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Learning to Play: Rock Band Students Perform to a Packed House

A person in a purple sweater is playing a piano in a room with other people, some of whom appear to be engaged in conversation.
A group of people, including a person playing a piano, are gathered in what appears to be a music studio or rehearsal space, with various musical instruments and equipment visible in the background.
A large group of people seated in a spacious room with a high ceiling, wooden beams, and large windows, suggesting a community gathering or event.
A young person, wearing a green sweater and white pants, is playing an electric bass guitar on a stage with a microphone stand and amplifier in the background.
The image shows a group of people gathered in what appears to be a performance or rehearsal space, with musical instruments and equipment visible in the foreground and a wooden-beamed ceiling in the background.
A person is playing the drums on a stage, with a guitar amplifier and other musical equipment visible in the foreground.
A person is seated at a table, working on a laptop computer, with various audio equipment and an %22EXIT%22 sign visible in the background.
An elderly person in a pink sweater is seated at a drum set on a carpeted stage, with a black curtain backdrop and wooden shelving visible in the background.
A group of musicians performing on stage in a spacious indoor venue with wooden beams and paneled walls.
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Learning to Play: Rock Band Students Perform to a Packed House

Music Teacher Nadine Cunningham wasn’t quite prepared for the level of enthusiasm the Tabor Academy community had for two trimester-ending performances by her Rock Band class in mid-November. “I had put out 20 chairs, and I thought that 10 of them would be filled by the students in the class who were about to perform,” she remembers. “In the end, I counted more than 70 people there. I had no idea that many people were going to show up.”

Cunningham may not have been able to predict the standing-room-only crowd that attended the performances, but she’s not surprised by it. “My students had asked their friends to come, teachers brought their entire classes, some of my colleagues had an open block and an advisee in the class,” she says. “I think that’s a hallmark of Tabor: We support our friends in their academic pursuits. When students are doing something to showcase what they’ve been learning, other students show up.”

Rock Band, a new course offered this year, invites budding musicians of all levels of experience to pick up an instrument, form a band, and work together to select, rehearse, and, finally, perform songs. Students learn to read music, follow a beat, and strum guitars, but Cunningham stresses that the real goal of her teaching is to help students stretch themselves. “It’s that piece of pushing past your comfort zone,” she says, “being a little bit vulnerable and uncomfortable; putting yourself out there and then realizing that you got through it.”

The student-musicians who performed agree. Juniors Lauren Armstrong, Lindsay Fox, and Charleigh Milburn all had some previous experience with piano lessons. They formed a trio for the class, and they all say they enjoyed learning and working as a team. “I started playing the synthesizer,” Armstrong recounts, “and Lindsay picked up the drums, and Charleigh stayed on the piano. It was a great experience to learn new instruments.” Fox says that her new focus on drums causes her to experience music she listens to differently. “I notice the beats of songs more,” she says. “Now I can really hear the beat, which is cool. I thought it was fun, all three of us learning different instruments and going through the learning process together.”

Milburn admits to feeling “terrified” when she realized how many Seawolves had poured in to watch the performances. “We were freaking out,” she says, “but it ended up being really fun.” Milburn, who plays varsity hockey at Tabor, compares the process of rehearsing for a performance to practicing before a big game. “We practice every single day and go through the same stuff,” she says, “and then on game day we have to perform correctly even with the nerves. That's kind of how it felt to learn the instruments and then perform.”

Fox says that Rock Band is one of the most fun classes she’s taken at Tabor, and she recommends that other students try courses that may seem unfamiliar. “Try new classes,” she says. “Just do it. You might have a good experience.”

Ninth grader Gwyneth McQuillan came into the class with a musical background and says that her time in Rock Band inspired her to learn guitar. Since the class ended, she’s started taking lessons. “I can also tell people I play drums now because of this class, and that’s really cool,” she says. As a younger student, McQuillan used her previous experience to find confidence. “There were older students in the class who hadn’t really played instruments before, so I would try to teach them,” she says. “I learned how to collaborate with people I wasn’t as close with, and how to become comfortable talking to people and sharing my ideas.”

“If you’ve never played an instrument before, this is the place for you to play,” Cunningham, the teacher, says. “And I love to use that verb: ‘play.’ We don’t work music, we play music. The core of music is playing: figuring it out, working with other people, and getting to do something that’s different from any of the other classes you’re taking. The students build a specific skill that they might only use in this class for a trimester, but they’re also picking up skills that they can keep using beyond my classroom.

“Having that many people in the room elevated the stakes a little bit,” Cunningham continues. “That presence, those few more eyeballs on them, made the kids ‘lock in,’ as they say, and really show what they’d been working on.”