Surrounded by classroom walls covered with colorful violins and music theory posters, Roshan Reddy counted to three. He raised his palms, a chorus of shiny horns and wood hums alive, and the first notes of Adele’s “Easy on Me” filled the elementary school band room. PS 11 in Brooklyn.
Despite the sound of the clarinet and the occasional bad saxophone, almost every student smiled.
It’s been a long two years for Reddy’s 4th and 5th grade band students, as well as music teachers and their students across New York City. According to educators and experts, when the Covid-19 pandemic closed schools, PS 11’s music program was one of many that had difficulty transitioning online, disrupting the process. Children’s musical introduction in some of the most important years for musical development.
PS 11 students with musical instruments at home practiced in their living rooms, on their fire exits, in their grandparents’ basements. But many people have neglected their tools and have had to watch from the sidelines as their colleagues try to spend time together via Google Meet.
Diara Brent, a 5th grader, a budding saxophonist, was so dismayed to see the school closing in chaos that she didn’t bring her saxophone home. “I typed conversations like crazy that I didn’t have an instrument,” she said. “I just heard them play. I was unable to do anything.”
Now that the students of the band PS 11 are back in the classroom, they are regaining their confidence as musicians. But it is no small task to fill the gap of illiteracy. Mr. Reddy, the school’s band director, said: “Covid wiped out my program. “It hasn’t come back to every student like it once was.”
The pandemic Music instruction is disrupted for many elementary school students at a critical time – during the years their brains are just beginning to make up.”Meaningful sound“Connection. In New York City’s public schools, elementary music instruction, which has been steady for five years, fell 11% between the 2019-20 and 2020-21 school years, according to New York City Department of Education Report on Arts in Schools.
For students who only have access to music education through their public schools, school closures due to the pandemic have been particularly disruptive. But research also shows that music can help children rebuild what has been lost.
PS 11 principal, Abidemi Hope, said having a music program at the school will help her students develop skills beyond academic preparation, like practicing listening and speaking, learning to question and explore complex break. It’s also about giving students at her economically diverse school access to music regardless of their economic status.
“Everybody has to have the opportunity to at least touch an instrument, learn an instrument, understand that instrument, play that instrument,” she said.
When Miss Hope was named Principal in 2014, the school has an academic focus and a small music program – about 40 students. “I always wanted to change that,” she said.
Ms. Hope hired Roshan Reddy, a working musician, as full-time music director for her band program in 2018. He has had two substitute teachers for the New State Department of Education. York and teaches in most of the surrounding areas. in Brooklyn, but he was struck by Principal Hope’s vision for the music program.
Mr. Reddy said: “Principal Hope is always trying to do something new. “You think you’ve hit the limit and when it does, Mrs. Hope is like we need to go a little higher.”
At the end of the first year of Mr. Reddy, classes on stringed instruments, guitar and ukulele have been added. “Before it was actually picked up,” said Mr. Reddy. “When I walk in, I won’t say no to anyone.”
The size of the program quadrupled, supported by a combination of school and PTA funds. At their last concert in the spring of 2019, students from the invigorating music program performed for three hours. “Those who had played before started leaving at the end of the game because it was too long. They were like ‘I have to go home.’ ‘ said Mr. Reddy, laughing.
PS 11’s Class of 2020 didn’t get to play the last concert. When schools closed in March, Mr. Reddy wound up wires, secured classroom chairs, de-tuned his violins, cleaned his instruments and packed them in his room’s cupboards. band for storage.
Virtual teaching is a challenge. Mr Reddy said: “It was a nightmare at first. He spent hours doing video exercises for students to upload to Google their classrooms. Over the summer, he scoured YouTube looking for any ideas to bolster his curriculum.
The following school year, each music student receives a tape recorder or ukulele to play in class. The students used Chrome Music Lab to create songs and submit them as assignments. But it’s nothing compared to being in physical education class, and some students have stopped attending, Mr. Reddy said.
Julian Sanon started out as one of Reddy’s violin students in second grade. He did not take an online music class during the pandemic. Instead, he, his dad, and brothers played together at home and even created a week-long family band. But Sanon missed out on live music classes at school, where he could play more complex arrangements with his friends on the drums.
Now that school is back up and running, “everyone around you is connected in the same music,” says Sanon, returning to one of his favorite places: his music room. Mr. Reddy.
“Yes,” another fifth-grader on the drum team, Miles Dutra, chirped. “Because you have to play in harmony. If one person messes up, everyone messes up. ”
Sanon nodded. “So when you get it right, it’s like a peace.” he say.
Next year, budget cuts could force some schools to reevaluate their arts programs. School budgets are generally tied to student enrollment, and many schools will see a drop next school year, after student numbers across New York City’s public schools drop. 6.4 percent since the pandemic started.
Elizabeth Guglielmo, Music Director of NYC Public Schools, says that although music has been hit hard during the pandemic, art is essential for resonance. “We always hoped that it would be seen as a core subject,” said Ms. Guglielmo.
At PS 11, enrollment dropped almost 3 percent between this school year and the previous one, according to Ms Hope, who says she may have to rely more on her PS 11 Relatively large PTA budget, a resource many schools do not have, to fund the music program. “I hope the mayor can rethink the way we invest in our children,” she said.
As his senior year of elementary school draws to a close, Zair Johnson, a 10-year-old percussionist who has been making his own cardboard drums in his apartment during the pandemic, can be found on Thursday at drumming practice with a shiny aluminum drum belt slung over the shoulder.
Johnson likes to have all the tools in his classroom at his fingertips. “You can try congas, violin, piano, djembes, ukulele,” he says. One instrument he doesn’t recommend is the cello, but he likes to “get one and start playing,” he adds. “That’s the calm for me.”
At home in the evenings, Johnson watches YouTube drumming tutorials and uses scenes from the 2002 movie “Drumline” to learn new percussion techniques.
Mr. Reddy recognized enthusiasm from his early days as a musician, when he grew up on a rural farm in Delaware. “Music is my best friend,” he said.
At school, music instilled confidence and allowed him to participate in social activities in class without words. The same goes for his quieter students now. “Kids really find their voice through music in a way they can’t get through anything else,” he says.
As the PS 11 class of 2022 prepares to graduate this month, several of Mr. Reddy’s students have accepted offers to attend middle schools with specialized music programs. The goal of the band program is to prepare students for more challenging music instruction. But mostly, Mr. Reddy said, he just wanted the kids out of school to love music.
“It’s not about trying to create a little Mozart, it’s about students finding their own strength,” he said. “We’re the ones who have to carry the music through this moment.”
