Instrument-lending library aims to widen access to learning music

Aspiring musicians itching to try a banjo, bongo drum or violin will get the chance thanks to a new instrument-lending library launching in Toronto, an initiative expected to expand to more Canadian cities as well.

Juno-winning singer-songwritercouple Raine Maida and Chantal Kreviazuk helped kick off the Toronto Public Library's musical instrument lending program Thursday morning at the Parkdale Branch.

"I can speak from my heart and say that I can't imagine a world without music, my life without music, my children or our marriage without music," Kreviazuk said, as the couple donated a guitar and keyboard to the new program.

Metro Morning5:14The musical library

"Libraries are about connecting people to opportunity and breaking down barriers to access," Ana-Maria Chritchley, TPL manager of stakeholder relations, told Matt Galloway on CBC Radio'sMetro Morning early Thursday.

"We know how much music can add to life and what an important part of our life it can be how much meaning it can add but not everyone has access to an instrument for various reasons,perhaps financial or otherwise."

Organizers have also launched a donation drive, asking for new or gently used instruments to be dropped off at the Parkdale Branch or at two Long and McQuade music store locations in Toronto.

TPL is partnering with Sun Life Financial,which donated $155,000 tothe new pilot program. It begins with100 instruments at the Parkdale Branch, for now.

According to a Sun Life representative, logistics for a wider expansion of the instrument-lending concept to library systems in Vancouver, Montreal and other Canadian cities are being sorted out.

Instrument library 'makes so much sense'

The program follows in the footsteps of Kingston, Ont.'s successful Joe Chithalen Memorial Music Instrument Lending Library, a charity founded in memory of a local musician.

Dubbed Joe's MILL, the charity has loaned out its collection for free to music students, schools and individuals living in the area for more than a decade.

"We have a huge variety and inventory of different kinds of things. Once you register as a borrower, just like at any book library, you take different instruments away and hopefully learn to play them," library co-ordinator Roger Eccleston told CBC News.

Over the years, the Joe's MILLofferings have grown from the late Chithalen's personal collection to more than 750 instruments, having received donations from the public as well as bands such as the Tragically Hip and April Wine.

"What we want to do is give absolutely everybody [regardless] of background or gender or anything like that the opportunity to learn to play a musical instrument," Eccleston said.

"It's a given that every community has a book library. Why shouldn't they have an instrument library? It makes so much sense."

In 2014, for instance, Joe's MILLcounted more than 5,000 loans of theinstruments in its collection.

There are so many people who just wouldn't have the opportunity to play music, to learn music.- Jeff Creamer, music educator

Jeff Creamer, general manager of Dorian School of Music in Kingston, calls the instrument-lending concept"absolutely integral."

About a quarter of his students use borrowed instruments, and the longtime music teacher has donated money and instruments to Joe's MILL.

"There are so many people who just wouldn't have the opportunity to play music, to learn music, because they can't afford instruments or they just don't have access," Creamer said.

"It improves memory. It improves all cognitive skills. It improves fine motor skills. It's endless what music does... It's the universal language so if you learn music, you learn to speak to the whole world."