PHS has five bands, four choirs and one orchestra.
Shear statistics alone hold that many students could then be impacted by the music programs and some even continue this into college
One such student is senior Amy Krantz who has been playing the clarinet for eight years and is not stopping after high school. She plans to continue playing though college in the University of Washington marching band.
“Band has been a part of my life so long, so it is a part of me. So going into college and not playing would be weird. Not only am I doing a college change, I am doing a life change too. I thought that [not performing music] would be too much change. I need something to keep me grounded in college. So I decided to use music as the way to keep me grounded,” Krantz said.
Krantz describes the feeling she gets when she is playing the clarinet.
“I do not really know how to describe it; it is such a weird feeling to describe. But it is just when you can leave the audience absolutely silent after you played something, you have kind of touched them on an emotional level sort of thing,” Krantz said.
Through Krantz’ eight years of playing, she enjoys playing pep tunes and other music.
“The pep tunes are always fun but my favorite one to play is one we played last year called ‘Holst.’ That is the one that left the audience silent. That one was just so beautiful, I do not think I will ever play something that good again. I am only going to be playing pep music in college, so I am going to be playing ‘Louie Louie’ again and other songs like that so I am not going to get into the deep, raw music,” Krantz said.
Senior Ben Johnson has been playing the French horn for five years and is planning on majoring in instrumental performance.
“I have always wanted to play in a large ensemble like a symphony or an orchestra. I do not know how realistic that is but that is what I hope to do,” Johnson said.
Johnson shares the hardest experience he had to deal with while playing the French horn.
“When I first got my braces on it was one of the hardest experiences I have had to do doing anything because along with the inherent pain of having braces, it is also metal against bare skin against more metal. That was a very hard time to get through,” Johnson said.
Johnson informs why he choose the French horn over all other instruments.
“I have always loved the sound of [the French horn], it has always been my favorite out of all the brass instruments. I was also influenced by my dad because he played [French horn] college,” Johnson said.
Senior Joshua Carlisle has been playing the piano for 12 years. He expands on why he plays the piano.
“Piano was my mom’s idea when I was five years old. She read that it helps with brain activity and all that jazz, for education purposes. Then I just never stopped, never stopped liking it,” Carlisle said.
Along with piano Carlisle sings in the Norselanders and has been doing singing lessons for three years. He explains why he started singing.
“I actually started singing as a joke because I told my buddy, we both had this thing for choir we both thought it was stupid and we made a deal that if one of us did it the other would have to. So as a joke to make fun of him I got it signed and we both ended up doing choir. We both got brought in the sixth grade choir to see the Noselanders. And after that I was like ‘oh wow I actually like doing this,’” Carlisle said.
Carlisle is planning on going to Pacific Lutheran University, he plans to study music.
“As an undergrad I have pretty much decided on doing vocal performance because it lets me focus on learning how I can sing before I try and teach other people how to sing,” Carlisle said.
Carlisle reflects on some of his favorite pieces to play and shares them.
“It feels nice to play older pieces because you get in the mind of people that are gone and have been gone for some time. It is cool to see how they wanted to express themselves and that is fun,” Carlisle said.
Krantz shares the importance of music in schools and how much performer’s hard work is overlooked.
“Music effect is kind of underrated in school systems because they do not understand how much effort you put into something. When people say ‘oh it is just music’ it is like a slap in the face to all that you have practiced for,” Krantz said.