MOSES LAKE — Young musicians need good teachers, and sometimes those can be difficult to find. A Moses Lake High School senior has created a way to connect students with the instruction they need. 

“Often people have to go outside of our area to go find music teachers or people to study with, or people to help them with their instruments,” said Molly Hanover, who’s compiling a directory of local music teachers in conjunction with Columbia Basin Allied Arts. “And so I think providing that database of music teachers or people that can help (will mean they) don’t have to go far or pay a lot more to commute to another area, which is what I've been doing.” 

Hanover, who plays flute in the Moses Lake High School band, said she first noticed inequities in music education when her band did an exchange with an affluent Seattle-area school district. Some of the Moses Lake students were playing on old and broken instruments, she said, while the other district’s students had thousands of dollars’ worth of instruments. That set her to thinking about ways to make music and music education more accessible to students, which in turn led to her contacting CBAA Executive Director Shawn Cardwell.  

“We looked at a list of amazing ideas and insights that Molly has for the musical community in Moses Lake and the surrounding areas and … we thought the music teacher database was something that we could start on immediately and for relatively low cost,” Cardwell said. 

Teachers can benefit from this directory as well, Hanover said. 

“It’s hard for music teachers around here to get the word out,” she said. 

The directory can also help school music teachers when their students approach them asking where they can find further instruction, Hanover added. It’s also good for parents whose children are interested in music, Cardwell said, including her 5-year-old. 

“My daughter … loves playing piano,” Cardwell said. “My husband also brought home a half-size violin and a three-quarter-size cello, and we have a guitar in the house. It’s amazing how connected children are to creating music and expressing themselves that way. And I’ve been like, well, I don’t know who to start with … There’s a need in the community.” 

Teachers who would like to be listed can fill out a very simple questionnaire asking about their education and experience, what instruments they can teach and their rates. The questionnaire also asks for a website, which can just be their personal social media page, and a photo. Those are simply to make sure the person registering is legitimate, Cardwell said. 

There are no particular minimum qualifications, Hanover said. The directory will include instructors in Grant, Adams and Lincoln counties, as well as those who offer lessons online. 

“Basically, we're trying to get teachers who work in the Columbia Basin who have some sort of education in their instrument and who know the instrument well enough that they can teach it,” she said. “That includes everybody: music educators, people who have gotten a degree in music who need to take some dust off their case and start teaching again and people who are really passionate about teaching music.” 

As of Monday, CBAA had signed up instructors in voice, piano, drums, guitar, ukulele, trumpet and flute, Cardwell said. 

At the same time, CBAA is compiling a directory of local musicians and bands, to help connect them with performance opportunities and increase their visibility. As of Monday, about 40 musicians had registered. There is no cost to be listed in either directory. 

Once the directories are ready to go live, they’ll both be hosted on CBAA’s website, Cardwell said, for the public to access at will. 

Cardwell was impressed with Hanover’s drive and the quality of her ideas, she said. 

“Molly was so inspiring to me and continues to be inspiring,” she said. “There's two sides to the conversation. There are those who observe her generation from arm's length and think that they need to be fixed somehow. And then there's those of us who get the opportunity to interact with them, and you realize they just need to be given a chance. They need to be listened to, and they need to be given an opportunity to inspire us.” 

Teachers and musicians can register for the directories at www.cba-arts.org. 

    Columbia Basin Allied Arts Director Shawn Cardwell said connecting students to music instructors can help young musicians in many ways.