Hey PJ,
Just wanted to say thanks a ton for doing the whole Rock Camp deal. It was really awesome having you teach us some of your songs and performing with you. It was also a good way for me to practice playing with other musicians as a full rock band.
— Ben Waddell, Camper
Hi PJ! Just wanted to say thanks for giving me the opportunity to be in your Rock Camp this summer. It always is so great to be able to play with other people, especially other teenagers, which is kind of a hard thing to organize around here. Performing was a blast, too! I know it made us all feel like rock stars seeing half the town watching us. It really was a great experience and taught me a lot about music and performing.
— Lena Sutter, Camper
Hey Peej,
Just wanted to say a huge thank you for the awesome Rock Camp experience. It was a true pleasure to see the hidden talent of my own daughter sing and my students at the Superior School of Dance have the opportunity to perform in front of such a crowd and live music! It was simply incredible to see young artists, some of whom had never met before, come together with one common goal, to make music and share it! (And what a fine job they did!)
You touched our lives and brought a huge idea to a small town with energy that will not go unnoticed. Good luck and thanks for the experience.
— The Polakowski Family
Hello P.J.,
I am writing to thank you for the opportunity you provided my daughter, Lena Sutter, by including her in your Rock Camp this past June.
Lena has always been interested in music but unfortunately we live in a community that is unable to provide a rich arts and music environment through its public schools. On the other hand, we are fortunate to live in a community where the community itself steps up and fills gaps that the public sector cannot fill. In the Houghton area, we have a history of this type of community action. We are fortunate to have one of the oldest and most active Suzuki associations in the state and it is completely community based. My daughter was able to join Suzuki when she was in kindergarten and it helped provide a foundation in music that will be with her for life.
Now at age 14, she is understandably slightly less interested in Vivaldi and more so alternative rock. For her continued growth in music, she needs new mentors and opportunities to be challenged and learn. Your Rock Camp could not have come along at a better time in her life. Through the experience she had with you and the other professionals that so generously donated time, expertise, and equipment, her interest in music has been reinvigorated. She plays music every day and she has become keenly interested in recording. The recordings she has made using GarageBand are startling for their quality and so much of the techniques she is using she learned at Rock Camp. For Lena, music has always given her purpose and Rock Camp has strengthened that purpose.
Beyond music, there is so much more that Lena gained from Rock Camp, most notably confidence. For a teenager, even in a group, going in front of the “entire town” to perform a concert is a scary thought. But once the concert was completed, you could just see it in every member of the band. They just exuded that sense “I did it.” Pride and self-confidence was evident in the face of every child in the band, and pride was also evident on the face of every parent in the audience. The students can’t wait to do it again. Since Rock Camp Lena has had a couple other opportunities to perform and with each opportunity I see an incremental increase in self-esteem, her ability as a musician, and growth as a person with a life long desire to be involved with music. But it all really started this summer with your program. Another great thing your program did was bring together students that might otherwise not have met. Being a rural area, with small schools geographically separated, the students with similar interests in different schools probably would not have met. Now, connections have been made, friendships started, and I will guess a couple local rock bands will emerge. These are friendships for life that were fostered at Rock Camp.
So, again, thank you so much for your time, effort, and expense in creating the 2009 Rock Camp. It was a great success. I am anxious to assist in any way to build on that success and foster participation in music and arts in our community. Your efforts are greatly appreciated!
– Larry Sutter, Ph.D., Parent
Thank you all so much for giving our son and all the other kids such a wonderful experience in music. The camp and the show on Saturday is something that all of us will treasure forever! You gave them the knowledge and self-confidence to play in front of all those people! “PJ told us, when you get nervous, just relax and feel the music.”
PJ, we love your music, but even more, love the person you are. You are so approachable and caring of young artists and your community. We would highly recommend “Rock Camp” to anyone, and hope others will have the chance to experience what we did. All of you thought of every little detail along the way from getting them to learn their own individual parts, having respect for different types of music, how to play together in a band, professional photo shoots, the media, advertising and promotion, to actually going on stage — WOW! It takes talent to do all of this in just three weeks!
ROCK CAMP FOREVER!
– Bill’s Family
Dear P.J.,
Thank you so much for the amazing work you did with the Rock Camp this summer. We greatly appreciate your sharing your time and significant talents with Ben and with all of the other kids in the Rock Camp. We hope that this will be the first of many. The entire community — not just the campers — has benefited from your efforts. Your music and inspiration have been wonderful gifts!
Ben hopes to make a career in music, and working with you has helped inspire to believe that this is possible.
Thank you once again for all that you’ve done and for all that you continue to do.
– Craig Waddell, Parent
