Chris O’Brien, founder, owner and instructor at the Lake Worth Beach-based music school Music4Lyfe (www.music4lyfe.org), tried doing things by the book.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in music from Florida State University in 2009, the Delray Beach native and resident returned south to pay it forward. Over the next decade, he taught at a handful of Palm Beach County public schools, and at the Lake Worth Beach branch of the School of Rock, sometimes simultaneously, before coming to a realization — that he’d learned enough valuable lessons about how he didn’t want to teach music.
“It always seemed like I was micromanaged in everything I was doing,” O’Brien says. “I didn’t see any reason why I couldn’t just open a music school myself and teach the lessons, build rock bands, and show the kids that they could play well at gigs, get some recognition, and get the community involved.”
He certainly has the requisite experience. In addition to venturing into a career as a teacher upon returning from college in Tallahassee, he joined the popular, three-year-old Boynton Beach-based rock/funk/reggae band The People Upstairs as a saxophonist. Thirteen years later, he’s still with the veteran group, as well as another band called J# (or J-Sharp). And he’s not only a proficient player and instructor on all wind instruments, but also guitar, bass, drums, and percussion.
“We encourage students to learn every instrumental part on a song,” O’Brien says, “and to sing, which helps them learn the relevance of pitch and avoid stage fright.”
Some of the things that School of Rock simply allows, he says, like being a multi-instrumentalist, are things that Music4Lyfe actually encourage.
“It’s something I started teaching when I worked for them,” O’Brien says. “In my program, I try to make sure a kid does everything musically well, and then let them pick what instrument they want to play once they’ve completed all these challenges.”
So O’Brien’s business model isn’t completely unlike that of School of Rock, a national chain with multiple Palm Beach County locations that was further popularized by actor Jack Black’s loose portrayal of founder Paul Green in the 2003 film of that name. Yet there are specific differences that are stressed.
“School of Rock is obviously more rock band-based than public schools,” he says, “but they rotate learning individual songs through their students too quickly. They have trouble retaining the information that way. Here, they have up to 25 songs to catalog, learn, and master, and they can switch instruments if necessary.”
A typical week for a Music4Lyfe student involves afternoon or evening lessons, and weekly Saturday band rehearsals, with additional instructors such as O’Brien’s former School of Rock student, singing guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Zack Hechler; vocal and bass teacher Bill Brutus, multi-instrumentalist Kodi McKean, and percussionist Harley Galeano.
Younger students, ages 5 to 11, learn the basics via simpler cover tunes by Weezer or Sublime, then move on to more nuanced (The Beatles) or rhythmic (311) material. The 12-to-18-year-old ensembles advance to more complex pieces by the likes of Led Zeppelin and the Foo Fighters.
Whiteboards at Music4Lyfe list each student, along with their accompanying ensemble, instrument(s), and artists and songs to learn and perform. There are adult ensembles too, with everyone participating in open mic nights at the school, usually on the first Friday of every other month. So the cover songs listed range from teen choices like The Weeknd and Green Day to the boomer-approved Creedence Clearwater Revival and Sly & the Family Stone.
O’Brien’s methodology is geared toward eventual live performances. In September, a Saturday afternoon student showcase at the Irish Brigade in Lake Worth Beach illustrated how the practices help to improve what he preaches. Members of the advanced quartet Ripped Jorts (who are now also writing original material), the all-female trio Fallout, and younger ensembles shifted between just being lead vocalists, singing while playing an instrument, and alternating between guitar, bass, keyboards and drums.
O’Brien and Hechler did likewise whenever and wherever they were needed, helping the students build confidence in a live setting — the prospectively nerve-racking situation where everyone only gets one chance to get it right.
A capable drummer, O’Brien can be forgiven for his timing being slightly off in opening Music4Lyfe in the unforeseen COVID-19 era.
“This is our third year,” he says. “We started out in Delray Beach. A friend had a studio in a building that was tied to a church property, and he used its bottom floor for his band’s practices. I paid him rent to teach some lessons around those practices, and operated the school out of there for about a year-and-a-half as the only teacher, but I couldn’t really go any further with it because it was a one-room studio.”
Such is decidedly not the case at the Church By the Glades, where Music4Lyfe occupies the entire sprawling third floor. O’Brien has two lighted sound stages there, and several practice rooms filled with mostly donated drum sets, guitars, basses, keyboards, horns, amplifiers, and percussion instruments. He’s also assembling sound-baffled audio and green-screened video rooms to capture performances for recording, marketing, and instruction.
“One of the parents told me about this church,” O’Brien says, “where they had a third floor that nobody was using. I took the tour, and it was dirty and dusty, but things got up and running and going well through the remainder of 2019. Then COVID hit. Good times. I lost about 35 percent of my clients, because virtual lessons aren’t as exciting as seeing someone face to face.
“I thought I’d have to throw in the towel, but the church told me, ‘Just pay us what you can.’ We made it through 2020, and I recently renegotiated on a rent that makes more sense for them,” he said.
The school has an arrangement with the church where O’Brien helps out with everything from cleaning to its own musical presentations. He’s usually there throughout every day and evening except Sunday, when it holds its services and special events. And Music4Lyfe has also persevered and become popular, in part, because of its very reasonable pricing structure.
“It’s currently $250 per month per student,” O’Brien says. “Which equates to $60 for a week of lessons, with no charge for band practices and to participate in live gigs, plus an additional $10 a month for things like guitar strings, drumsticks, and drum heads. I may have to bump that charge up by the end of this year, but that’ll only jump to $300.”
Music4Lyfe’s most popular export thus far has been Beautiful Disaster, an all-female act that until recently played around town, often at Mathews Brewing Company in Lake Worth Beach. But part of the challenge of learning to play in bands is realizing that the personnel within them can prove to be temporary, as the talented but aptly named group found out.
“Beautiful Disaster played at a lot of places in Lake Worth Beach,” says O’Brien. “But one of the guitarists got a little burnt out and took time off, so they turned from a quartet into a trio. Then the twin girls in the lineup moved away, so the band kind of dissolved.”
Obviously, there are more gearing up in the Music4Lyfe pipeline toward taking their place.
Music4Lyfe is located in the Church By the Glades at 127 S. M St. in Lake Worth Beach (561-212-6250).