“Oh, I get by, with a little help from my friends”

Author: Arianna Bohning

The minute I stepped into R. J. Reynolds High School, I felt relaxed. I had no idea what to expect on my first day of my ArtistCorps service, but I certainly did not expect to feel so at ease. Luckily, upon entry into the piano classroom, I noticed very quickly that this vibe was nurtured through amazing examples of music-making happening at a wide variety of levels.

The piano classes at Reynolds are all mixed in terms of age and proficiency, which means from one class to the next you could have someone who has never seen the piano keyboard before, to someone who has been classically trained for years. It blew my mind that this many different people and backgrounds could be thrown together in a room and learn! But learn they did, and they did a lot. I love what they are doing at this school because the music-making and learning is all about individual growth and the joy that accompanies small accomplishments. There is not a competitive nature nor pressure for excellence, which as a result fosters a stress-free environment where students can learn piano in the comfort of the headphones on their ears.

On the first day of my service, there was a really special moment in one of the classes. One of the students demonstrated a song that he wrote in only 5 minutes, which was a very impressive jazz improvisational piece that had my jaw almost touching the ground by the time he was done. To add to it, the teacher praised that the particular student had only been studying piano in her class for the past couple of years, and that song was a great example of how much he had grown as a musician. Before he came to her as a freshman, he had never even had the opportunity to play the piano. I was blown away by the potential of a student once given the opportunity and the resources needed for success!

Later in the day while I was chatting with the teacher during the lunch break, I suddenly heard a bustling jazz combo in the back of the room. One student had pulled out his saxophone while the student from earlier accompanied him with some jazz improvisation on the piano. They both played as though no one was watching, and I was moved by the casual joy they were clearly having in their music-making. In the midst of a demanding post-graduate music program, it never hurts to be reminded of the happiness that comes from just sitting back, relaxing, and making music with your friends.