The click of a table tennis racket swatting a tiny white sphere. The murmur of hundred-odd kids, the squeaking of their sneakers on a gymnasium floor. To anyone who's ever visited a Boys & Girls Club, it's a familiar, if harsh, cacophony.

Today at the E.L. Jack and Monica Armstrong Youth Center – Boys & Girls Club in East Bakersfield, sweeter, more melodic sounds are filling the air thanks to the recording studio located in a previously underused area of the gamesroom. Since the studio opened, Club members, especially the teens, have been writing and recording their feelings into songs.

The need for a music and recording studio program at the Armstrong Youth Center – Boys & Girls Club arises from three essential facts about the role of music in young people's lives:

1. The nearly universal passion for music-making among youth nationwide.
2. The pervasive lack of opportunities for many youth to actively make music.
3. Music making's demonstrated a positive influence on intellectual and social development.

Music exerts an immeasurably powerful influence on the imaginations and identities of young people. In this sense, the recording studio faces the happy task of channeling energy and interest that already thrive among the young people we serve every day.