Music at State High shows just how diverse our community can be. The State College Area School District has been declared the Best Community for Music Education every year since 2014. In many ways, music is in the roots of our school.
Band and Orchestra make up the majority of the high school’s musical body. The marching band performs at every State College football game, and the orchestra performs seasonal concerts.
“Right now [we have] maybe like 60 [people in band],” Noah Lin, a clarinet player since 4th grade, said. “I like band because it’s a place where I spend time with my friends and make music with them.” On Friday mornings it has become tradition for band students to play music before the start of school.
Edmond Li, a violinist in the orchestra for four years, shared that the orchestra has a “team spirit that brings us together.”
The orchestra sees less action than the band, instead of playing at football games and other events they play two concerts throughout the year. The first one is during the winter and the second is in the spring. The concerts are scheduled roughly six months apart from the last one.
Benefits of Music
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education, all public schools K-12 in the state of Pennsylvania are legally required to have a Music program. This is because music improves cognitive skills more than twice as much as sports, theater, or dance. Kids who take music lessons have better cognitive skills and school grades and are more conscientious, open, and ambitious.
In addition, the process of learning and playing an instrument increases brain power and functionality. A study conducted by Psychology Today found that students who participate in music-related activities achieved higher scores on science, math, and English exams in high school than non-musical classmates. DoSomething.org reported in 2018 that schools with music programs have a 90.2% graduation rate and 93.9% attendance rate compared to schools without music education, which average 72.9% graduation and 84.9% attendance.
Other Opportunities
Many classes are offered across the school that encourage different genres of music, while orchestra and band teach physical learning music, other courses teach about the history and impacts that music has on events during those periods of history.
Outside of school programs, several local student-formed bands are getting the attention of many. Recently, State High’s WCSH broadcast has encouraged students to submit their musical work so it can play before the morning announcements. This has allowed many original songs, most noticeably “The Cleaning Man” by the Smash Tacklers, to become popular in the school.
Music is important in our daily lives because it can have a profound effect on our emotions, thoughts, and behavior. It can be used as a form of self-expression, as well as a way to connect with others. Lift Every Voice, a cultural event that started in 2022 was created inside the school to spread messages of different cultures through many different forms of art including music for that reason.
No matter where you look music is all around the school.
