 Runa Mataara, pwnu sentp Bundestulu, isi mwaziku nusika, ma za kwa maizio kwenungu iubuza. Anirikani mwaziki mtapu hivia, jo kwa mwaziku nusita kwenungu na waizisha. Iwimu Zishun, n chuwa kwa kawaziku. Yaenu na mwaziki kwenungu waizi, yaenu na mwaziki mwaziki kwenungu woizi, You come across people who have the same desire as you and you find that they are limited in places where they can actually get this music education. So you find it's too costly and sometimes someone can also cry out that will you teach me and I'm like since it's my passion it's what I like doing. So I've been training until I realized that actually I'm good at it and I studied more, I furthered my exams and I started teaching children. So I started at church as a volunteer and I've been volunteering especially in church actually you don't really ask for money but you just want to see the kids perform during the service. My studies were quite funny. Because I could remember I studied in a public school let's say from primary school then I started at Rostambo primary it's just around Zimaman. That's my hood, that's where I grew in and in high school I went to Jamuri high school and in school we never used to do music and you see these schools being public and also where they are located there's no that exposure to the instruments or people doing music professionally so I didn't ring a bell that actually I'm a musician. In school I could remember that the principal at that time he had some guitars in the office and also the principal had this passion for music so he asked who is willing to be trained so they got a teacher and then he trained us the guitar but it was only for like three lessons then he got fired for some reasons I couldn't understand so since the guitar was there so we just used to get to the office and then we play whatever we were taught those three lessons so we keep on repeating repeating because we had no idea on where we can get other materials so after high school I started looking for personal tweeters and I will find these kongalis, I will find people in the band and you see it was quite rough because they will charge expensive and they wouldn't give you what you wanted because at that time I was so passionate about rock and on the look you see most people were playing lingala, rumba so it wasn't really interesting for me so I said no, I can't continue so I started looking just online for rock bands people would do rock then I realized I used to hang out also at the Allianz Fences so I was going with my guitar, I found a person so when they play also I learned a few things from them then my parents at that time they really saw I do have quite a lot of passion so then they enrolled me in the ABRSM so ABRSM is just you learn an instrument so I started learning voice and the piano and the exams they are actually marked abroad and you're being interviewed by the way so the school is in we have the London College of Music so that's where I pursued and also I went and did also at KU but only otherwise known as Tan believes that nurturing young talent is very crucial to their development into adulthood apparently most of my clients are children and this is why you'll find that children they have a lot of time they are not disappointing as compared to others see adults you can say a lesson is this day then they failed to come but see with children they'll be punctual they'll be coming because they don't have quite a lot of things to do and also you find that with children they are not rigid they are open to learn but grownups they will be like no I had a lingala song I want you to teach me that lingala so you'll say like they are limiting you on how you will teach we do have a class where it's only for beginners and a class for the ones who have a little bit quite of experience so we can't mix them so the ones who can play well they have their class and the ones who are beginners we just group them together mostly we do some advertisements like flyers also talk with parents and also from schools just say anyone who wants to learn and just visit us so with the church churches they do have some kids program so actually since the kids are in the church so it's even easier you just go and teach them in their churches in the churches since there are many we kind of do voice we majorly centre on voice and the ones who you feel they can get it faster so you can introduce this instrument let's say a guitar or violin because again it's costly and sometimes you find in churches you have to volunteer so also you have to just do something you are able to handle we do it like as a group so I do have a couple of instructors so we just go as a team someone else will handle a guitar another person will handle a piano such kind of thing he strongly believes that no one is limited not even financial status can limit his target group we go around schools and around schools so we identify we create some kind of a talent search then we identify the ones who are talented and let's say they have no way of being trained maybe they don't have an instructor they don't have money so we kind of take them so first we look for passion we look for interest and discipline so if the pupil or the student has those then we can easily take them in and we train them just for free because again you see with them if they are able to play out there you kind of feel good with the work I bring them to the center so at the center we have like nearly all the instruments so they kind of the first week they explore all the instruments also they engage with different instructors and after a week you can clearly tell that this child wants maybe a piano or a guitar or violin so now since they want to do that so we give them just a quick lesson maybe for 3 months and see how they respond to it the interesting thing about music is the basics are the same regardless to which genre you want so in the first 4 months if you just take the beginner course like properly you realize that you will know these strings let's say for it's a guitar CG is still G whether you are playing any other song now the idea is now you have these basics so if you have the basics what do you do next? now we go to another level now you have the basics so we go to another level now this level requires you to be creative so you are given some notes some songs then you are told now since you do love these songs I want you to be creative I want you to try it and you realize that if someone has an interest it will be easy for them to be creative and you really even don't need to teach them how to do it because you already taught them the basics so you tell them now with these songs this is what they do now have you understood? yes now do you will find eventually they are like wow so this is the thing ok I kind of did some research and I realized that