Here at St. Louis High School, concert band class has never been so repetitive. When you walk through the upstairs hallway and don’t hear the sound of beautiful music or a room full of laughter, you know something isn’t right. This is because the band has not been allowed to play in close quarters due to COVID-19. SLHS has a solution to this problem; the high school band class is now allowed to play in the gymnasium! Concert band played for the first time in the gym Jan. 20, 2021, during their class period. It might not be the easiest way to play in a large group due to the echos, but it sure beats doing online music assignments.

Korah Honig, junior in the band class, states, “We haven’t really gotten the chance to play in the gym yet but so far it hasn’t been too bad. It for sure beats not playing at all. I haven’t been able to play my wind instruments since March!” Honig added, “I would way rather play instruments, even in the gym, than do online music tasks.”    

Samantha Burt, junior in the SLHS concert band class, explains, “It is hard to say what the gym has in store for us while playing in there because it was our first day. It is hard to hear each other because we are sitting far apart to socially distance ourselves.” Burt continued with, “It sounds more like a bunch of soloists trying to create music, rather than a full sound of our music like it was before.”

The concert band class is patiently waiting to go back to their music creating home in room 209. Yet until then, the SLHS concert band will do their best to bring back the joy and rhythm into St. Louis High School once again.