Giving Old Musical Instruments and Young People a New Life

Music can move people in many ways. It is a gift that has the power to connect people with a shared interest in a genre, a musical instrument, or through nostalgia for childhood favorites. Whether you are young or old, tone deaf, or play an instrument, music  is an important part of life.

Music can also benefit your health and well-being reported The BBC. It could lower your blood pressure, improve your mood, and may reduce stress. Dementia patients who hear music have helped to connect them to memories and allow communication with others. Music is also a way to teach children valuable skills, especially if they play a musical instrument.

That’s because children who play a musical instrument can foster discipline, help cognition, and build self-esteem. But as music education budgets are reduced in schools, according to Sue Q’s World blog, there are fewer opportunities for children to learn. The cost of instruments and lessons is too prohibitive for many families.

Mending and Matching
In the UK, rehoming used and no longer wanted instruments has become a part of the culture. It solves two problems at once. It keeps instruments out of the trash, an estimated 10,000 instruments are thrown away every year according to Positive News, and removes financial barriers for children who want to learn to play.

The scale of the waste is huge and is partly due to the surge of interest during the pandemic. More than a million adults took up playing an instrument but as interest waned, people began to discard them.

Some of these instruments are not in salvageable condition but many are being restored and reused. Some of these are being repaired by the Arts Council in England through 43 regional hubs that loan instruments to schools and children at very subsidized rates.

“When instruments are returned to the hub, they come back cracked, bent and missing parts,” technician Josie Sherwood at the Devon hub told Positive News. “So, my job is to maintain them.” But there is only so much they can do.

The Olympias Music Foundation
The Olympias Music Foundation gives lessons and provides instruments to 600 low-income students in the Manchester area. The instruments are sourced through the Recycled Orchestra Project, which was founded by Dr Jo Yee Cheung, a music educator based in Manchester. She applied for a grant from the Oglesby Charitable Trust to launch the foundation.

Repairing instruments, especially string instruments requires a lot of expertise and is expensive. So,  Cheung brought in violin maker Helen Michetschläger to run training sessions for music teachers to learn how to do the repairs.

In one family, high schooler Jason plays a 114-year-old mended cello. His sister Azra, 11, plays a violin that was salvaged from a pile of broken violins.

“If it wasn’t for Olympias, I probably wouldn’t have been exposed to a lot of opportunities like I have,” Jason said. His cello has a new lease on life and now so does Jason.

These projects are doing  so much good. They are challenging inequality, according to Sue Q’s World, and countering the idea that creative education should be limited to those who can pay for it. The programs also foster a sense of community  among the children and the people who donate and repair the musical instruments.

The programs are also helping the environment by keeping instruments out of landfills. If you have a musical instrument you are no longer using or know of someone who does,  contact a program in the UK or any other country to give them a second chance.

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