Music has always possessed the remarkable power to engage and empower young people. Personally, I cannot recall any time from my teenage years that came even remotely close to empowering me as much as the days I spent devoted to bringing music to others.

I was not charitable in the traditional sense; you wouldn’t find me at 6 a.m. on a Sunday scooping soup. Instead, I’d be on a three-hour drive to Goldsboro, North Carolina (a town seriously lacking in live music venues at the time), unloading equipment, playing my heart out for a hundred other teenagers, running sound, packing up, sleeping on floors, and finally driving home, all on my own dime.

Without ever realizing it, I was volunteering more than 10 hours a week to strengthen local communities through the arts. And I was having the time of my life.

Music was the key to beginning my life of public service at a young age. Now, as a high school music teacher at Voyager Academy, if I were to ask my students to volunteer their weekend to clean up trash on the roads, I’d be laughed out of the building. But when I asked my nine band students to cut into their weekend to play music with students with disabilities, their willingness was overwhelming.

Our project involved my music students from Voyager Academy traveling down the road to East Chapel Hill High to play instruments and sing with 14 high school students with developmental disabilities every Friday. Each week, the Voyager students gave up part of their weekend to participate and volunteer through music.

Duke Crawford, our 10th-grade bassist, volunteered more than 10 hours of his time on weekends to play music with high school students with disabilities. “Music is a tool that can get people through the toughest days,” he says.

Frequently singing songs and playing percussion with the Chapel Hill students, Duke gave up the start of 10 of his weekends to bring music to another classroom. “It brightens my heart to know that I helped make somebody’s day better.”

Peyton Henderson, a graduating senior from Voyager and keyboardist, spoke of how she preferred volunteering on Fridays over going to work and making money. “I look forward to playing music at East Chapel Hill every week,” she says. Peyton contributed five volunteer hours on weekends during our spring semester.

Where my Voyager Academy High students volunteered time and their musical skill each Friday, the Raleigh-based arts organization Push Play Sing was contributing technology. Push Play Sing brought acoustic instruments, recording gear, and MIDI pads to help facilitate music-making among the high school students with disabilities.

Push Play Sing co-founder Berk Ozturk has been leading participatory music workshops for people with developmental disabilities for years, but this particular grant program, which directly served and engaged high school students, is going to be hard to forget.

“The dedication, hard work, and passion of everyone involved in this grant was very special to be a part of. Together, these students proved the value of music as a catalyst for social change,” says Ozturk.

Push Play Sing has been proving the value of music for years not only by facilitating music-making among people with developmental disabilities, but also by recording it. Every bit of music played during the 17 weeks Push Play Sing participated in this program was recorded.

A seven-song album composed entirely of music made by my music students and the East Chapel Hill High students with disabilities, streaming for free on Push Play Sing’s Bandcamp page, will serve as a permanent symbol of the remarkable achievement of these students. Please take a listen; the album is less than 10 minutes long and features 23 students, some with disabilities, some without. You have never heard anything like it.

The songs were tracked in classrooms and school hallways, using field recorders, laptops, or even iPhones—whatever was on hand that would capture the magic of music. Then the audio was professionally mixed and mastered by Nightsound Studios in Carrboro, North Carolina. Studio owner Chris Wimberley couldn’t help but note how the tracks were so meaningful to work on.

Impact

• 23 high school students reached
• 17 participatory music workshops
• 3 community organizations
• 2 schools
• 1 culminating graduation performance

It’s been a long semester for us, but one that wasn’t quite long enough. Even though my students contributed a total of 48 hours of music service, recorded music alongside students with developmental disabilities, performed with East Chapel Hill High students at their graduation ceremony, and became lifelong friends with everyone involved, they still can’t stop talking about the workshops.

Currently knee deep in exam week, another Voyager senior, Logan Sparrow, asked me if we could still go to East Chapel Hill this Friday, even though we’ll technically be done with school. “Working with the East Chapel Hill students is great,” he says, eager to continue volunteering throughout the summer.

Thankfully, the eagerness goes both ways. Sarah Harvel, the exceptional children teacher at East Chapel Hill High, says that the workshops are already missed. Jalicia, one of Sarah’s students, is eager to know if Berk and my students from Voyager and Push Play Sing are coming back to school soon.

It’s a beautiful thing to know I don’t even have to ask.

Here is a playlist of the songs created by this student collaboration: