Lauren’s teacher, Corey Decker, offers encouragement to her eager student.

Right in Tune

Posted April 7, 2011

8-year-old Lauren Perry has only had a violin on her shoulder two months.

COREY DECKER offers a high five to her student, Lauren Perry, who has just played a perfect exercise—eight measures—on her violin. 

But Lauren can’t quite high five back, because she’s holding her bow the way she was taught when she first picked up her instrument two months ago.

“I guess a high five doesn’t really work with violinists, does it?” Corey jokes.

Not quite.

But praise is praise, no matter the form, and the 8-year-old music student beams with pride. 

Lauren’s enrolled in Scrollworks, a program in Birmingham, Ala., that offers free music lessons to students throughout the area. It’s an arm of the non-profit Metropolitan Youth Orchestras of Central Alabama (MYOCA), founded in 2007 by Jeane Goforth and Nick Lakansky. 

“At our first youth orchestra rehearsal, the young musicians were great, but they were all suburban kids who had really nice instruments and had been taking private lessons,” says Jeane. “We wanted to recruit students from urban and rural areas as well. Then we realized, ‘We can’t recruit them. We’re going to have to create them.’” 

Thus, Scrollworks was born, and Jeane began working with Birmingham City Schools to enlist students. She also reached out to organizations around the area that could donate money or even instruments.  

Today, Jeane and Chief Operating Officer Jimmy Hrom coordinate a network of 17 teachers who are instructing 130 students from throughout the Birmingham Metro area and even as far away as Hanceville, an hour’s drive north. Some of the teachers are like Corey, a senior at Birmingham-Southern College, who has a strong music background. (She’s a History major, but she’s been playing the violin since she was five.) Others are professional musicians, such as Meaghan Heinrich, the Education Director with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra.

“With Scrollworks, the goal is not about checking skills off the list,” says Meaghan. “It’s about using music to make these children feel good about themselves and give them a better quality of life. Every time I teach, I ask myself, ‘How can I make this child love music today?’ Sometimes that means working hard towards a goal, and other times, it means just messing around with the instrument and having fun.”

Lauren definitely has fun. With each exercise, she only breaks her focus to give a big smile. And, in lieu of high fives, Corey begins affixing stickers—lady bugs and smiley faces—to Lauren’s sheet music.   

“I really feel like every child has some passion, something that’s going to ignite them. With some kids, it’s going to be football. With others it’s going to be Girl Scouts,” says Jeane. “But for some kids, that thing is going to be music. And if you can get that passion ignited, then that becomes their focus.”

METROPOLITAN YOUTH ORCHESTRAS OF CENTRAL ALABAMA (MYOCA) is a Regions customer.

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