With a desire to make music accessible to all children, Candice Wu (9) and Harper Xu (9) founded the Note by Note foundation, a club initiated to share musical performances and mentorship to children. Saturday, Note by Note hosted its first official event: a series of musical performances for children from Rady’s Children’s Hospital at the Ronald McDonald House Charities. In this 1.5-hour long performance, the kids, families, and workers from the hospital watched 10 volunteers from Westview and other local high schools perform.
“We were hoping to bring these kids joy with our music,” Wu said. “This was our first official event, and we’re very excited about it finally happening.”
Wu said that Note by Note had been preparing for this event since January and was relieved that everything came together successfully.
“This performance took us a little over a month to prepare for,” Wu said. “We reached out near the end of January, and it took quite some time to settle on dates, times, and who is performing. It felt really rewarding to see the performances go so well and the families having a good time listening to them.”
Both Wu and Xu grew up playing instruments, which inspired them to create this foundation that would provide other kids with opportunities to play music.
“Our mission is to provide children with access to not only musical experiences, but also musical education,” Wu said. “Music was always a huge part of our lives growing up. Music helped us not only gain confidence but also build so many connections. So, our goal is to give children, regardless of their background, the joy that we experienced growing up with music. They’ll get to experience the sense of belonging and build their confidence.”
Wu said they were inspired to create Note by Note after seeing the effects of school budget cuts.
“When a school’s budget gets cut, the first thing to go is usually the arts program, and that includes music,” Wu said. “So these children may have had a little experience before, but they have never gotten to be a part of it. This is why one of our biggest hopes is to not only give these children an opportunity to listen to music, but to have a chance to be a part of it through our program.”
For Wu, playing an instrument has positively impacted her life and has shaped her personal growth. Driven by this impact, she sought to help other children to experience that in their lives too.
“I think it’s important for kids to play an instrument,” Wu said. “You get so much out of it. I play piano and violin. Playing an instrument, at least for me, has really helped me build my confidence. Music was always a place where I felt supported and proud of myself. Whenever there was a piece that I would work hard on for months, finally getting that piece down and seeing improvement was such a great feeling. It also helped me learn to manage my time better and stay on top of things. I want children to get this out of the musical experiences we’ll provide them.”
A challenge for the foundation was promoting itself outside of Westview, but they have been working through that.
“We had this music drive that involved a lot of connecting with local high schools, libraries, and youth orchestras, and it was hard to get the message out there and encourage people to donate to our music drive,” Wu said. “So to combat this, we are having other students from other high schools help to promote our foundation and post videos to try to help grow our following on social media.”
Note by Note is working on starting workshops to help kids improve their musical abilities.
“Our next goal is to finally start hosting workshops at elementary schools, whether it is in school programs or at ESS,” Wu said. “We’ve also been looking at hosting free workshops at libraries and local youth centers.”
As Note by Note finally starts coming together, Wu said that she and Xu are looking forward to what the foundation will become.
“It feels so amazing to see Note by Note come to life finally,” Wu said. “We started this back in September, and we put a lot of thought and work into it. Seeing our first event happen successfully is such a rewarding feeling, and I am so excited to see our growth in the future.”
