“Message in a Bottle” is a song by English rock band The Police. It was released as the lead single from their second studio album, Reggatta de Blanc (1979). Written by the band’s lead singer and bassist Sting, the song is ostensibly about a story of a castaway on an island, who sends out a message in a bottle to seek love. A year later, he has not received any sort of response, and despairs, thinking he is destined to be alone. The next day, he sees “a hundred billion bottles” on the shore, finding out that there are more people like him out there. The song exemplifies the reggae rock/new wave style of early Police. It is composed in the key of C♯ minor with a chord progression of C#m9-Amaj9-B7-F#m. According to the band’s guitarist, Andy Summers, Sting had initially intended the guitar riff that “Message in a Bottle” is centered around for a different song. The riff in its final form is built of multiple overdubbed guitar parts, played by Summers. Following the main progression of the song, one part features Summers playing a three note figure featuring the root, fifth, and ninth of each chord in succession. A second guitar part plays the identical rhythm with different harmony notes, adding minor or major thirds to each chord, as well as additional extensions such as eleventh and thirteenth notes.

Hi, my name is Ryan Van Tuyl, and since 2004 I’ve helped thousands of kids learn piano, singing, guitar, bass, drums, and songwriting in schools all over the world. The programs I’ve created teach kids how to achieve their musical dreams and become better, hardworking individuals through learning to play and perform rock, pop, hip-hop, blues, metal, and jazz music. Graduates of my programs have attended prestigious music colleges and universities. However, these programs have only been able to exist in middle-to-upper-class communities, where parents can afford to fund music education for their children directly.

While all of this has been a fantastic experience, it has left out kids who attend schools in underprivileged, more diverse communities without funding for modern music education. Schools and districts in these areas lack funding for the equipment, teachers, curriculum, and support necessary to facilitate rock-band-style programs like the ones I’ve created.

My mission was to tackle this head-on and bring these exceptional programs to students in economically challenged areas, so I sold my music schools and am launching The Van Tuyl Music Foundation to forever change music education. Our foundation will directly provide the funding for the equipment, instruction, curriculum, and support necessary to facilitate these programs.

Ryan Van Tuyl