3rd Period Band

On the end of a plain, unremarkable street in Queens sits JHS 212, a typical public school by NYC standards. Only at some point the very active PTA of this typical public school had decided to put a whole lot of fundraising money toward its music program, multiple classes, real instruments, the real deal. So if your kids went to school here, they would have the option to be in band, and not just any band, one of the most impressive middle school bands in the city, run by one of the best teachers your pre-teen could ever hope to have.

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Only fifteen minutes into the start of his day, and Josh had already been glared at twice, almost run over in a crosswalk by a turning vehicle that had no intention of checking for pedestrians, and almost dropped his cup of coffee when his left foot went into a giant pothole. And that did not include the two woman who had gotten into a shouting match in the Starbucks line. Or the homeless man wrapped in a blanket outside who was quietly shaking his cup full of change. Or the mountains of dog poop that no one had bothered to pick up the night before . 

On this dreary March morning, Josh had to finally admit what everyone had been saying, that this beautiful city that he had lived in his entire life was going to shit.

And of course none of those things included what he saw every day on his phone, an endless stream of hate, insults, complaints, more and more division. The truth was the world was going to shit too.

Josh paused at the corner, looking both ways twice as if he were performing a street crossing demo for a small child. When he was certain no one was going to run the stop sign (another thing that had been happening more and more lately) he crossed the street and entered the school building. 

Josh had been teaching music for over 15 years, the last five of them at a large public middle school in Queens where he was in charge of five different band programs. 

This particular morning when he walked into the music room, a full forty five minutes before the official start of the school day, there were already two students inside.

“Good morning Mr. J.”

“Good morning Sasha.” He reached into his pocket and handed the girl a croissant wrapped in a napkin. “I assume you didn’t go down and grab food first.” He already knew the answer to his question. Sasha went straight to the music room every morning, even though the school cafeteria opened at 7:30am for breakfast. First period began at 8:15. By then Sasha would have practiced her flute for almost an hour. For her, practice was more important than food. Josh watched as she shoved the snack into her backpack. He knew she would eat it between classes, when she stopped thinking about music long enough to notice the rumbling in her stomach.

The other student in the room had his head down on the desk, eyes closed, a pair of white AirPods just barely visible in his ears. Josh gently tapped him on the shoulder and the boy raised his head and smiled sleepily. “Mornin Mr J.”

Josh raised his eyebrows questioningly and Aaron held up his phone to show a picture of an album cover, Radiohead, mid 2000’s. 

“Thats a great one,” Josh said. 

Officially cellphones weren’t allowed in class at JHS 212, or AirPods for that matter. Once the school day started, both items would disappear into the depths of Aaron’s backpack, alongside the gum wrappers and discarded looseleaf. But unlike Sasha, Aaron did not come in to school early to practice, he came for the solitude. Aaron had 6 younger siblings at home, in a small two bedroom apartment. Josh knew, because Aaron had told him, that this hour in the music room was the only alone time he got all day.

Josh set up his classroom for the day and then sat in a chair by the window, sipping coffee, listening to Sasha play scales and watching the city wake up around him.

His first period class was freshman band, 6th graders, many of them just beginning to learn to play their instruments. They were young, stubborn, but Josh knew he was one of the lucky ones. Band was a choice at 212; the kids in his classes for the most part actually wanted to be there. He knew from his conversations in the teachers lounge, that it was harder to teach math, or science. The kids were whiny, they were disrespectful. It was the same old story, parents let their kids run the home, no one was taught manners anymore, blah, blah, blah.

It was true that this generation of pre-teens were perpetually angry, but Josh didn’t fault their parents. Rather, he blamed the pandemic, the endless school closures and Zoom meetings, although he knew better than to say that out loud in front of his colleagues.

In his opinion, however, everyone should have gotten their shots and then sent the kids right back into the school building where they belong, masked or otherwise. Young people were not meant to do life on a computer screen. They were meant to hug and dance and high five. And don’t even get him started about playing music on Zoom. What a fucking nightmare.

But there was no denying that these kids were not the carefree tweens of his youth, riding bikes and shooting hoops in the local playground.

This generation still grabbed a bag of chips from the corner bodega after school, and they still went to the park, but sometimes it was as if they were just going through the motions of childhood. As if their minds were somewhere else entirely.

He knew it was a cliche but life certainly had seemed simpler when he was young.

Second period was music theory, a class that was mostly full of non band kids. Third and fourth were senior band. These were his favorites, 8th graders, many of whom were preparing to audition for high schools that focused on the arts. These were the Sashas, kids for whom music was their passion, their goal in life. Many of them had been playing for years. 

They of course reminded Josh of himself, 13 years old with long rocker hair, high topped sneakers and a beat up guitar case slung over his shoulder. In 8th grade Josh’s brain had been full of fantasies: tour buses and sold out crowds at Madison Square Garden. He played guitar, but also piano and saxophone (the latter had ended up being his own ticket to a music high school).

The senior band kids were always prepared for class. They never forgot their instruments, or fell asleep in the back of the room. They were competitive, driven, focused. They were also 13.

Today Nadia, the small, dark haired girl who played first chair clarinet, had decided to divorce her best friend Maddie, throwing the rest of their group into chaos. The two girls came in separately and went to opposite ends of the classroom, each with their own small entourage of other 8th grade girls who had clearly been forced to take sides. No one looked happy about it.

