Inside the nonprofit studio that lets Nashville kids make music for free. 'When you walk in here you're an artist'

Everyone knows what happens when kids are let loose in a candy store, but what about giving children free rein of an entire recording studio? The 18-year-old nonprofit Notes for Notes does just that — and the outcome is equally as sweet.

Some kids find an outlet for self-expression, others a lifelong passion. Some receive a hand-pressed record with their own music and a handful even find an opportunity to perform at Bonnaroo.

The nonprofit has 27-and-counting recording studios all across America — four of which are spread around Nashville. The studios provide youth free access to musical equipment, instruction and recording studios, aiming to use music as a positive influence in kids' lives.

Notes for Notes has quietly been creating space for some of Music City's up-and-coming artists to produce their tunes, operating in Nashville since 2011 and growing their locations over time.

Now, there are studios in North, South and East Nashville and in Franklin; the Franklin studio opened in March.

The Tennessean has been following the nonprofit's story since January, when it anticipated that over 500 youths visit Nashville studios a year, and over 8,500 kids nationally.

By getting the word out, N4N only hopes to grow those numbers — introducing a whole new generation of children to music-making in Music City.

Notes For Notes founder talks starting a musical nonprofit

Upon entering the East Nashville Notes for Notes location at the Boys & Girls Club of Middle Tennessee, neon-lit walls are lined with pictures of musicians and a tiny stage was packed with instruments.

It's a creative kid's heaven.

This Nashville location opened in 2017 with the help of Nashville artist, Lindsay Ell — but Ell's not the only celeb who has endorsed the program.

A star-studded list of supporters, including Linda Perry, Killer Mike, Run DMC's Darryl McDaniels and Rage Against The Machine's Tom Morello, have all championed the program.

The program's advisory board includes equally impressive names. Alan Parsons, Kenny Loggins, Joe Bonamassa, Brendan Urie, Carol Burnett, Peter Frampton, Jack Johnson, Jeff Bridges, and The War & Treaty are some of the many.

While the program is now heavily rooted in Nashville, it started back in 2006 in Santa Barbara, California with founders Phil GIlley, Roderick Hare and Natalie Noone Pressly.

N4N's CEO and co-founder Gilley, a creative who moved from Vermont to California to pursue screenwriting, found himself in need of community when he relocated.

"Being from a small town, Woodstock, Vermont, myself, I was like, 'How do you kind of make a home feel like home?,' Gilley said. "I was like, 'Man, it would be cool to do the Big Brothers Big Sisters program.'"

The Big Brothers Big Sisters programs pairs adult mentors with kids in order to create positive, impactful relationships that youths can carry with them.

After joining the program and going on weekly outings with his little, Gilley realized that he was tapped out of ideas. "You can only go bowling so many times," Gilley said.

His mentee wanted to play the drums, so Gilley would bring him to loiter at the local music store and play around on the instruments. "I'm not a drummer, but I knew enough to kind of teach him some basics," Gilley reminisced. "And that kind of became a regular part of hanging out."

Not all music businesses will be so kind to loiterers, though.

Gilley began to realize the opportunities that lie within music education and mentorship, but that there were no locations designated to couple the two. "That's where the idea spawned," he said.

Gilley's "little brother" never did take up the drums seriously, but that's not what it was about for him. He just wanted him to have the opportunity to play around on the instruments, to get creative.

The idea also came from Gilley's personal experiences.

Back in third grade, a teacher told him that if he couldn't read music, he couldn't play music. So even though he had a knack for music and dreamed of scoring films, Gilley gave up on playing music and didn't pick the guitar back up until he was about 16 years old.

"And so we kind of call ourselves three kinds of free," Gilley said. "Doesn't cost anything to participate, there's freedom of learning...and, probably the most core cultural element to what we do, is freedom of expression."

"I want youth when they walk through the space to feel like oh, like, I can be a musician, my identity can be a musician in here. And my identity doesn't have to be whatever my home life is like or where I'm from or any other disqualifying factor that might differentiate someone," Gilley said.

"When you walk in here you're an artist," he said.

Notes for Notes is making Nashville's next generation of stars, here's who they are

Among the organization's first participants was Nashville artist Taylor Gayle Rutherfurd, a pop star known as GAYLE. She went viral on social media for her 2021 hit "ABCDEFU," a song that earned her a Grammy Award nomination for Song of the Year.

“I went to Notes For Notes for the first time when I was 12 and it prepared me for learning how to record instruments, stack vocals, write songs to tracks, and truly just gave me a space to be creative and to express my emotions fully,” GAYLE told The Tennessean.

