Now, the
elementary music program in Harbor Springs is hard at work on their next
audio project, and teacher Jason Byma has plans to continue growing the
program to reach even more students.
Byma
and around 30 students from the fourth and fifth grades performed a
sample of their newest project on Monday for the Harbor Springs school
board, a cover of Bruno Mars’ “Count On Me.”
“I thought they rocked it,” Byma said. “That’s just a snippet of what we’re working on for the spring.”
School officials praised the students and Byma’s ongoing efforts to
produce high quality musical performances.
produce high quality musical performances.
“I
just think that’s fantastic,” said interim superintendent Susan Jacobs.
“We have put a lot of energy into increasing music curriculum and
presentation quality and stuff like that. This just kind of shows the
board that we’re really happy that they are supporting arts just as much
as STEM and everything else. It’s a good thing.”
“Count
On Me” will ultimately feature around 280 kids in grades 1-5. The music
program has been working on the song since September.
“It’s
a great song with a great message,” Byma said. “It’s about being there
for each other and being there for your friends and others being there
for you. It’s a great message, especially at the elementary level. It’s a
little tricky to find pop songs that the kids like that are
school-appropriate.”
Byma and
his students are often working on multiple projects at once. “Count On
Me” took a backseat for several weeks as the students prepared for their
holiday concerts.
“I was
already working on the first- and second-grade chorus once we got closer
to November,” Byma said. “Each grade did at least four songs and some
did five or six songs for the Christmas concert.”
Byma
will soon be shifting from K-5 music to grades 3-8, meaning his
students will continue to explore singing and music technology into
middle school.
“Right now I am
burning the midnight oil and pushing really hard getting all the first-
and second-graders’ voices in the computer before I stop seeing them so
they can still be a part of the project,” Byma said.
A
new music teacher will soon be hired to cover K-2 music. Byma said it
was a little emotional breaking the news to his younger students, but
that the change is “by far the best option.”
“This
is by far a very, very positive and exciting change for the kids that
are into music,” he said. “To have music, a strong music program, for
nine years, (then) by the time they get to high school they’re going to
have a really strong foundation and then just explode into whatever they
want to do musically. It’s really exciting.”
While
third- and fourth-grade students are singing and learning to play
instruments, Byma said his fifth-grade students will soon be learning
how to record, mix and edit their own music.
“Right
now I’m doing all the mixing and the editing,” Byma said. “But
eventually ... the kids will do the actual audio recording, and then
they’ve got to blend it and mix it and balance it so that way it sounds
good. I have no idea how that’s going to go with middle school ... but
the fifth- and fourth-graders, the kids that I have at Shay (Elementary
School) right now, are super excited that next year they have more
musical choices.”
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