ASU partners with Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center to teach guitar skills, life lessons

PHOENIX — A new partnership between Arizona State University and the Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center aims to help at-risk youth develop valuable skills.

Building on a guitar club that began last year, the collaboration will broaden the range of music genres and techniques being taught.

Graduate students at ASU are now joining the club to help students develop new musical skills.

Changes coming to Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center guitar club

Programming officer Alex Lopez said having extra teachers with different backgrounds in music will improve the club.

“ASU has been so opening, coming in here and connecting with our kids … they strive on making those relationships with our kids to make them feel comfortable, even though their style of playing is a little more advanced,” he said.

Derick Sears is one of the graduate students. He is studying to get a doctorate degree in musical arts from ASU. His goal is to help students have fun and learn skills that will help them better understand their potential.

“It’s truly from a place of starting with what the students can do and then building from there and using their curiosity to manage that. And so, like I actually tell any of my students my goal is for you to not need me anymore,” he said.

Guitar club student explains positive impact it has had

One student, who didn’t provide his name, said he wouldn’t have picked up the guitar if not for the program. He now performs at the detention center.

“It’s just something that like makes me feel like happy. Like the people they’re enjoying the song at the end. They’re clapping. It just it gives me a feeling that I enjoy,” he said.

The student said he has learned many musical skills, such as changing chords, but the hardest thing to overcome has been performing in front of a crowd. He said the guitar club helped him conquer those nerves.

“A lot of times like we have bad days in here and stuff like that. We come to the guitar club. It’s all about having a good time. You know, just taking a breather for yourself,” he said.

The program is also an incentive for good behavior, Lopez said. Students are only allowed to participate if they have reached a certain level, which is marked by the color of their shirt.

More details about guitar club in Maricopa County Juvenile Detention Center

Sears said the program is teaching the kids lessons about patience and creativity.

“Remembering the joy of music as a classical student, it’s very rigorous and you’re about practicing and how do we get from A to B, and then you forget that actually, the journey from A to B is the best part,” Sears said. “It’s definitely seeing smiles on faces, seeing what the joy that music brings,” he said.

The club uses guitars donated to the program by Free Guitars 4 Kids, which also allows the kids to take home a guitar when they exit the detention facility.

Funding for this journalism is made possible by the Arizona Local News Foundation.

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