The scene is both organized chaos and creative overstimulation at its finest. A few dozen children, ages “toddler” and up, engage in vigorous play on a surfeit of instruments scattered haphazardly around a spacious living room, tapping or hammering or bashing on percussives of all sizes, from small hand drums to bongos to stand-alone toms and snares, banging piano keys, talking or singing or howling into microphones, strumming guitars and ukuleles. Parents watch from the sidelines with amusement, delight, pride, or mild horror, sometimes picking up a mic or maracas or guitar and joining in, other times interjecting to bring a halt to overzealousness or looming destruction, or to swap out one instrument for a less abrasive one.
Thus, my first introduction to NoiseMakers, Inc., the St. Pete-based school of rock where my nephew’s bombastic 4th birthday jam was held last month.
Anyone can rent the place out for an event in two-hour increments, but NoiseMakers is primarily a place of learning. The school — situated in a welcoming two-story ’20s-era bungalow off Central Avenue — has been bringing music to kids for the past seven years, and every place you look is packed with instruments and festooned with music memorabilia, from Sgt. Pepper puppets in the waiting room to posters covering nearly every inch of wall and varying widely in genre; Bob Marley, Social Distortion, The Rolling Stones, Corinne Bailey Rae, Never Shout Never, Owl City, Willie Nelson. The upstairs bedrooms are used for private lessons and as offices — musical nonprofit Operation Coexist operates here — and each is bright and full of natural light.
The comfortable setting gels with an atmosphere of relaxed study. You won’t find stressed-out students enduring tedious music lessons from long-suffering teachers here, but you will find a palpable air of excitement, anticipation, and curiosity from NoiseMakers students waiting to go into a class or be picked up from one afterwards, and the teachers maintain an amiable fuss-free lesson style. “It’s very laid back,” explains owner and founder Gabe Whitney. “That was one of the things I remember from when I was growing up. All my music teachers dressed in black and smoked cigarettes and I was intimidated by them. I don’t want to intimidate anybody out of playing music, I want to be encouraging, show them the fun side of it.”
For Whitney, it’s more than simply teaching his students how to play. “I want them to learn, definitely. But overall, music should be something that gives them an outlet and allows them to have fun, more than knowing every single note of every scale. ’Cause that will come, in time.”
If an instrument isn’t right, Whitney isn’t the sort to keep torturously going at it, although sometimes it’s just a matter of finding the right song. “They don’t want to play Beethoven anymore, they want to play Taylor Swift.” And if the student is inclined to play more than one instrument, or can’t decide what to play, “We’ll split the lesson in half, and pick whichever one they want to stick with. Or sometimes they go with both. I encourage them to play more than one instrument.”
The seed for NoiseMakers was planted seven years ago after Whitney took his young son to see Tom Petty. “When we were driving home, he said to me, ‘Dad, I want to be a Heartbreaker.’” Problem was, every single place Whitney called gave him the same answer: you can’t teach a 4-year-old to play guitar. As a musician with both classical training and real world experience, he wasn’t convinced. So he attempted on his own and succeeded so well, his son suggested a career change: “He watched the movie School of Rock, and he was like, ‘That’s what you should do.’ A month later, we opened.”
NoiseMakers offers private lessons for guitar, drums, piano, bass, ukulele, violin, cello, voice and mandolin to students of all ages, though most of the offerings are geared toward kids, like group rock band classes that teach the rudiments of developing stage presence and how to perform as part of a group, and songwriting classes that culminate in the creation of an original tune. “Younger kids, we tend to have to put the music there for them, to their words. They’re not long songs. Usually a verse and a chorus.”
Then there’s summer Rock Camps for juniors (ages 4 to 10) and seniors (ages 10 to 15), with showcases at the end of each week-long term and a big End of Summer NoiseMakers concert featuring all of the students. “Basically, they learn drums, guitar, piano, ukulele, then pick their favorite, and we put them together in a band. By the end of the week, they play a song.” These range from “I Love Rock n’ Roll” to “Seven Nation Army” to whatever pop tune is hottest. “‘Riptide’ has been the song of the summer,” Whitney says.
Senior campers go on field trips to music sites (past trips have stopped at the MIRA campus at SPC, Jannus Live and Big 3 recording studios), while local singer-songwriters like Kristopher James and Geri X are tapped to serve as guest teachers. “They play for a half-hour, and then either they’ll jam with the kids, if it’s the end of the week, and the kids will play along with them, or they’ll just teach them some sort of trick or technique. Songwriting is primarily what they talk about.”
These days, word of mouth is strong enough that NoiseMakers doesn’t need to advertise. In fact, the retention rate is so high, several of his students have remained as NoiseMakers instructors. “The kids tend to stay; they don’t do a quick in and out. So I have overwhelmingly known these kids for a long time.”
It doesn’t hurt that he digs working with them. “I’m always laughing. Kids are just awesome.”
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NoiseMakers is currently enrolling in Senior Rock Camp (ages 10-15; July 13-17, 20-24), and a Noisemakers Concert “School of Rock” showcase happens Fri., July 24, 8 p.m., at Hideaway Café& Recording Studio, St. Petersburg; admission is $5. NoiseMakers is located at 5511 Central Ave., St Petersburg. For more info, call 727-345-7472 or visit noise-makers.org.