Music can be an escape, provide relaxation and be an overall release into another mental and emotional plane. It can also invite focus and foundation to those who might need it the most.
Just ask Flea the bass player for the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Before he became a rock star, Flea told CNN, he was headed on a downward spiral of self-sabotage: robbing houses and “running wild on the street.” Music was his salvation and now, along with his childhood friend “Tree” (Keith Barry), he’s giving that same opportunity to kids through their nonprofit music school founded in 2001 in Los Angeles.
The Silverlake Conservatory of Music, which began with a few hundred thousand dollars of Flea’s own money, has been helped along with a few of Flea’s cohorts in the rock world. Andy Summers from the Police, Eddie Vedder, Ben Harper, The Band, Metallica and others have all donated their talents or otherwise assisted in broadening the musical horizons of the school’s 900 students. Twenty-five percent of the students are on scholarship and the others, who have the funds, pay $25 for a half-hour lesson.
Perhaps Huey Lewis sang it best: “The heart of rock n’ roll is still beating.” Especially for some of music’s littlest fans.
Photo courtesy of Sanja Gjenero@sxc.hu.