A new home and mission for the Tuned In Academy

Among the places the Tuned In Academy, a music school, has called home is a Lacey residence, the basement of a downtown Olympia building and 630 square feet of office space.

Despite the transitions, the school has grown to 100 students and has secured a location in Olympia, more than doubling its space for classes. They now have a dedicated room for keyboard classes, brass and wind instruments. If you’re a piano student, but don’t own one, there’s a permanent piano to use by appointment.

“It’s neat to have the building filled with sound,” said Sean-David McGoran, 41, who started the academy with his wife, Jenna. Both of them met at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, one of the premier music schools in the country.

But the McGorans had a bigger vision for the academy, wanting to convert it to a nonprofit, which might put it in a better position to lower lesson rates to serve low-income students or the homeless, to offer scholarships to students or to use the power of music in addiction recovery.

“There’s a purpose and calling to do more beyond myself and to enlist the abilities of others,” Sean-David McGoran said.

And some of that comes with the territory when you create a nonprofit, he has since learned.

The academy has a governing board and an advisory board, both of which provide input on the direction of the organization. They also created bylaws that govern how the nonprofit will be run.

Asked how it felt to go from business owner to part of the overall organization, McGoran acknowledged that it was “kind of freeing.”

“It was never about us,” he said about he and his wife.

If someone is considering a nonprofit, McGoran said, they need to think carefully about its purpose and the creation of bylaws, because they can help guide the nonprofit in times of crisis — a leadership crisis, for example, or what he called “mission drift.” And the board probably shouldn’t be stocked with family members to avoid conflict.

With a new location and focus, the academy can grow to 250 students, McGoran said.

The academy has classes 1-6 p.m. most Mondays-Fridays. The academy is planning an open house 1-2:30 p.m May 6 at the South Puget Sound Community College campus in Lacey. Prospective students can learn about the academy and its faculty.

Don’t underestimate the power of a good music teacher, as McGoran learned.

He started playing piano as a child but wasn’t that interested in it. He gravitated toward trumpet in school. But by the eighth grade, he was simply going through the motions as a musician.

His teacher, Gail Phillips, called him on it. McGoran said she told him to stop playing music or take it seriously and offered to teach him privately.

He later pursued music as a career, and they have stayed in touch ever since, McGoran said.

This story was originally published April 22, 2017 at 2:00 PM with the headline "A new home and mission for the Tuned In Academy."