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Study Hall from School News Network
Teen musicians find passion, community in the ABC Orchestra
It’s barely past 6:30 a.m. but the student musicians of the ABC Orchestra are rocking hard on the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24,” a heavy-metal arrangement of “Carol of the Bells.” The 32 members of this East Kentwood High School ensemble are trained in classical music but play “anything but” that genre in ABC, performing in other schools and community venues while learning how to be gig-ready musicians. SNN talks to students Millie Fernandez, Maggie Geurink and SJ Cale about growing as musicians and as people under ensemble director Ryan Wallace.
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Well, hello everyone, and welcome to Study Hall, your window into the public schools of Kent County, Michigan. I'm your host, Charlie Honey, and I'm here just past 6:30 this Thursday morning at East Kentwood High School to hear a rehearsal of the Anything But Classical Orchestra. The ABC Orchestra plays rock, pop, blues, bluegrass, pretty much anything but the standard classical repertoire. And today they're working on some tunes for a holiday concert under the direction of Ryan Wallace, a veteran punk rocker who prepares these young musicians to arrange their own music, play gigs beyond the school's walls, and who knows, maybe embark on musical careers. Let's listen in as the ABC Orchestra wakes up another school day with some vintage holiday music a la Mar Mariah Carey and the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Our ears and our eyes are wide open. And um we are talking with uh three very dedicated talented musicians from the 32-piece ABC Orchestra and their director, Ryan Wallace. Welcome, everybody. Um I would like you each to introduce yourselves briefly. What's your name, grade, what do you play, and um who who's your favorite musician? I'll say SJ.
SPEAKER_02:Um my name is SJ. I'm a freshman. I play electric and upright bass. Uh and my favorite musician would probably be Flea from red hot chili peppers.
SPEAKER_03:Good choice.
SPEAKER_01:Um my name is Maggie, I'm a senior, I play the viola, and my favorite musician is Haley Williams. Nice.
SPEAKER_00:I'm Millie, I'm a junior, I play the violin, and I think it's hard to choose. My favorite musician, maybe Johnny Marr or Amy Winehouse or someone.
SPEAKER_03:Great choice as all. Thank you. I appreciate I appreciate that. So I just have to ask what gets you up so freaking early in the morning to play this music? What what brings you here?
SPEAKER_00:Well, firstly, I think I joined mainly because of Mr. Wallace, because he was my teacher in middle school and I just had that connection with him. So but also I think getting up in the mor it's probably what gets me up in the morning, because otherwise I would just come to school and come straight to physics. And I think that would be like a lot worse. I think this is a very good, like, pick me up to start my day.
SPEAKER_01:I'll say, Peggy. Yeah, I mean what Millie said, it's like a really good way to start the day. And I like feel excited going to class because I already like played music and I've done something that I love first thing in the morning. So it really helps me like throughout the day to get through the day. But it also like I think this is the reason that I really love music because with regular orchestra, like I always liked it, but I never really loved it. Like I found my passion for music in ABC.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Oh, you found very cool. SJ, how about you?
SPEAKER_02:Um, well, I discovered uh electric bass from ABC, and that really inspired me to join. And the short answer is it's just really fun. Like honestly, even if it weren't like a required class, I got no credit, or it's just a volunteer thing, I'd still do it. It's just still fun to pursue passion in music.
SPEAKER_03:Cool. Now you're all Aaron, other musical groups. In fact, I understand it's kind of a prerequisite to be in another music group in in uh school. Stray, what else do you do in music at East County?
SPEAKER_02:I also do jazz band and philharmonic orchestra.
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Okay. Yeah, I'm also in um symphony orchestra here at EK. Aaron Ross Powell Okay. And really? I'm also in symphony orchestra.
SPEAKER_03:Symphony orchestra. Trevor Burrus, Some of you have outside gigs. What do you do outside of school musically? How about you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm the I'm the backup violist for uh a local quintet that that's called Fellowship of the Strings. So we do like a lot of classic rock covers and things like that. But we performed like a lot around West Michigan mostly. Fellowship of the Strings.
SPEAKER_03:A little J.R. Tolkien reference there, right? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:I'm a part of the Grand Rapids Symphonette, just um a volunteer group to play for retirement homes and veterans.