kids who have been trained music they do have discipline they are good time keepers see with music you can't play music if you can't keep time and also you can't play music if you are not disciplined and also they boost the concentration especially classical music you will find you have to concentrate on a piece so in school it helps even the education especially if you are scoring 40% in maths you can boost it to 70% Matara tells me the genres of music and other forms of arts that he teaches and why it is important well actually something interesting happened because I started off from rock but you see when I joined school I was taught classical music and I realized that classical is amazing because it has now music it's deep, it's deep and there are quite a lot of interesting stuff like to learn especially when you are doing the piano you realize that so also you can create emotions out of music just the way you play and also that's where also I realized that also I can compose something and I realized actually music it's important to do music like broadly just not limiting myself to rock because I realized there is quite a lot you can experience if you just became open to other ventures and also that's why also it became easy for me to teach because you see when you are teaching when you are guiding someone you will find they have variety of interests so it's important as an instructor you learn what other people do so that it becomes easy and by doing that actually it developed an interest to all sorts of music classical music it's so cool like by many people it's a music with a bunch of rules but actually I quite agree to some point you see with classical music you stick to certain kind of rules let's say we know of great classical composers like we have Chopin we have Mozart we have Beethoven we have Vivaldi we have quite a number of them and you will find they wrote pieces and now with classical you will get those pieces and you see you have to play them in the exact manner like giving that emotion so you kind of don't have that kind of freedom that you can do wherever you want but as compared to this other music like jazz also like blues you can explore you can explore some new technique some new style so yeah that's quite that's the difference between them so with classical it gives you a good foundation it gives you the discipline the right discipline for music now when you say now I'm graduating I can't be playing things which these are old composers composed so you start your own new stuff you blend new techniques and see how it comes music is a journey music is experimental so we just have to find a way of coming up with something new out of the old we do have also dance classes we have ballet, ballerina and also we do have also classes for contemporary dance and hip-hop, salsa and I realize actually most kids they do love ballerina as compared to adults they like salsa we train them for me I don't dance but our instructors they do train dance I realize that some they good at drawing painting such kind of stuff so we also encourage them and especially for kids when we have a program let's say a holiday program so we incorporate music but also we don't live out like a person who can train like drawing, painting such kind of stuff so they do music partly and also they engage in this other kind of art standard mid-star sometimes it is challenging when dealing with kids but patience is key and yes it bears fruits training kids especially you need a lot of patience because you see kids are not like grownups and kids you realize that especially now I trained from ages from 3 years old like upwards and 3 years old, 4 years old it's quite challenging because you'll find these kids you can't push them like grownups you'll have to be patient with them and you realize that the concentration span at most is 10 minutes so without 10 minutes you have to cover very significant materials because if you have a lesson for 30 minutes the next 20 just practice and talking and practice and you say you have also to be fun you have to develop a bond with them you just need to be friends for them to learn and for them to be open with you and be ready but if you don't have that bond you'll be coming to class and they are like no we don't well at our training in this school days we train mostly in the evenings let's say some schools kids come from school at 3 so you'll find they go change they come maybe from between 4 to 4.30 between that duration up to 7 o'clock so you'll find some and during the weekends we kind of group them in a way then you find you're giving them a chance to expose themselves to to how do I put it to each other so you'll find if this place guitar this place piano so you kind of create some kind of a band well not really a professional band but just to see can they play together so you just give them and then it's fun to compete unless we just create some kind of competition for them we see who can play better than the other for a group we go for 2 hours for a group but if I'm doing just personal 30 minutes is enough in a day Stan reveals to me his strongest desire for the trainees future plans for his center for the arts and entertainment industry so my desire is these kids to be of great influence in the society and really not just great but positive influence ya you know aren't like you've trained a kid then is full of controversies and you're like arts in 10 years I cannot really say but what I'll say is just takes baby steps and slowly by slowly I can say the past like 5 years we've really grown and yes by the next 10 or so we'll be having quite a lot of talents which we've made coming up with a big school which teaches arts and music and dance ya just an art school whereby we have music we have people learning you see even carpentry is an art just like doing the pottery these things maybe painting ya just having a big art school whereby each and everyone can communicate you see art is mostly communicating you can find a person making a pot or a paint well we may not really understand but that paint communicates something for the people who understand in his closing remarks I'll just say people shouldn't give up because if it's giving up then I myself have given up very long time ago because they are challenges and actually in Kenya being doing art is very challenging is very challenging and I will encourage even if someone is doing art they should have another career just something to put food on the table but if you come art thinking that it will give you quick money I think you'll be going down in a very bad route so arts need patience I'll say for people who have been touched by what we do and feel and courage and also the ones who have been supporting us even by bringing their kids really thank them and really enjoy working with them