Talent Is Everywhere. Opportunity Is Not.
Starving Artists Courses is a performance-based music education company helping aspiring musicians develop the skills, confidence, and real-world experience to create, collaborate, and perform.
More Than Music Lessons.
Starving Artists Courses brings together professional musicians, educators, and performers to create music education experiences built around one simple idea:
Students should actually make music.
Our students don't just study concepts. They learn instruments, play songs, form bands, write music, collaborate with other artists, and work toward real performances.
Our growing music education ecosystem includes courses and coaching in acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bass guitar, piano, drums, violin, voice, and music theory—supported by instructors with real-world experience on stages, in studios, in classrooms, and throughout the music industry.
Whether a student discovers us online or through one of our organizational partnerships, the goal remains the same:
Unlock their creativity. Develop their musicianship. Give them an opportunity to use it.
It Started With a Room Full of Young Artists.
In 2013, musician and educator Juiette Z. Payne founded Starving Artists Studios, a nonprofit after-school arts program in the Chicago area.
What started as a desire to teach music grew into a thriving creative community serving more than 50 students each week.
Students learned. Bands formed. Creativity flourished.
And at the end of each semester, students stepped onto a stage in front of their families and communities to perform what they had worked so hard to develop.
Those performances revealed something important:
Music education becomes transformational when students have somewhere to take what they've learned.
In 2016, Juiette and his wife were preparing to welcome their first child, and the demands of operating an evening nonprofit while supporting a growing family led to the difficult decision to place Starving Artists Studios on hiatus.
But the mission never disappeared.
It transformed.
From One Location to a Music Education Platform.
The original question was simple:
How could we take what worked in those rooms and make it available to far more people?
That question eventually became Starving Artists Courses.
What began as an online music education concept has grown into a broader model combining digital curriculum, professional music coaching, live programming, and organizational partnerships.
Today, SAC works to bring performance-based music education into the places where people already gather—schools, churches, community organizations, and homes around the world.
And we're still building.
Our vision is to develop a comprehensive music education ecosystem where students can begin with the fundamentals, progress through structured curriculum, receive coaching from accomplished musicians, collaborate with others, and ultimately step onto a stage with the confidence to perform.
We're not simply building courses.
We're building pathways for musicians.
Meet Juiette Z. Payne
Founder & Music Director
Juiette Z. Payne is a musician, songwriter, educator, entrepreneur, and founder of Starving Artists Courses.
His work in music education began more than a decade ago with the founding of Starving Artists Studios and has since expanded across digital education, youth programming, organizational partnerships, live performance, and music coaching.
As a performing musician himself, Juiette has always approached education differently.
He believes music is a language—and before musicians become consumed with simply reading it, they should have opportunities to hear it, feel it, play it, create it, and communicate through it.
That philosophy continues to shape the curriculum and coaching model behind Starving Artists Courses today.
Juiette leads SAC alongside a growing network of professional musicians and instructors committed to helping the next generation develop their gifts and use them with confidence.
Why “Starving Artists?”
The name has never meant broke.
It means hungry.
Hungry to learn.
Hungry to create.
Hungry to develop the gift inside of you.
Hungry for an opportunity to use it.
We believe extraordinary musical potential exists in classrooms, churches, neighborhoods, and communities everywhere—but access to instruction, mentorship, instruments, and performance opportunities isn't distributed equally.
This belief is at the heart of everything we do:
Talent Is Everywhere. Opportunity Is Not.
Starving Artists Courses exists to help close that gap.
We're Just Getting Started.
Our vision extends beyond individual courses.
Starving Artists Courses is building toward a comprehensive music education curriculum capable of serving students throughout their musical development—from their first note to their first performance and beyond.
We're developing new curriculum, educational resources, coaching experiences, performances, and partnerships that can bring this model to communities throughout the country.
And we're looking for organizations that believe what we believe:
Every aspiring musician deserves an opportunity to develop what's inside of them.
Let's Create More Opportunities.
If you're a school, church, community organization, institution, or leader looking to expand access to meaningful music education, we'd love to start a conversation.
Looking to learn music step by step?
Explore our music courses and begin your journey today.