SPEAKER_03:So tell me what this group does for you. Why why do you enjoy being part of ABC? It's obviously a lot of work. You have to get up early to do it, and you have to work pretty hard at it. What what uh turns you on about being part of this uh this orchestra?
SPEAKER_01:Aaron Ross Powell Something that I really love about it is seeing people like be excited to hear me play, and like I've arranged music for ABC, so seeing people be excited to play music that I've put together is also really exciting because then I I get to play songs that I really love because I'm the one that put it together, but then I also get to see people see people being excited to play the songs that I put together.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah, yeah. SJ? I mean What do you dig about this?
SPEAKER_02:I I just really I just really love music and music has gotten me through like a bunch of hard times. It's it's just helped me out and grow overall as a person, and I just kind of want to give that back to other people. And I think inspiring other people is like just something really cool, and like it's just fun to make other people like smile and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03:How cool, Millie?
SPEAKER_00:It is very like rewarding to be a part of a community and to be something be a part of something bigger than yourself. Like I have a lot of fun in symphony orchestra, but being an ABC and always having like always playing music that I've already played before, it gives me a chance to like also improve um like basic skills and like be able to like take this, like we play a lot of easier music, but take the easy music to the next level and make always make myself better and then always make me better in like a community with other people that I enjoy playing with.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. Well, it sounds like you play out a lot, right? I mean, you're playing gigs in school or concerts in school, but you play out in the community. Is that kind of part of the regular thing of ABC, right? You do what, like maybe 20 or so out of school gigs uh per school year? That's that's impressive. Um uh where are some of the places you you play out there, um, for instance?
SPEAKER_02:Um, we played, I think around a week or two ago, we played at Grand Rapids Symphony, and that was really cool.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we do a lot of gigs at like elementary schools too. They'll put together like assemblies just for the kids to hear us play. Yeah, those ones are really fun because the kids get really excited to hear us play. Sure.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I bet.
SPEAKER_00:And then we also during the beginning of the year, we play for a lot of uh sports events, so like the powder puff game and the swim and dive team.
SPEAKER_03:Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. Do you have uh musical ambitions? Uh any of you like uh tell me about the pl what place music plays in your life. Is it something that you think about professionally, or is it something more like you just want to do it um as long as you can do it? What what what place does it have in your life, uh Millie?
SPEAKER_00:Um I would say I'd definitely like to keep it in my life. And it's a lot of the times I hear other people be like, oh, I used to play this instrument and I just haven't done it in so long. And I don't want to be calm that or like lose all of this skill and lose the community along with it. Um so it's definitely gonna stay in my life, and I'm just trying to figure out how.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, yeah, fair enough.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think the same with Millie. Like I've spent by the end of high school, I'll have spent seven years learning this instrument, and I don't want it to just like gather dust after that. So I think if I can still find ways to like at least do gigs around and you know, stay in the community, I think I'll be happy with that.
SPEAKER_02:I think that like my musical ambitions, I do want to pursue this professionally, but even if I didn't, I'd just still want to play the instrument just because it's fun to challenge yourself and grow and see that effort come into full works whenever you're playing.
SPEAKER_03:So professionally are you thinking like a band or as a session musician? What do you have in mind?
SPEAKER_02:Well, right now the plan is maybe a band or something, and I'm planning on going to um Berkeley and Berkeley School of Music. Yes.
SPEAKER_03:Excellent.
SPEAKER_02:And that's kind of the plan right now, and we'll see how that takes me as long as I still get to play it. It's pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:Wonderful, wonderful, cool. Tell me how important music is to you in your education. How important is music to you as students and um motivating you and you know keeping you at keeping you at your best, SJ?
SPEAKER_02:I think that it actually music really helps me put my name out there and honestly, without music I wouldn't be able to, I guess, uh stand out as much because it's given me some individuality. I don't feel this way about like any other class. I don't feel like as welcome really, but like it just it's just such a supportive community and it's uh so fun and it's uh just nice to put all your effort into something and like and people like really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_03:Sounds like a big part of what you enjoy about coming to school, yeah, for sure. Right, Maggie.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think music is a very important reason of like why I somewhat enjoy school because it's such a good like break from your regular classes. You're not just like sitting there with your piece of paper and you have to like fill it out and read this book or solve this equation. Like it's just a very different class to have that gives you a break from the normal school environment that I think really helps me get through the day.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I agree with Maggie. Like I feel like sure, we're I'm I've been in an orchestra class for so long, and you would think like, oh, like with any other class, you could it's only one semester or worth one credit, but every single time I'm in orchestra class, I'm always learning something else, and there's always something to gain, whether I'm in ABC and I'm playing the same music every day, or I'm in symphony and I'm like always learning new repertoire.
