NEW YORK (AP) – When John Sykes saw a band of Brooklyn schoolkids playing in a musical graveyard of stringless violins and taped-up drums, it felt like the day the music died.

"I was shocked because I saw all of these incredibly enthusiastic kids ... had almost no facilities for music, arts, phys ed, anything," recalled Sykes, then president of the VH1 music channel. "Here we were making billions of dollars as a corporation, and a school just a few miles away had next to nothing."

The principal of PS 58 told Sykes she could revive the music programme for a mere $5,000. "You'll have the $5,000. Go get the instruments," the music executive responded – and The VH1 Save The Music Foundation was born.

A decade later, the foundation has tuned up music programmes in more than 1,500 schools in the US, helping one million students enjoy the benefits of music education rather than the sounds of silence – and raising $40 million along the way.

The foundation provides seed money of $25,000 to $30,000 to buy instruments or build laboratories with keyboards, guitars or string instruments. It requires schools to hire an instrumental music teacher, provide music instruction and store the instruments. The foundation marks its tenth anniversary with a celebration last week at Lincoln Center, where Sykes was among the honorees.

In a recent interview, Sykes said he developed the concept and name for the foundation in 1997 while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan after his grade school visit. He envisioned restoring music to one school, then one city, then one state and eventually the nation.

"I was so excited," he said.

Back at his office, Sykes gathered his staff and solicited donations. By the end of the day, PS 58 had its $5,000. He expanded fundraising efforts beyond his staff, to include the whole company. He approached music merchants and corporations. He even sent former US President Bill Clinton a letter.

The sax-playing president even wrote back.

"I'd love to give you one of my saxophones," Sykes recalled Clinton telling him. "Had I not had a music programme, I wouldn't be president today,"

The president invited Sykes to the White House. Before long, he had donated his saxophone and agreed to promote their efforts. In 1999, the president and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton hosted the Concert of the Century on the White House lawn to raise money for the foundation. They were honoured at last Thursday's celebration, along with Mariah Carey and NAMM, The International Music Products Association. Jon Bon Jovi, John Mayer and Roger Waters of Pink Floyd were among the performers.

Despite the successes, continued cutbacks in public school budgets nationwide have left plenty of work to be done, while studies have shown that programmes in music, dance, visual arts and theatre education improve the cognitive development of children.

"I hope we find a day where music and art programmes aren't on the chopping block," said Tom Calderone, chairman of the Save the Music Foundation.

Paul E. Cothran, the program's executive director, said the need will remain strong as long as schools emphasise standardised test scores over developing skills necessary to be creative thinkers.

"Schools with high academic success are those with robust music programmes," he said in April as he watched more than a dozen children working at a keyboard laboratory at Harlem's PS161. The school had no music programme until VH1 Save The Music donated the laboratory in 2002. As he spoke, the school's music teacher, Jan Rudd, helped the fourth and fifth grade students write a song. On the wall behind her were pictures of Bach, Mozart, Aretha Franklin, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie and others.

Also looking on was Laurie Schopp Lock, a VH1 programme director. "Music can really save children," she said.

She recalled visiting Chalmet High School in New Orleans in the spring after Hurricane Katrina, just after new instruments arrived to replace those destroyed in flooding.

"When you lose your music, that's a major hit," said Wayne Warner, the Louisiana school's principal.

He recalled watching Lock and other VH1 Save The Music officials watching the opening of boxes of new instruments and an impromptu concert.

"It was one of the most moving days of my life," Lock said. "I walked in and got all choked up. The principal came out and said, 'I cry every day'."

After Hurricane Katrina, VH1 donated more than $300,000 to schools in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. New Orleans schools, which had received $500,000 in instruments for 21 schools prior to the hurricane, received much of the money.

Lock said some cities including Milwaukee, Rochester, New York, Newark, New Jersey, and Hartford, Connecticut, now have music programmes at all public elementary schools. The majority of Milwaukee's 104 elementary schools had no music programs when VH1 arrived in 2001, she said.

Cities including Baltimore, Denver, St. Louis, Memphis, Tennesse, and Houston are getting close to 100 percent, she said.

Sykes said he always saw the programme going beyond music education. "It was a metaphor that we had to make education a priority again in our nation's public schools, to use our channel to send that message out wrapped neatly around a save the music pitch," he said.

The artists get it, he says, which explains why big name entertainers have lent themselves to the effort. "The artists, even those who don't understand it's more than an art, they'll hop in a car and donate whatever they can, do raffles and anything to raise money," he said.

Sykes said he returned to the Brooklyn school where the programme started a year after his initial visit and listened as a "beautiful orchestra played everything from Beethoven to Barry White."