Music News

The band plays on, in spite of lockdown struggles

The sudden relockdown of the school has been challenging and abrupt for all of us, but especially challenging for all of the school bands. Just as we were starting to get back into the swing of our senior ensembles, we were thrust back into the uncertainty of remote learning. 

However, even with all the hurdles we’ve come across, Northcote High’s Senior Stage band (also known as Jazz Orchestra) has been hard at work practicing on our own so that when it comes to WebEx, we can do our best to play along with our drummer and record our parts individually and in time. We’ll often get wonderful comments like “Was my mic on that whole time? Oops, sorry”, “That actually worked well, I’m surprised”, “Was that too many bars?” and “Let’s try that again,” being frequently heard throughout the rehearsals.

So far, we’ve had two of these online rehearsals during term three, and much to our gratitude, almost everyone has been there. Through a combination of our conductors’ strategic muting and unmuting of players, and a very patient ensemble, we have been able to have a mostly successful session, with a relatively okay sounding track put together by Ms. Bodenham at the end. 

Throughout the trials and tribulations online learning has put us all through, those of us in the school’s music program have been able to persevere through, and continue on with our instrument-playing passion. That being said, despite the temporary solutions we’ve found, I’m sure everyone would agree that we can’t wait to be back in the theatre rehearsing together in person again.

Dominic Harvey, 11F

Just Dance!

Now that we're all stuck inside for a little while; maybe it's time to just dance. Are you a dancer/choreographer? Just Dance 2020 (the virtual version) is here. Want to know more? Check out the Just Dance MyNH co-curricular page or email Ms Brogan for more details.