SPEAKER_03:Nice, nice. Anything you want to say about the guidance and direction you get from uh Mr. Wallace here. Feel free to uh praise him to the sky.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think he really helps guide us, but like I mean, as he says, like his job is to try to make his job the least amount of a job possible and try to get us to do all of his work for him because he wants us to be like student leaders and to have us try to have like our say in the group because that's what really makes it fun, that you can like have your say in what we do, so then it makes it fun for you because you're doing what you propose to do.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you guys pretty much you guys pretty much lead the the the whole shebang, right? You guys are doing the arranging of the you're not really up there with a baton, there you're just like you know, playing gigs, right? That's nice. I really want to thank you for joining us uh for this. I'm gonna let you get on with your school day and um can't wait to hear more from your your your excellent band. You do wonderful work. Thank you so much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you.
SPEAKER_03:All right, so Ryan Wallace, um your group is fantastic. Thank you. And the the students were really, really um well spoken about why they're part of it. So why are you part of it? What is it that you're doing with this group? What is the value of this group and what contribution do you uh are you making to the musical education of these students?
SPEAKER_05:A lot of this started from when I became a music teacher. Every person that I meet, when I tell them I'm a music teacher, they go, uh, I wish I would have kept playing. No one goes, man, I'm really glad I quit band or orchestra or singing. Um and I really just got to thinking about my own personal experiences playing um in kind of bad punk rock bands when I was younger. And how can I give that experience of taking music and making it your own and letting kids really define success in music for themselves, not like my vision. Um so I wanted to find a way to take good education, like education, educational pedagogy, and let kids run with it. So they have their own group, they're doing their own thing, and my goal is to facilitate what they're doing and kind of create a new vision of what a music program can look like.
SPEAKER_03:So you come out of a personal music history, you toured with punk rock bands, uh, death metal bands. Yep. Uh I understand you've had some screaming lessons. Is that correct?
SPEAKER_05:Uh yep. I've had lessons on how to scream. Um when I was younger, I didn't, so I'd blow up my voice all the time, and then took some lessons when I was older and touring uh not touring, but playing more shows locally and regionally up to like last year. Um and I found that once I learned how to scream correctly, talking in a teacher voice is actually a lot worse for my voice than screaming ever was.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Yeah. Your voice sounds fine now. So feels fine. And and you're currently recording, I understand.
SPEAKER_05:Uh we just finished recording and we're just getting into the process of getting it all uploaded and getting album art and everything like that, which is uh my least favorite part about being in a band is kind of the managerial stuff, but it's the stuff that I've done for most bands I've been in. Yeah. Um so we're dropping stuff. I think it's coming out next week, Friday.
SPEAKER_03:You play the bass as well. Yeah, correct. I play bass and new vocals in that. But you have uh what is your musical uh education?
SPEAKER_05:Um so I have a weird music education because I have a degree in education and performance from Grand Valley in Classical. Um they don't have a jazz program, but I have played a lot of jazz. I was the uh in the group that won the 2013 St. St. Cecilia Art Prize music portion in jazz. Played with Brad Fritcher for a while. Nice. Um, which that was really cool. Um then was teaching here and then got my master's in curriculum design in arts education from Kent State University. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_03:And you've been here how long? Uh this is my tenth year here at Kentwood. And what else do you teach besides ABC?
SPEAKER_05:Um primarily sixth grade orchestra, which I know is kind of a funny jump between them, but uh I teach three classes of sixth grade a day and then a seventh and eighth grade orchestra, one seventh, one eighth grade orchestra.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. So tell me about the skills and the saviness you're trying to inculcate in these students. What are you how are you helping helping them grow as musicians, as young people?