In Josh’s experience, they would reconcile by lunchtime.

Senior band had a double period every day, which was a lot of practice, even by their standards. So they often spend the last few minutes talking, which was how Josh learned what their lives were like: family issues, body image issues, depression, anxiety, political and social stress. And all of it compounded by the pressure this generation was under to be on call and available all the time, for texts, FaceTime calls, Instagram, Snapchat. These kids were growing up in an environment where everyone was a minor celebrity in their own little world. They were exhausted, all the time.

Josh knew, because they had told him, that for some of these kids the hours they spent playing their instrument were the best part of their day. Nadia had actually put it best, earlier that year, at the end of a long Friday session. 

“Its just simple Mr. J, you know? You put your fingers in exactly the right place and a beautiful sound comes out. And it is just like that, every single time, exactly the same, the same fingering, the same sound. It is just always there for you, that song. It never changes, it never goes anywhere. No matter what else is going on, you can always just play that song, the same way, forever.”

Maddie had nodded, the two best friends in total agreement that day. “Yeah and then when we play it together its like two puzzle pieces fitting into each other. Its just perfect.”

Midway through that awful pandemic year, when Josh was forced to listen to his students play their instruments from the solitude of their bedrooms rather than together in the music room, one of his 7th graders had thrown her flute down onto her bed in frustration. 

“This is stupid, Mr J!” she had said. “This isn’t music.!”

Josh knew what he was supposed to say. This was all temporary. It was good to still practice playing, even on your own. But instead he had unmuted his microphone and agreed with her wholeheartedly.

That was 3 years ago. Today his music room was full of the vibrations of an entire concert band again and Josh knew now to fully appreciate all of it.

The next morning Nadia and Maddie were giggling together like normal, just like he thought they would. That was good, one less problem to solve, although Josh had already decided that today was the day. So before the 8th graders could take their own instruments out of their bags, he pulled out his guitar. 

His students looked up, surprised, curious. They had never actually heard their teacher play before. 

“Freebird!” From one of the boys in the back of the room, an old concert joke that somehow these kids still knew. 

Josh smiled and closed the classroom door.

*********************************

He had played saxophone all through high school, and into college, joining every jazz band that would have him. He also played piano, meaning he could switch between the two when the music called for it. But guitar had always been his favorite instrument the one he picked up late at night in his dorm room, and later in his studio apartment when he couldn’t fall asleep. And for a long time, it was just about the music. That is until one Sunday morning on the way home from a gig in the East Village, when he met a man on a subway platform who taught him how to do something else.

“Thank you, my friend,” the man had said, after Josh had tossed a few dollars into the open guitar case at his feet. And then, “Music, it changes lives.” Josh had nodded in agreement; music certainly had meant a lot to his, but the man shook his head. “No man, you don’t understand. I mean it changes lives!”

And then the man with the guitar had told him a secret, one which he had then passed on to hundreds of 8th grade band kids. 

What Josh learned that morning was how to change the world.

*********************************

“Wait what?”

Nadia was staring at him, mouth open, eyes wide.

“Mr J that doesn’t make any sense. That’s like movie stuff.”

The boy in the back of the room, Oren, was nodding his head like it all actually made perfect sense. 

“Yeah, I read a comic book like that once,” he said. “So its like, you play that melody, and we just…feel better.”

“Oooh!” From Maddie. “Its like that old saying. You know, music soothes the savage beast? Like that!”

Josh nodded. Yeah, it was sort of like that. Only more. So much more.

“Yes but also..”

Nadia’s face broke out into a grin, lighting up her eyes. 

“But it like really makes them feel better right? And if we want, it makes them do things too.”

Josh nodded again. “You can’t control people’s minds exactly. But yes, you can influence them. Help people make different, better choices.”

“Can you also make people do bad things?” Oren asked.

Josh shook his head.

“No”, he replied with a smile. “This magic doesn’t work that way.”

It turned out that the man who was slowly strumming his guitar on the N train platform played that melody every day. Once, a woman who had been out of work for months, was on her way to a job interview. Money was running out and she wasn’t sure how she was going to pay the next month's rent. She got hired on the spot. The melody caused an addict to quit drinking, cold turkey, and never look back. Another woman heard it in the morning, and finally left a long term abusive relationship that night, taking her two kids and moving back to her mother’s home in New Jersey.

And Josh? He played it in his classroom and watched friendships mend. He watched his 8th graders get into their dream high schools. He watched their racing minds slow down, their exhausted bodies get more sleep. And then, like he was doing now, he taught them how to play it for others.

“Instruments out,” he announced, just like he did every single morning at JHS 212.

His class had never been ready faster.

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It is easy to be in a hurry in a city like New York, to rush through the streets and the subway platforms without ever stopping to breathe. It is easy to brush people off, to tell them you are too busy, you have chores to do, can it wait a few minutes, a few hours, a day or two?

But if your kid wants to play a song for you, something they maybe learned in music class, you should make the time to listen. 

And if you see a man, tall, with a scruffy beard and worn out sneakers, strumming a guitar somewhere in the underground maze of the subway system, pause and listen, even if only for a moment.

It just might change your life.