It’s that time of year again, when Alice Cooper’s words ring true: School’s Out For Summer!!
A time, I imagine, is favoured more by teachers and students than by parents, but just because the school doors are closed doesn’t mean the education has to stop.
When you look at any of the biggest acts in music: U2, The Beatles, Pink Floyd…you’ll be hard pressed to find any that didn’t start twanging a guitar, scribbling a lyric or drumming with pencils on a desk while at school or college.
How many artists were scoffed at by teachers and peers when they aimed for superstardom only to have them queuing outside their gigs a few years later? OK, obviously the odds of making it from rehearsing around the dodgy electrics in your garage to the main stage at Electric Picnic aren’t great, but hey, someone has to keep making music.
Although the bad news is, it can be an expensive hobby which unfortunately means tons of talent goes undiscovered. Enter the Musical Youth Foundation.
It uses donations to buy instruments for children who wouldn’t be able to get them otherwise. And the charity boasts some really innovative ways of fundraising: including accepting your old or broken instruments which they pass on to artists who create once-off pieces of work which are sold to benefit the charity.
Check out its exhibition running at the top floor of St Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre in Dublin until June 24th. It’s the world’s first Instrumental Art Exhibition and admission is free. Find out more information at www.musicalyouthfoundation.org. As someone who used to strum a tennis racquet in her younger days (seriously!) – I’ll be there with cowbells on.