SPEAKER_05:Um I think a large portion of it is helping them realize that they can define what success is and then find the tools to help them achieve that success. I want them to be able to leave our program and be able to start gigging professionally without having to go get a music degree or something like that. Um, and really uh give them the skills to go, maybe I don't play super professionally, maybe I just get together with my friends, or maybe I am good enough to go to like an Irish trad session with my friends, you know, once a week, or just be able to keep that sense of community with music so that they can be actual lifelong musicians that, you know, every teacher talks about it, but um and I don't want to belittle what we do in other classes because I think it's important, but we're essentially training them to be uh 17th century cover artists. 17th century cover artists. Wow, I love that. Uh but we can do more with that. We can do a lot more with that if we just have a different vision of it.
SPEAKER_03:I see. Okay. You're talking Bach. Yeah. And I love Bach. Love Bach.
SPEAKER_05:That's uh a lot of why a lot of why I fell in love with music is uh the Castlevania soundtrack, which is essentially just Baroque music. It's a video game. Oh, it's a video game. Yeah, early video game. Love the music from Castlevania. I see. And that got me really interested in learning more, and that's what got me into playing Bach when I was younger, because I started playing piano when I was four. Um I'm not like a prodigy. I was not good at it, I didn't practice, I was terrible at it. Yeah. But I spent a lot of time doing what I wanted to do with it.
SPEAKER_03:But you're not playing Bach in ABC orchestra. Nope. It's anything but anything. Or Beethoven or Mozart or those people. Tell me about that. What's the value of having them play these other genres?
SPEAKER_05:Um just you learn a lot more skills that you wouldn't get in the normal classroom. Okay. Um, you know, we have all these skills, uh, if we look at our national standards of like, you know, I can perform and do this and that, and then we have all these other ones of I can create, I can evaluate, I can improvise. And we don't have time for that during the regular classroom, really. So it might be like a quick unit and you might learn maybe a pentatonic scale. Um, our kids, we start as soon as we can. You're just gonna learn how to improvise. We're gonna learn how to play games with it. Um of the things we do are actually uh Alice K. Kanick, um, she's a fantastic educator, has a whole program for getting kids to improvise string quartets all together. Um and while that's on the classical side, we're still diving into more of the skills of improvising, being able to arrange on the fly, understanding my role as a musician, where we can take those skills and transfer them to, hey, I gotta get three, I gotta get some strings recorded this weekend. Are you able to do that for me? Um and that's kind of our goal is to be able to go in and just play without having anything written and fit into any gig we get called for.
SPEAKER_03:But most of these students do have other musical groups. In fact, that's a prerequisite you said they are getting the basics of note reading and so forth in other classes. So you're putting this on top of that. Yeah. Because a lot of classical musicians can't improvise for this. Yes, correct.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. We uh we bring ABC to different colleges to present on what we do for undergraduate teachers. Um and we always end it with who wants to come improvise with us. I'll only put my freshman forward. And it's funny seeing a bunch of you know college juniors and seniors go, mm-mm, I'm afraid of that. And I'm like, this kid's only been playing their instrument for, you know, three years. Yeah, yeah. Like, what's there to be afraid of? But it's just that it's not, and it's not like knocking them. It's a skill that they don't ever practice. They don't realize that it's not as hard as it seems. And when you've played for 10, 15, 20 years only reading music, you've never improvised, that's terrifying. It's a that's a lot. And I think it's important for people to realize like a lot of like early Bach, early, you know. All those stuff that came from improvisations.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_05:Came from them going, Oh, I like this melody. What can I do with this melody? Um, you know, cadenza, uh, cadenzas in the classical era were mostly improvised for a long time. And that was your way to show off your skills until someone somewhere decided, no, you need to play mine to show how good you are.
SPEAKER_03:For sure. It uh I'm impressed that you have them do arranging uh of of their own arrangements of music. It seems like you pretty largely turned this over to them in terms of your, you know, empowering them.
