with popular music education theories such as formal and informal learning styles, learning through familiar material, and the value of all music” as one of its course objectives. ⁷⁹ In the time since the initial integration of modern band into EWU’s music education program, over sixty other colleges and universities have included modern band in their course syllabi. ⁸⁰

Also in 2014, LKR partnered with Berklee College of Music and the New York City Department of Education (NYC DOE) to launch the Amp Up NYC initiative. This initiative provided teacher professional development sessions, instrument donations, and modern band curricular resources for in-service NYC DOE music teachers in support of the NYC DOE’s efforts to incorporate Modern Band as a musical offering in school music program. The goal of the Amp Up NYC initiative was to provide professional development workshops and instruments for up to 600 music teachers in the NYC DOE so that music teachers could incorporate modern band into their music programs. ⁸¹ At the end of the four-year initiative, Amp Up NYC had donated over 7000 popular music instruments and trained 641 teachers who reported working with over 79,000 students from grades K-12 (ages 5–18). ⁸² At the launch event for Amp Up NYC in 2014, Barbara Murray, the then Director of Music for the NYC DOE reflected upon the expansion of modern band within the NYC DOE and shared,

It [Modern Band] has been incredibly successful in that every student and every teacher who has come through and learned the program has raved about it because it is immediately accessible, kids love to play music of their own generation and teachers love to have students succeed immediately.…[W]e have concert band, we have orchestra, we have choir, we have jazz band – but there has not been, to date, a stream of “modern band,” i.e. popular music that takes its place at the table with its own curriculum, its own repertoire. It has national repercussions and national possibilities for the shape of music and the future of music education. I am really excited that it has gotten its foothold here in New York City. ⁸³

By the Numbers: The Impact of LKR and Modern Band

Little Kids Rock was founded in 2002 without any existing revenue streams or start-up funds. As discussed previously, Dave Wish bartered guitar lessons in exchange for volunteer services necessary to start the non-profit organization. It its first year, Wish was able to raise a little over $66,000 in donations and grants to support the purchasing of guitars for school music teachers. ⁸⁴ In subsequent years, Wish was able to increase funding by adding more personal donations and grants, while also raising money through local fundraising events and an annual benefit fundraiser. ⁸⁵ In 2009, LKR also introduced a “membership level” for individual donations where individuals could donate various amounts from $25 (Rocker level) which bought supplies for a music class to $500 (Producer level) which bought up to 10 new instruments for a class (see Supplemental Materials, document 7). ⁸⁶ Table 1 above shows the reported annual revenue for LKR from 2002–2014. The dramatic increase in funds raised between 2013 and 2014 represent dedicated fundraising efforts in support of the Amp Up NYC initiative. ⁸⁷

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Table 1.

Annual Financial Income.

Based on data collected annually from end-of-year surveys administered to modern band teachers by LKR, both the number of active LKR teachers and the number of students that they serve have increased each year since LKR started tracking that data in 2007. In 2007, the 332 active LKR teachers reported offering guitar instruction to 18,196 students, an average of 55 students per teacher. In 2014, the 1509 active LKR teachers reported offering modern band instruction to 193,331 students, an average of 128 students per teacher. The number of active LKR teachers per year (Table 2) and number of students declared per year (Table 3) are provided below.

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Table 2.

Number of active LKR teachers per year.

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Table 3.

Number of students declared per year.

Little Kids Rock also provides instrument donations for teachers to use in their modern band programs. The instruments are selected by the teachers who attend the workshops, but the instruments are donated to the school district for the teachers’ use. This ensures that the instruments will stay in the school or school district if the music teacher leaves. ⁸⁸ From 2002–2007, LKR offered guitars as part of their instrument grants to schools although intermittent donations of keyboards and drums were made. In 2008, LKR began to expand the instrumentation that teachers could choose from to include keyboards, electric guitars, electric basses, and drum kits. As of 2014, the instrument menu included the previously mentioned instruments as well as ukuleles, microphones, amplifiers, and PA systems (see Supplemental Materials, document 8). ⁸⁹ Table 4 above represents the number of instruments donated to school districts from 2002–2014. ⁹⁰

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Table 4.

Instruments donated by school year.