Our Program
A hybrid music literacy initiative designed to bring instruments, technology, and the natural world to Mississippi youth — regardless of where they live or what their family can afford.
What we're building
The L.E.A.R.N. WindStars Program is structured around three interlocking pillars: a self-paced digital learning suite, remote mentorship from A Place for Music staff, and a Mobile Eco-Acoustic Lab that deploys directly into school yards, parks, and community centers.
The philosophy is simple: technology and nature aren't competing forces. In our program, a digital audio workstation works the way a biologist's microscope does — it helps students observe, document, and understand their world. The physical instrument becomes their voice inside it.
L.E.A.R.N. stands for
Learning Every Artist's Real Needs
The program targets youth ages 5 and up in Central Mississippi, with a founding-year pilot focused on the Jackson metropolitan area. Every aspect of the curriculum is designed to be free for participating students.
How it works
Students engage with a curated suite of learning apps — ear training tools, rhythm recognition software, sight-reading platforms, and music theory games — building foundational skills on their own schedule before ever touching a physical instrument.
A Place for Music instructors provide virtual coaching, progress reviews, and one-on-one feedback to reinforce independent study. Students are never learning alone — they have direct access to culturally competent teaching artists who understand Mississippi's musical traditions.
The centerpiece of the program. We're building a self-contained mobile unit — weatherproof rolling vaults packed with iPads, field microphones, digital audio workstations, and Nuvo wind instruments — that deploys directly into communities, converting any space into a working conservatory.
Inside the lab
Instruments
Nuvo WindStars instruments — Dood, Toot, jFlute, jSax, Clarinéo, jHorn — lightweight, washable, climate-resistant wind instruments designed for beginning players
Recording
High-fidelity directional field microphones, wind-protection blimps, and portable audio recorders for capturing the sounds of Mississippi's natural environments
Production
iPads with rugged cases, pre-loaded with GarageBand and the full L.E.A.R.N. app suite, connected to small-format MIDI interfaces and studio-quality headphones
Power
Solar-assisted charging vaults and portable generators allow the lab to operate anywhere — school yards, state parks, community centers — without grid power
The curriculum
Students begin in a gamified digital sandbox — leveling up ear training and rhythm skills through apps before learning to route physical audio signals into a mixer. By the end of Week 2 they can hear the architecture of a song.
Field expeditions begin. Students record organic textures — cicada canopies, river currents, wind through longleaf pines — then bring them into digital audio workstations and begin composing alongside the samples using Nuvo wind instruments.
Students learn copyright basics, complete an ASCAP/BMI split sheet, and export their final compositions for distribution. The cohort closes with a public showcase — their work pinned to a geolocated Digital Sound Map of Mississippi.
What success looks like
Music literacy baseline
Within 6 weeks, at least 80% of enrolled students will demonstrate measurable improvement in note identification speed and rhythmic accuracy against their own baseline.
Students served per unit, per year
Each Mobile Lab is designed to reach at least 250 unique students annually across Central Mississippi, at zero cost to the families.
Pipeline transition rate
At least 30% of students completing Level 1 of the WindStars curriculum will transition into school band programs, community ensembles, or intermediate digital music modules within 12 months.
We're seeking funders, partners, board members, and community allies who believe Mississippi's next generation of musicians deserves more than what's currently available.