The Transformative Mission of Major Chords for Minors

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything." — Plato 

“Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common." — Sarah Dessen 

Fourteen years ago John & Katrina Vowell, a pair of longtime Saginaw residents inspired by the burgeoning talent blossoming from the bars, clubs, and coffeehouses populating the Great Lakes Bay Region, envisioned opening a music studio in the city that would simultaneously enrich the lives of children and better the community they live within by providing free musical education.

Armed with donated space, four keyboards, four guitars, and fewer than 10 students, the non-profit musical mission known as Major Chords for Minors was born back in 2011 grounded by the fundamental belief that every kid deserves to experience the joy and confidence of doing what they love.

What this translated into was providing a pathway to creativity and confidence by offering  free lessons, real instruments and creative mentorship for Saginaw’s youth. By breaking down financial barriers that often block these opportunities, they believed collectively we could build a stronger, more creative community.

Three years later by 2014, Major Chords for Minors was serving more than 100 students, and the Vowells were named Saginawians of the Year. By its 10th anniversary, Major Chords for Minors had served more than 1,200 area students, and today that number has grown to 1,500. Providing free private instruction on piano, guitar and drums to children ages 8 to 18, along with the instruments, the studio has relocated twice since its founding and is now located inside First Congregational Church, 403 S. Jefferson Ave.  This creative oasis also employs area musicians, providing them with income and an environment in which to grow.

Recently the Board of Directors at Major Chords hired a new Executive Director, Amy Petty, to shepherd this admirable organization into new and broader frontiers of possibility, successful impact, and engagement.   A classically trained vocalist raised on Rock and Roll, Amy brings both soul and precision to her new role.  After years of touring, recording and performing everywhere from Carnegie Hall to the Kennedy Center – sharing stages with artists like Sarah McLachlan, Jewel and Steve Van Zandt – Amy devotes her talents to ensuring every kid in Saginaw has access to the transformative power of music.

With deep roots in performance, composition and education, Amy leads Major Chords with vision, warmth and experience, coupled with the profound belief that creativity can change lives. When she’s not advocating for young musicians, Amy continues to perform, write and record, carrying her lifelong love of music into every corner of her life.  With a sensibility that focuses upon the nuances of raw emotion and introspection as opposed to glitzy showmanship and posturing to placate audiences, the material served up on her award-winning album The Darkness of Birds is equally uplifting and inspiring, allowing her voice to take flight and transcend whatever darkness may reside within the narrative she is conveying.

At Major Chords for Minors, she’s helping the next generation find their voice – and turn it all the way up, as you will surely discover within this passionate, thoughtful, and in-depth discussion I was honored to have with Amy about her goals for taking Major Chords for Minors to the next level.

REVIEW: I thought a good place to begin is with your musical background. You grew up in Royal Oak at a time when it was transforming into Detroit’s version of Haight Asbury, so I’m curious about what inspired you to pursue music as a career.

Amy Petty: That’s a great question.  Yes, I was born in Royal Oak and when I was there it was just this teeny little town. We had a diner and a dime store and there was nothing really going on.  it was like living in Tiny Town. When I entered high school it really transformed into something and developed this counter-culture with clubs and shops and this alternative bookstore and all these vintage clothing stores. Coffee houses were everywhere.  Frankly, it was this place for the freaks to come hang out. I grew up in the downtown, so would go hang out and became very comfortable among these people in this counterculture. There were lots of artists and I’m sure we had this whole jock culture, but I don’t remember any of that. My whole life was revolving around music.  I knew I was going into music when I was a very little child.

REVIEW: Who were some of the artists that really turned you on when you were a kid and first heard them?

Amy Petty: My Dad was the sound man for a cover band in Detroit so I was surrounded by Prog Rock as a kid - groups like Yes and Led Zeppelin. “I always tell people that I was so strictly raised on Rock and Roll that I didn’t even know who Sonny and Cher were, or The Osmonds or The Carpenters, until I was well into my 20’s. It was in high school that I started discovering music and new, creative things for myself, jazz, classical, pop, the singer-songwriter world. Even still, it didn’t really matter where I grew up. My surroundings didn’t make me a musician. I was going to be that no matter what. But the culture of my town sure helped lead me down that path.

It was such a creative atmosphere that somebody suggested I should try a voice lesson to see if I could sing Opera, which I did. Because I was able to create an operatic sound with my voice that’s what I went on to study in college. I decided to go off in that direction because it built an awesome musical foundation, only it got to become really competitive, which turned me off. You couldn’t be in the Classical music world and just kind of do your own thing, which I think is changing a little bit now as they’re trying to modernize and become more engaged with younger audiences where they combine these two worlds of classic & contemporary through Classical Pops.

