Click here to learn about our "Create A Mural Now" workshops, where youth work as a team to design and create a mural. The theme can fit your needs. Each project culminates with a party and gift bags for all participants.

Music Programs - Sound Off

We have five main areas within our music program which include: private lessons, group lessons, music appreciation, motivational drumming and rap workshops, and music talent shows. The young artists are guided in their careers as their original music is developed. We bring them to professional recording studios where they can create demos of their songs. Also, through music mentoring, Create Now is able to match aspiring young musicians with professionals, opening new doors for troubled youth.

Featured Program: Music Days with Mark Schulman

Mark Schulman has been playing drums since he was three-years-old. Practice paid off! He’s so good at it that he’s spent the last few years traveling around the world with P!nk. Before that, he toured with Cher for three years, and has also performed with Sheryl Crow, Billy Idol, Destiny’s Child, Stevie Nicks and Foreigner, amongst many other top musicians.

In addition, Mark presents an amazing motivational seminar called “Find Your Rhythm” for corporations like IBM, Mattel, Cisco, McDonald’s and universities such as M.I.T., Oklahoma State and Cal Poly. He shares stories about his life on the road as a world-class drummer, fused with his experience of surviving testicular cancer.

Read more about Mark Schulman‘s presentation

Featured Program: Music Days at Upward Bound House

Gabriela Forgo is a student at Santa Monica College. She wanted to share her love of music with some needy children in her community. Create Now referred her to Upward Bound House, where she’s been teaching piano to a group of young children who were homeless, but are now in a transitional living shelter. Gabriela tells her story below.

As a child I always knew I had a strong passion for art and music, yet it wasn’t until later I realized the positive and at times inspirational influence art has on everyday life. I wanted to take advantage of my creative talents and use it to make a difference; I just never knew where to start. Create Now has given me the opportunity to teach music to a group of amazing children in a transitional living shelter called Upward Bound House. Ranging from ages 3 to 9, while there is a significant age gap between some of them, all are eager to learn more. Even months after our first music session they still come running up to me with big smiles on their faces asking: “Is it Music Day? Is it Music Day?” I smile back at them and reply, “Yes today is Music Day!” They don’t scream with excitement, but you can tell they want to.

Read more about the Upward Bound program

Read About Some of Our Previous Featured Music Programs

A Beat of their Own at Upward Bound House
Guitar Workshop at Optimist Group Home

Special thanks to the sponsors of our Sound Off program

In-N-Out Burger Foundation, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Northrop Grumman Foundation and the Good News for Kids Foundation. We're very grateful to all of our sponsors.