SPEAKER_05:Um the arranging actually was kind of a happy accident. Um I got this crazy idea when I turned it, when I took ABC over because it was a kind of more of a fiddle group before, of let's just do number one, a project-based learning thing. You can do a project, anything music industry related. I don't really care what it is. And then a couple kids did arrangements that ended up being really good. And we started playing them, and kids would come up to me and go, Can we play this song? And I go, if you arrange it, I have no problem with it. Um, so we would do a project every semester, but then kids started cranking out arrangements so fast that uh Maggie, who you talk to, she's done I think three or four different arrangements, and two of them were in one semester. So I'm like, Do I grade her down next semester for not doing something, or do I just kind of take away the project element of it and just start encouraging kids to do things like this? So there's not a grade with it, and there's not really a feel fear of failure. You just do it, and if it sounds bad, we fix it because we bring it to the group, it's presented as a draft, then we bring it back. Uh if we got to fix anything, we fix it, and then we keep, you know, kind of going back and forth with the arranger working on it, the students working on it with the arranger, we play it, bring it back and forth until we have our final arrangement of it. So it's kind of a happy accident of we're gonna do this as a grade, and then they just did it so much we didn't have to do it as a grade anymore. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And and you play out in the community a lot. Where do you play? Where do you you know you play other schools?
SPEAKER_05:I know a lot elementary schools, but um so we try to be as community-based as we can, playing, um, played like the Mona Shores Fiddle Fest in November, and that was with their fantastic fiddle program. Um, played for the Grand Rapids Symphony. We opened in the lobby for their Pops concert, which was really fun. Um, we had a lot of people actually attend for us, which was awesome. Nice. Um, we really just try to do things in the community so people can see what we're doing. Um, and I feel like more programs should play out in the community for people to realize like we have really good programs in the area, but if it's just limited to two or three concerts a year at the school at one time, that doesn't really bring in the community at large. It brings in friends and family. Sure. And I want more people to realize the awesome things that we do. So, yes, I want to plug ABC, but also come to Countwood and see all the other cool things that my colleagues do. Sure.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, as a music guy, how important do you think music is to the educational uh program here at East Cantlewood?
SPEAKER_05:Oh, I think it's huge. I think um I heard a quote somewhere that like extracurriculars are the reasons kids stay in school. And for a lot of these kids, having the opportunity to play as much as we do, because we play a lot, um, really gives them that sense of I want to be here. This is exciting, I belong here, these are my friends. Um, you know, I always my philosophy is always music is about community first and then kind of playing and everything else later. So we need to have that sense of community, number one, in our group, and then number two in the public um at large, which uh after our fiddle fest group or fiddle fest performance, uh the symphony performance, there was quite a few people who reached out just from the community. Hey, I saw your group. When are you playing next? This was really cool. Wow. Um, and kind of bringing people into what we're doing.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I gotta say, in addition to f sounding fantastic, your students just look like they're having a great time up there.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah. I mean, you kind of have to want to be here. So there's like a little bit of a selection bias, but there's a lot of them where they're quiet, reserved people normally, but when you get them on stage, they have that performing persona, which is kind of something we talk about uh in my normal life. I'm fairly introverted, but I have a job where I can't be. So I have like a teacher persona, a performing persona where I'm gonna go up and give everything I can, every single performance. And I think that translates a lot to the kids going, yeah, I can go up and be a rock star up there on my instrument. My instrument is my voice, and I don't have to talk to people. Um and you know, afterwards, uh so Caleb is one of them where I love the kid, but he's very shy if he doesn't have an instrument in front of him. But you put an instrument in his hands and he's a beast of a player. Insane, like loud, very charismatic. Then you talk to him afterwards, and he's kind of like he's very shy, very self-spoken, pretty reserved guy.
SPEAKER_03:Well, SJ seemed pretty um SJ is pretty reserved, too.
SPEAKER_05:Pretty reserved, but um you get him on stage. I mean, he's he's literally like literally headbanging. He's crazy. I mean, he's a really good performer.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I could see that. I could see that. Well, it's a totally cool uh thing that you're doing here, and um so glad that uh the program is thriving because it's been going for quite a long time, almost what 18 years? Almost 18 years, yeah. Wow, that's fantastic. Yeah um well, congratulations on the great work you're doing with these with these students. Thanks so much for talking to us. Yeah, and uh um you students as well, and to our listeners, thanks for tuning into Study Hall again. Uh I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and I look forward to talking with you again in the new year. So I'll see you at our next study hall, and don't forget your pencils!
