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Coming Together Through Music
Our Versitility Is Our Strength
Guitars for Good believes that change comes in small steps. We tailor all of our donations to the institution we are working with. There is no overhead, everything we have goes straight to the patients.
"Music can change the world because it can change people"
Bono
"If you are already happy, music heightens your joy"
Asha Bholse
"Music is the universal language of mankind"
Henry Longfellow
About our Founding
Est. 2020
Guitars for Good Incorporated was founded by Dev Gupta in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time, Dev was a 16 year old boy who was in the midst of a global pandemic. Dev found community in music through his orchestra, which then met virtually. Dev was fortunate enough to make friends that also all loved music: friends that he still considers some of his best years later. Concurrently, Dev found himself in more frequent contact with the local hospital, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. His gratitude for music and the children's hospital, inspired him to create Guitars for Good.
The original goal of the non-profit was to provide children in underserved areas with instruments and free access to music lessons. However, the devastating affects of COVID forced a change. Instead, the non-profit focused on supporting infrastructure already in place. Dev learned about the intersection of music and medicine and found a cause he could support - music therapy. Music therapy, while scientifically proven to be medically beneficial, is severely underfunded. (Every word in that sentence is hyperlinked to a peer-reviewed, medical journal entry article supporting music therapy.)
Guitars for Good now strives to support music therapy in pediatric institutions across Pennsylvania and Ohio with the hopes of soon expanding across the East Coast.
In 2023, Guitars for Good took on the goal of pushing our mission of spreading joy in our communities through music even further by creating the Music Performance Series and the Music Education Series. The Music Performance Series aims at elevating talented youth musicians and their accomplishments. The Music Education Series takes some of those performers who would like to teach the basics of their instruments and gives them the platform to do that.
What is Music Therapy
The American Music Therapy Association defines Music Therapy as "the clinical & evidence-based use of music interventions to accomplish individualized goals within a therapeutic relationship" but it is so much more. Music Therapy illuminates the dark, it provides hope, and it rejuvenates life.
In pediatrics, music therapy is the wall between fear and optimism.
Music Therapists complete a range of roles. For infants, they sit next to them, strumming a lullaby as they sleep. For teens, they sit across and strum with them - learning music.
Their jobs surpass just these direct interactions. Another role of the music therapist is a tragic one. When a child passes, they sometimes prepre a song. They prepare it with the families input resulting a song that is timed to the child's faltering heartbeat. Sometimes this is inserted into a teddy bear for the family who yearns for a memory of their lost brother, sister, son, or daughter.
The roles of music therapists are vast and this barely touches their duties.