Page 13 - Newsletter Spring 2021
P. 13
Music Department
NEWS FROM THE MUSIC ROOM
By Kevin Mania, HHS Music Faculty
Different Sounds coming from the music room…
Greetings Houlton Alumni!
It has been a strange journey for the past year to vocalists. Students also worked on creating digital
say the least. Music programs in the country have music and learned songs on boomwhackers and
gone through some major changes to comply with ukulele.
restrictions due the pandemic. In the state of Maine
all normal band and chorus activities came to a halt As the year has progressed, the Maine Department
and we had to redesign from the bottom up. of Education and the Maine CDC have started
to lift some restrictions. By February, band and
At the start of the year, if we wanted to play wind chorus could finally rehearse indoors! The band kids
instruments or sing, we had to be outside, 14 feet needed to be 10 feet apart with special bell covers
apart from each other, with masks on when possible. and musician masks. Chorus kids were also spread
Once the weather started to get windy and brisk, apart and needed 3-layer masks. Recently, the DOE
it was time to head indoors. I am sure if you had a has altered the requirements again, so now we can
chance to watch some of our rehearsals you would rehearse at 6 feet apart.
have had some chuckles. Imagine playing on a calm
day and suddenly, a wind gust comes through and This has been a long and difficult year, but I am
blows your music across the entire parking lot, over not telling you about all these hardships to sound
the trees and into the soccer field. I never thought a negative. It is far the opposite…Our amazing
sheet of paper could go so far, so fast. students and community have been wonderful!
While all the schools in the state have had the same
By mid-October, we still could not play woodwind obstacles, many other programs suffered greatly, or
or brass instruments indoors. We did, however, have have simply stopped. Through our resilience, we
a new plan in place for the students. Everyone got a gained traction and overcame the obstacles every
chance to learn how to play guitar, piano, bass guitar time they came up. Shires fight to the end, and that
or mallet percussion. In a nutshell, all middle and is what kept us moving forward. It was not easy by
high school band kids became beginners again! We any means. In fact, we have rewritten our curriculum
started to learn our new instruments and quickly too many times to count, to evolve and change with
started playing in small ensembles. By the time we hit the needs of our students and restrictions. Without
the December break, we had completed our first video the great kids in our program, always pushing and
recordings of our new program. By March, we were trying to get over every obstacle, we would not have
able to record several songs, and published a virtual been this successful. In the end we were able to put
concert. We have been so impressed by the resilience together a video recording of our ensembles that was
of our students! They really rose to the occasion - we a celebration of hard work that is expected of the
are so proud of them! Houlton Music Department.
QR code to watch the Houlton
The chorus students had to shift gears as well. The Best Regards, High School band concert. To open
students delved into music theory and music history, focus your camera on the code.
especially that of Broadway and different 20th century Kevin Mania
RSU 29 Music Chair
207.538.3860 (office)
PAGE 13 www.houltonalumni.com
