Friday, June 29th, was an amazing day at the Summer Symposium. There has been even more activities on campus from the DCI show to the CITSA experience; one of my favorites was being able to attend the Peer Teaching Track and see them put their skills to the test. 

As many divisions spent the day preparing for the DCI show to perform with Carolina Crown or rehearse for their final parent performance, the Peer Teaching students spent their day teaching and spending time with the new musicians of United Sound. United Sound is an organization that provides a platform for musicians with special needs to express themselves through music. Our peer teaching students were able to help teach them to play the Star Spangled Banner and a part of Carolina Crown’s show to be performed on the field at the DCI show.

Vickie Swanson, a peer teaching student, was able to share her experiences of working with United Sound today. She describes her day as a great time because she learned different ways to teach based on her audience. Vickie loved how enthusiastic and engaged the new musicians were about learning so much new music.

Jackie Pariac is also a peer teaching student at the Summer Symposium. She described her experience as an amazing opportunity for both the symposium students, as well as the new musicians. She found it eye opening when working with United Sound because they were simply just excited to play. Too many times we worry about being better than others or playing every single note in tune or exactly as written on the page. The new musicians were happy to just have an instrument in their hands. They really found the joy in playing just to play, and that is a lesson Jackie thinks many of us could learn.

On the outside looking in, I found this to be a very humbling and enjoyable experience. I loved watching our Peer Teaching students putting all of their hard learned lessons in place from earlier in the week. I am very proud of all of them, as well as the new musicians of United Sound. May we all continue to let music move us in a positive direction.