Strumming toward inclusion: How a Valley program is using music to connect students of all abilities

TEMPE, Ariz. — Strum by strum, students at two Tempe high schools are learning more than how to play guitar. They’re learning how to connect.

United Sound, a program now active at McClintock and Marcos de Niza high schools, pairs students with special needs, called “new musicians,” with general education band students who serve as peer mentors. Together, they learn to read and play music, but organizers say the real curriculum is something far more fundamental.

“It’s not really about the music, but that is such an effective bridge to put between kids,” said Julie Duty, founder and executive director of United Sound. “It eliminates any awkwardness.”

The program reimagines how music concepts are taught, making abstract ideas accessible to everyone in the room. Rhythms become foods. Pitch becomes color. A beat called out as “donut” or “soup” suddenly makes sense to any learner, regardless of ability.

“Making abstract concepts into something concrete is the fastest way to make the hard things easy,” Duty said.

For McClintock band director Amanda Lenhart, United Sound is more than a classroom initiative; it’s a full-circle moment. Lenhart was once a peer mentor in the program herself. Lenhart said she watches students transform week by week, not just as musicians, but as friends.

“What they don’t realize is this is a lifelong friendship that they’ve created,” Lenhart said. “Friendship can be taught for anything, not just music.”

Inside the rehearsal room, differences that might divide students elsewhere seem to disappear entirely. “They have a sense of community and belonging, and any of their differences are completely gone because they all come together through music,” Lenhart said.

That sense of possibility is exactly what drew the Tempe Diablos Charities to support the program, helping secure its place on both campuses.

“It gives you hope, hope for the future,” said Russ Holmes of the Tempe Diablos. “The smiles on their faces, the things that they get to try that they haven’t tried before, their confidence, it just means the world.”

At the end of the term, new musicians and mentors will perform together for their families and teachers, a public celebration of everything they’ve built, note by note, and side by side.

This story is made possible through grant funding from the Arizona Local News Foundation’s Arizona Community Collaborative Fund.

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