Band Is ‘in the Bag’ for Local Students
Published 1:30 am Thursday, May 20, 2021
By Susan McCabe
For Vashon Island School District
Falling into the “anything is possible with enough imagination” category, Vashon Island School District (VISD) managed to continue band classes for McMurray (McM) and Vashon High School (VHS) students throughout COVID lockdown.
And now that students have returned to some in-person learning, the sound of music is also back in the schools.
In her second year as VISD director of bands, Britt Dahlgren first pulled out all the stops to teach band online.
From McMurray’s sixth-grade Mustang band to the VHS wind ensemble, students at all levels lost very little ground in the development of their musical skills. Dahlgren, who can play all the instruments in the band, conducted online demonstrations for her aspiring musicians. Students worked with her individually — because online band tended to be a little chaotic, since players can’t hear each other.
To figure out how to teach music in a time of the pandemic, Dahlgren mined the wisdom and guidance of her Vashon colleagues as well as experienced band teachers outside the district and came up with a plan, or rather, several plans.
To compensate for the lack of group practice, for instance, she assigned students to record their tunes for online playback, no video required.
She started guided listening sessions online during which she played a piece and then asked students to identify the instruments they were hearing, also inviting their opinions of the music overall. She said that worked so well, she’ll continue it in the future, pandemic or not.
During Women’s History Month, Dahlgren introduced students to female composers like Florence Price, Jennifer Higdon and Chen Yi. She wanted to “pull up different backgrounds and different eras — expose them to something outside of Mozart and Beethoven,” she said.
But band just works better in person, so as soon as students could return to the building, Dahlgren instituted layers of COVID safety measures according to CDC guidelines. While they’re not required, some VISD band students are playing their instruments in specially designed bags. For instruments like flute, clarinet and saxophone, the protective bags have drawstrings at the top and hand holes customized by instrument. Slits for the mouthpiece assure that any ‘aerosols’ the player blows into the instrument stay inside the mask.
There is also special PPE for trumpets and trombones, with bell covers to catch the aerosols.
Surprisingly, the sounds of the instruments are not diminished. Percussionists and string players don’t have instrument covers, but every band member is required to wear a mask. With distance constraints still mandated at nine feet for band practices, band practice can accommodate up to ten students in the room.
Unfortunately, with or without masks, the VISD choir program, taught by Chautauqua’s general music teacher, has been scrapped for this year. The typical annual band schedule includes three concerts – McM in the Fall, VHS in the Spring and an all-band, huge ensemble Pop concert in the spring. But not this year.
Dahlgren is confident, however, that those concerts will return as soon as practice can be more typical.
For now, she said she’s grateful she can teach two band classes per day plus her homeroom. In-person classes will continue through the end of the school year, with VISD offering the cohort system where one group meets Monday and Wednesday and another meets Tuesday and Thursday. Some students are still exclusively remote.
In a typical year, Dahlgren would teach five daily classes. The goal is to fill those classes and bring music into every student’s life.
“Everyone is welcome to do Vashon band – no prior experience necessary, no musical background or musical family required,” Dahlgren said. “I just want people to learn to appreciate music — I don’t expect my students to become professionals. As long as people enjoy performing music and being in the group, I am happy.”
