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Music is such an incredible tool for kids in general. They learn discipline; they learn how to express themselves. You learn math. You learn language. It's the ideal teaching tool, and that's why it's mind-boggling when any school superintendent decides that music is something we can kind of do without.

Music is an element that should be part and parcel of every child's life via the education system.

Music is like the genius of humankind, universal... People who have never really taken the time to get into music, their lives are a lot smaller. Kids deserve the richness and dimension of it in their lives.

I'm a huge fan of music in schools and music education because that's how I grew up.

I think music needs to be presented in a way so that kids can grasp songs, dances, simple music that's associated with some particular defining moment in human experience.

There are different types of talents and intelligences, and traditional schools sometimes ignore the creative ones. It is important for us to give kids every platform for them to find what they are good at and what they love. The arts also provide a space for newfound creativity.

So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.

You cannot help but notice that schools that take music seriously tend to be more academically successful.

In the 1960s when the recording studio suddenly really took off as a tool, it was the kids from art school who knew how to use it, not the kids from music school. Music students were all stuck in the notion of music as performance, ephemeral. Whereas for art students, music as painting? They knew how to do that.