‘Music inspires’: Investing in Milwaukee’s youth with Notes for Notes studios

When Anthony McHenry walked into the Milwaukee Academy of Science’s music studio, he heard a song that he described as “really, really good.”

“I asked, ‘who was that?’ And I thought I was going to hear the name of some well-established hip hop music producer,” said McHenry, the chief executive officer of MAS. “And it was one of the MAS students who had made the song.”

He felt tremendous pride not only because of the talent that students possess, but because the campus offers opportunities for them to “show their gifts” in the studio, McHenry said.

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee (BGCGM) opened the studio in partnership with MAS in spring 2022. At the time, it was the first of its kind in Milwaukee. Philanthropists Keith Mardak and his wife Mary Vandenberg, former executives at Milwaukee-based sheet music publisher Hal Leonard Corp., funded the project to bring a Notes for Notes studio to the MAS high school campus, located at 2000 W. Kilbourn Ave. Mardak has been a decades-long board member for the BGCGM.

Notes for Notes, a Nashville-based nonprofit founded in Santa Barbara, California, in 2006, builds these studios to provide youth with free access to music education. The nonprofit has 30 studios nationwide in places like New York City, Los Angeles, Nashville, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Since bringing the Notes for Notes studio to the BGCGM and MAS, Mardak has funded the installation of three more studios in Milwaukee, which have all completed construction in the last five months. Dr. Howard Fuller Collegiate Academy (HFCA) has two, with one at its middle school and another at its new high school. A fourth studio wrapped up construction last month at the youth mentoring organization Running Rebels’ east location at 225 W. Capitol Dr.

These studios generally range in cost from about $250,000 to $1 million, depending on the budget and needs of each location, Notes for Notes CEO and co-founder Phil Gilley said.

So far, Mardak said he has spent an estimated $1.2 million to bring these four studios to Milwaukee. He’s looking to fund at least two more. Giving students a channel to be creative and experiment in these studios is a positive force to help get kids going in the right direction, Mardak said.

“Music inspires, and kids will be inspired to do better in life, through music,” Mardak said.

Notes for Notes only has four total studios housed inside schools. Three of them are in Milwaukee, with the other located in High Point, North Carolina, Gilley said. This allows students to learn how to use professional equipment while they’re still in school.

“If they learn how to use it here, they can potentially walk into any studio and have all the basics of how to run a studio,” Gilley said.

Michael Waite, BGCGM senior director of career development and mentoring services, said that with many schools facing depleted arts funding, the presence of these Notes for Notes studios in Milwaukee schools help cover for what’s missing. He also thinks it allows kids to have greater access during and after the school day.

“It’s easier to collaborate and build opportunities within an administration if it is housed inside of a school, versus a standalone location where a student after school has to then travel to a standalone just to get there,” Waite said.

McHenry is excited that MAS was the first school in the country to house a Notes for Notes studio.

“This is an opportunity for our kids to have a state-of-the-art facility, at least in this one particular space,” McHenry said. “They have the highest quality facility, and the opportunity to chase their dreams or just experience something that they really enjoy.”

Inside the studios is ‘an endless realm of possibilities’

When you step into one of these studios, it’s like you’ve been transported somewhere else in the world, said Dae Hill, Notes for Notes’ Milwaukee area manager and manager of community collaboration. The dark, neon-lit spaces offer an array of musical instruments and tools for young people to experiment with — from guitars mounted along the walls, to vocal booths for recording a verse.

“Just being able to come into the space and see visually, like how the youth just react to the aesthetic of being in here, that alone sparks just an endless realm of possibilities in our brain,” Hill said inside the newly-built Notes for Notes studio at Running Rebels’ east location.

Hill is a Running Rebels alum and participated in its music program. He later joined Notes for Notes as a producer in Milwaukee before taking on his manager roles. Notes for Notes places professional producers in each of the studios to provide music instruction.

Young people from all walks of life come to Running Rebels. Some kids are there as part of a court order program, tutoring or an after-school program. Others are looking for a safe space “to escape their everyday woes,” Hill said.

Running Rebels had already been in the music education space before the construction of its Notes for Notes studio wrapped up last month. The organization has a smaller-scale music studio at its central location on Fond Du Lac Avenue, so the new Notes for Notes space will “amplify” the work they’ve already been doing, said Dawn Barnett, co-executive director of Running Rebels.

Barnett was in a meeting with the BGCGM when Mardak, who was also present at the time, said Running Rebels should have its own Notes for Notes studio.

“That’s how it happened. That was it,” Barnett said. “I think he’s interested in giving as many young people the opportunity to be connected with music as possible. He’s known about our work for some time, and knows that we use it as a way to connect with young people. So you put the two together. And he was interested in funding that.”

The Notes for Notes studio at Running Rebels has six breakout rooms with a capacity to have about 50 youths utilizing the studio at a time, Hill said. The breakout rooms — mix rooms, vocal booths and an ISO lounge — offer the ability to explore many aspects of music creation. There’s space to try music engineering, production, track creation, instrumental lessons and more.

“Sometimes people think that, in order to be in the industry, I have to be a great singer, I have to be a rapper,” Barnett said. “There are so many professions that are around the music industry and our hope is that we can expose young people to all of that.”

But before Notes for Notes came in and created the Running Rebels studio, the space was “nothing like this,” Barnett said.