REVIEW: So when the opportunity came to assume the helm at Major Chords for Minors, what were your thoughts and some of the things you feel you can bring to the organization given your impressive background?

Amy Petty: That’s also a great question and I will tell you exactly. This job lets me live out my values in all areas of my life - music, community, service, kids - presenting an opportunity to do everything possible to be exceptional in any way that I am able with each of these areas, which is a good start. 

The college graduate in me wants music to be done right with theory and history and all of the components that make music accurate. The rock star in me wants to be risky and messy and creative with no rules, opening room to create whatever you want to do, seeing as music is an extension of who you are. And the Mom in me wants kids to get off their screens and go hang out with their friends and hold a tangible instrument in their hands so they can make loud noise and try new things.

And then just like all the parts of me, I want to live in a town that recognizes how important all of these things are. I believe Major Chords for Minors is an organization that can be all of those things; and if I can infuse Major Chords with all of those things, Major Chords can help infuse those things into the heart of Saginaw. I don’t think I’m uniquely qualified, but I do think I have the right sensibilities.

REVIEW: How many students & teachers do you currently have at Major Chords for Minors and how do you hope to evolve and expand public engagement with the organization?

Amy Petty: Right now our capacity is 72 students and I’m still trying to feel what the magic number is for us. Our capacity is set partly by the number of instructors we have, partly by the size of the facility, but in all honestly its mostly financial.  The cool thing is there are many ways to expand the program beyond having kids show up for their 30-minute lesson every week and then going home.

There’s more ways to be involved with Major Chords and I’m still sorting all that out, not that I want this to become a conservatory - that’s not what I’m thinking, because I want to be way more chill than that; but being a musician is about being immersed in music, so I want to find ways to build a more immersive type of organization and there are ways to make this happen through fields trips -  possibly take the kids up to the Michigan Music Hall of Fame in Bay City and stuff like that.

REVIEW: One thing that impressed me at your Museum Tunes performance earlier this summer was when you talked about first coming to town and discovering how you couldn’t believe how fertile, talented, and broad the musical landscape was here in the Great Lakes Bay Region, and how one of your goals at Major Chords was to make the rest of the state know what's going on here, so let’s talk about that because that’s been one of my own primary goals since day one.

Amy Petty.  I’m embarrassed I didn’t know how strong the music scene was in this region and it was a real eye-opener, but I think the way you start is by getting somebody like me to be obnoxious about it; and I’m in a position where I can do that right now. 

I do go down to Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit and gig a lot, so can spread the word through networking and connections developed downstate. Musically, I’m a little over-committed right now - I’m in a rock band called Itchycoo Park, and then have The Classic Women of Country going on as well as my solo work; but I’ve also done the whole Classical thing, so have that along with exposure in the Country, Folk and Rock worlds going on, and am still piecing it all together.  This may sound high-in-the-sky, but there is something about Major Chords for Minors that I view more as a movement than it is a program.

Today everything is a screen. Everything Music can be created on a computer and people can come in and sing the songs and then we alter it on a computer - and look, there’s room for that. I’m not saying that’s wrong or needs to change, or that I hate it. It’s fine. It is what it is. We need to engage kids where they are exposed to popular music and also get on board, because if you buck it too hard than you’re the one who becomes obsolete, so I don’t want that. I want to meet everybody where they are. There's something about music becoming tangible and outside of ourselves that feels revolutionary to me. And I want to adjust all those parts and facets of so they work in synchronicity.

REVIEW: It would be great if you could get satellite studios in each of the tri-cities I know Major Chords has always been on relatively stable ground, but what are your goals financially and how much do you need to get to a point where you can start expanding and doing more?

Amy Petty: Our budget is in a flux and this is one of the things I’m actually working on right now. Looking at all the components and asking what is necessary? It’s hard to budget and my main thing is that we cannot exist without the community wanting us to exist. I also think most people in the community and especially people in the arts and culture community look at Major Chords as a cool thing, so the main reason I’m excited to do this interview is because I’m launching this new campaign called Give. Groove. Repeat. which is a sustaining donor campaign.

How much do you spend on a cup of coffee very day, or on streaming TV? What is important to each individual person and does this feel important? Does the work at Major Chords add anything to your life or to your community, or to some kid that you don’t know?

This way people can donate $25 dollars a month , or whatever amount they desire, and not even think about it or the benefits it renders. It make things tangible. We’ll be kicking this off probably by the time you go to press and we’re going to do a month-long big push campaign on our website. This way people can have skin in the game in the easiest most relaxed way possible. Look at what people do on some of these GoFundMe campaigns.