GAYLE has become one of N4N's biggest success stories, traveling from their studio to the Grammy Awards, but she likely will not be the last to do so.

Close friends of GAYLE's, Liv Haynes, 19, and Gigi Haynes, 18, are just getting started, too. The two left Dallas, TX two years ago to head to Music City, eager for the writing opportunities in Nashville.

They used to be in a pop-punk trio Not Ur Girlfrenz, an act that became one of the youngest touring bands on Warped Tour.

Now, the sisters make up a Nashville-based pop-punk duo, LIVIA and are part of an indie rock band, Cherry Vance.

As The Tennessean sat in the N4N studio with LIVIA and their friend, Sophia Shi, back in January, they played tracks they were working on and talked through their inspirations.

Their influences range from '90s grunge, like Pearl Jam and Nirvana to Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Elliott Smith and Beabadoobee — and you can hear it in their music.

Liv Haynes said that besides a career in music, there's "no plan B at all. This is plan ABC."

"I'm very much an overthinker, and always worried about everything all the time," she said. "Sometimes, going into the studio can even be stressful." But in a world of music industry stressors, Liv Haynes has found she can be creative and relaxed at N4N.

"I feel like this place genuinely helped me find my style and who I am in the music world," Liv Haynes said.

"I feel like it's an amazing outlet...It's all free. That's crazy. That's not common," her sister Gigi said. "It's a very healthy space. I always have fun, and I feel like that's very important. For some studios...it's sometimes just not fun — creating music should be fun," she said.

Months later, in June, the sisters would perform on a small stage at Bonnaroo alongside Sophia Shi, marking one of their biggest milestone performances.

Mikquala Skelton, another one of the organization's up-and-comers, would join them on the Bonnaroo stage. She started at N4N when she was 12 years old, and now she's just shy of 19.

"I'm full foot on the on the gas, pursuing music all the way," Skelton told The Tennessean in July. She's known since the age of nine that this is what she wants to do.

Through the program, the aspiring pop-country singer has opened for Lauren Daigle, released three singles and is in the process of working on her first EP.

Each year, N4N puts out a vinyl with a track from every studio. A song of Skelton's was one of the ones representing Nashville on this year's record. She even had a chance to watch the record get pressed in Nashville.

"They will never say you can't do something," Skelton said of her time at N4N. "They'll always find an opportunity or a way for you to do something, even if it takes months and months or years and years," she said.

"They've shown me that it is possible for me to do the things that I could only dream of."

Some N4N employees started out as program participants

Some of the youth participants go full circle, continuing to working for N4N as producers, teachers and in other professional roles.

Music producer Dantae McKinney was a N4N artist, now he runs much of the artist development work for Nashville N4N musicians, helping teach the artists how to get themselves on platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.

"It's been cool watching a lot of them. They know how they want to market themselves and portray themselves to their audience," McKinney said. "And they know what type of music that they want to come in and make."

"When I was their age, I didn't really know like my sound," he continued. "It's cool for them to come in with their influences and know how they want to be as an artist."

Will Flores started at N4N at 17 years old. He was a youth participant, then volunteer, and is now on staff. Over a decade later, Flores is now the audio engineer for all of the N4N studios nationwide.

"You'll go throughout life and be like, 'I really wish I would have tried that, you know piano, but I never got up to it.' Sometimes you will never know," Flores said. "And so having a space like this to where someone is a coach or a mentor...having access to learn those things is huge.

"And that just comes with being able to explore," he said.

The reality, though, is that providing all of the materials, resources and volunteers to make N4N happen requires a lot of on-the-ground support.

The nonprofit is always looking for more volunteers and participants, Gilley said. Nashville musicians and music professionals can volunteer their time as a producers, music teachers, audio and mastering engineers.

"We need help mixing because too many tracks come out for one person to put that final mix on mastering help," Gilley said. Musicians who can donate a couple hours a month to teach free classes can give back in that way, too.

If time is out of the question, old instruments and gear can also support the organization.

N4N has partnered with Casio and Gibson to acquire instruments for their studios, other gear comes from studios when they shut down, like one in New York that furnished much of Nashville's East studio.

"Buildings studios and equipping them is not our biggest cost," Gilley said, but supporting their team is the biggest expense.

To learn more about Notes for Notes, head to notesfornotes.org.

On Oct. 11, Liv and Gigi Haynes' band Cherry Vance will perform at The 5 Spot in Nashville with Tiffany Johnson and Crocodyle.

Audrey Gibbs is a music reporter for The Tennessean. You can reach her at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Why Notes for Notes lets Nashville youth record music for free