Starting last school year, Woodhaven High School has introduced a number of special education programs. One of those programs is United Sound. United Sound was around for a few years before we decided to give it a try last year.
Now you might be wondering “What is United Sound?” Well, you are in luck! I am a senior clarinet player in Wind Ensemble and I have been in United Sound since they started it last year!
United Sound has a lot of parts in it when it comes to being run. An easy summary of it would be that we high school students help special education students play an instrument of their choosing, and we all play a song at one of our concerts. So, they get to experience the same things we do.
Even though it is only run in Wind Ensemble, Bradley Faryniarz, the band director at WHS, does not run United Sound. Every high school that is a part of this organization has a president and a vice president of that school’s united sound and those people are high schoolers. They are responsible for setting up activities and other plans for when we meet up every week.
United Sound at Woodhaven High School is run every Tuesday during Wind Ensemble, which is 5th hour. Two students who are part of the Wind Ensemble run United Sound. The president is Alex Vasquez and the vice president is Miles Gawrych. They are both juniors at Woodhaven High School.
Vasquez and Gawrych meet up with other presidents and vice presidents for United Sound from other schools on a Google Meet to discuss courses of action they should take. Some of this could be how to help special education students who are having a little more trouble than others, or even what their course plan was for that week.
President of United Sound at Woodhaven High School Alex Vasquez says, “United Sound means a lot to me because it offers a unique opportunity to connect with people through music and open doors for them that they might’ve not had access to without the program.”
Another big part of this organization is the way we mentors set up the parts for the special education students to play with us. First off, we pick an already composed piece of music. For example, this year the piece we played was Sleigh Ride.
As special education students pick their instruments, we Wind Ensemble musicians help compose an easier version of the part already made for that instrument. We have to consider things like what key the piece is in, what the melody is at certain parts, and how well they can play their instrument.
There are 2 to 3 mentors, which are wind ensemble students, to every special education student. There has to be at least one person who plays the instrument that they are playing and at least one other person to help either point to their composed piece or just help guide them in any way they can.
As we do have mentors not playing the piece at all, we have musicians not in United Sound playing the actual piece and some mentors playing the modified piece for their musician.
Last year, the special education students who started out with us at Woodhaven High School would rent out instruments from the school. This year, we thought it would be an amazing surprise for the students to be able to own their very own instruments!
A big part of United Sound is the accomplishments of the musicians. We give plenty of rewards to the students because they work so hard for the concert every day they are with us. At the concert, the musicians get a certificate for being part of the Woodhaven bands. After the concert the following week, to celebrate how hard they worked, we had cupcakes and donuts!
As you can tell, United Sound is about giving everyone equal opportunity when it comes to school and the performing arts. United Sound brings people together and brings joy to everyone involved and not.