REVIEW: It’s a matter of making your case and I think you’re doing a great job with that.

Amy Petty; We often talk about all the great musicians who live in this area, right? But you can’t keep them here if they’re not incentivized to do so. We have instructors who could go down to Nashville and be studio musicians and make a killing down there, or they could go to New York City or L.A,  or Grand Rapids or Ann Arbor. They could go anywhere and whatever the reason is they are choosing to stay here, let’s really make sure they stay here. Part of the reason they do stay here is because they get to work here and be part of something awesome.

Currently we have four instructors: Brad Donley who teaches drums, guitar, bass, and also runs our performance band; Loren Kranz who is a world class musician and human being who teaches keys, drums, guitar, mandolin - whatever you have laying around, really. Hillary Huebler teaches piano and voice, has a theatre background, and is also the music  director at First Congregational Church. Last but certainly not least, we have Joe Balbaugh teaching bass, guitar, piano - another very versatile musician.  

Kids can sign up for lessons and we do have a waiting list, which is both awesome and a problem. I wish we didn’t because we do have more musicians that want to teach, but hopefully this fundraising campaign will change that. We are open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, so we have some of the teachers teaching all three days between 4:00 to 8:00 PM. We have these limited hours depending on what funding looks like, so basically the more money we can raise the more kids we can serve, which is very basic.

The students come from 3^rd to 12the grades and some have been with us for so long they become part of our community, and will gig with us once they graduate; and some are so talented now they’ll come in to sub if one of the regular teachers needs to miss a day. There’s a lot of parts to this mission, but the core is lets create great musicians so they can create great music and be prepared to replace all these older musicians who have been creating music for a long time. And isn’t that what we want - to create a legacy to hand down to other generations?

REVIEW: Who are some of the students that have really stood out because of their involvement with Major Chords?

Amy Petty: Alex Christian is one who immediately comes to mind. He has a really good voice and is a very smart musician who is versatile and creative. I like the translations he brings to many familiar cover songs, and he actually just graduated so he’s one of those guys who’s hanging out and we’re keeping around. He comes to the performance band rehearsals and is mentoring a little bit now, which is great.

I want him to teach with us and hit the road when we start doing gigs, because to me he embodies exactly what the point of this mission is all about. Like me, Joe, Loren, and Hillary, he’s going to be a musician no matter what. We didn’t create a musician because he’s got the fire, the talent, and all the things he needs to succeed. When I first started as a kid what I needed was permission, because I felt like music was a gated community you weren’t allowed into unless somebody opened the doors for you. I know that’s not the case, but when you’re young you need somebody to say to you that you’re allowed to make a mistake on stage, or you’re allowed to try something new - that’s what I want for the kids.

We also have Sarah Clor who plays acoustic guitar and sings and is a girl after my own heart. The first time I heard her I thought to myself, thank you for existing. She is also smart and very creative. We also have some young middle school aged kids that show a lot of creative promise. Adrian is only 10-years old and is a good example of how our lessons are tailored to each kid’s talents and interests - he is focused on music composition above all else. Jamal is a killer keyboard player, a super smart and clever musician and he totally represents the next generation of artists who will keep Saginaw grooving into the future. There’s also Cam, Marshall, Grace, Norah, Freda, Jase, Omar, Aurora, Kika, Raegan…we’re swimming in talent over here. 

Some students will come in to learn music and sometimes they simply want to talk, which is fine because this is also a safe place for kids to be. Sometimes creativity and artistry is about getting to the bottom of what we’re feeling today or difficulties we feel we’re facing; and maybe getting to understand our feelings shows us the most useful way to deliver a song.

REVIEW: What are some of the performances or fundraisers coming up that Major Chords has scheduled for this Fall season?

Amy Petty: On September 7^th we’ll be performing at Parkapalooza and we’re grateful they’ve given us a big chunk of time. We’re going to have instructors performing and we’ll have kids joining the instructors; and I think we’ll feature a few solo acts, and different artists switching and bands switching around every two or three songs, simply because that’s kind of how Major Chords feels anyway - like this tiny tornado for people to watch and see how fun it is. We’ll also be performing at a benefit for Saginaw Harvest Table on September 21^st. Those are the two main appearances coming up, especially with school starting up. We’ll also be performing at a few neighborhood association gatherings.

Major Chords for Minors is located at 403 S. Jefferson Avenue inside the First Congrgational Church in Downtown Saginaw. You can reach them at 989-790-2000 and also visiting majorchordsforminors.org]