“It was a concrete block workout room, so it was just one big room and then a little side room,” Barnett said. “So basically nothing. It had a bunch of workout equipment in here, storage space, but no real value.”

Its transformation into something reminiscent of a Hollywood or New York professional music studio has already had an impact on Running Rebels youths, who “can’t believe the space,” Barnett said.

“It makes you feel like, wow, I’m worthy of something if I’m in here, and these are the types of resources that are being poured into me, and makes them take it seriously,” Barnett said.

‘An intergenerational investment’

HFCA opened two studios this year, offering a continuum of music education for sixth through 12th grade students.

HFCA High School’s studio was completed in July, just in time for the new school year. The HFCA Middle School studio wrapped up construction in October and has since opened its doors to students as well. The high school studio contains a greater quantity of and higher quality equipment than the middle school studio.

The studios are set to be open year-round, with integration into classes and after-school programming. Both provide students with unique access that many adults have never experienced, HFCA CEO Rodney Lynk said.

“This is an intergenerational investment that Keith Mardak and Mary Vandenberg have put into the city to ensure that kids have access and exposure to things that I, as almost a 40-year-old man, had never seen until I was at this age,” Lynk said. “That’s something special, and I don’t take it lightly or for granted.”

This community investment helps give HFCA students a sense of purpose, Lynk said. With many students coming from underserved communities where they may not have opportunities to tap into their creativity, this helps “kids feel proud of who they are, proud of what they’ve done in all facets, but especially in creating,” Lynk said.

“Kids have multiple identities, and it is our job as an organization to curate experiences to ensure that those identities are being touched on,” Lynk said. “A kid could be a cheerleader, a kid could be an older sister, a daughter. A kid could be a basketball player. And a kid could now be a producer. A kid could be an artist. It’s our job, when we’re going to this next generation of education, to ensure that kids are seeing those things, are aware of those things, are understanding, like, it’s kind of cool for me to make this beat, or make the song. I can create.”

Lynk also pointed to the intense vulnerability of creating a song. Barnett said connecting young people with their passions in a music studio engages them in a way that allows for the ability to work on aspects of their own personal development.

“A lot of our young people don’t know how to de-escalate themselves when they’re upset and angry,” Barnett said. “How do we work that into the work that we do? Being able to speak to them about their relationship with drugs and alcohol and other things? So all of those tie into the development of a young person.”

Freedom of expression is at the core of Notes for Notes’ mission, and this is especially relevant for young people who may find it easier to share things through music that they wouldn’t otherwise be able to, Gilley said.

“That’s all the more important that they have a safe, encouraging environment to fully express themselves so that, in some instances, that may be the only way to learn what’s going on in their lives, (and) help in other ways beyond music,” Gilley said. “Ultimately it becomes an extension of themselves and something to build themselves around as they grow, not only as artists but as people.”

Embracing collaboration

Collaboration is key at Milwaukee’s Notes for Notes studios, and it all starts with the tracks young people create by working with each other.

At HFCA, a student may create a beat for another student in another class to rap on or sing over, Lynk said. 

“That is really powerful,” Lynk said. “We’re showing the humanity of collaboration. I think it’s what’s needed in a lot of places, having kids come together and connect and collaborate and be humans together.”

Notes for Notes producers Derrick Holt and Nick Grace worked with HFCA students to create a holiday album, which was released Dec. 3 on SoundCloud. Holt and Grace have recently started rotating between the middle and high school studios to propel further collaboration between the HFCA studios.

Hill said another layer of collaboration comes from providing service to some of the same kids. Students at MAS or HFCA can use the studios at those respective campuses during the school day as part of a class, and then go to Running Rebels after school, for example, and showcase what they’ve learned, he said. This can also provide them with additional time to create and build mentorship with a producer.

Many young people in Milwaukee don’t have proper transportation to travel across the city to access a Notes for Notes studio, though, so Hill thinks there should be twice as many studios.

“The goal would be to expand,” Hill said. “How can we take what we’re doing here and expand it, and put it into more communities, so that way you have easier access to spaces such as this, to be able to create, and just creating those collaborations across the city, so that way we’re building that community.”

Gilley also said there’s a special potential for these satellite studios around Milwaukee to interact together under the Notes for Notes umbrella.

“There’s just a really unique opportunity that, frankly, we don’t have in any other city because of the diversity of who we’re partnered with, and then the skillsets of those partners, and then the differences in youth that they serve,” Gilley said.

Mardak looks to bring more studios to Milwaukee

Nashville, like Milwaukee, has four Notes for Notes studios. New York City currently has five — the most of any city in the country. Mardak told BizTimes he’d “like to beat New York” and build at least two more studios in Milwaukee.

Gilley also said Notes for Notes is “exploring a fifth, and potentially a sixth (Milwaukee studio) in the coming years.”

“Ultimately, we are only there because Keith has made that support happen, and I mean, frankly, he’s even introduced me to a couple more relationships,” Gilley said.

Mardak has had conversations with Neu-Life Community Development, another youth development organization, about building a Notes for Notes studio at the Milwaukee nonprofit’s future $16.2 million NeuVue facility. The NeuVue project, for which Mardak has also committed $3 million as a lead donor, is expected to break ground in September. Mardak has also discussed funding the construction of a sixth Milwaukee studio for another organization.

“It would not surprise me if we have, one day, the most Notes for Notes studios in any one city in Milwaukee because of Keith,” Gilley said.