New class at Greenville High School gets more students interested in music

GREENVILLE, Mo. (KFVS) - Music class can sometimes seem boring to students who don’t connect with older songs.

In Missouri, Greenville High School’s music director designed a class called ‘Modern Band’ to keep kids interested in the subject.

High school freshman Sarah Grace Hicks enjoys being a member of the program.

“I love how we can come in here the whole hour and just do music,” said Hicks. “I’ve always loved music and I’ve always wanted to perform with a band so I thought when they started this that it would be fun, and it would be a new experience and I would learn more about performing.”

This is the first year of class for the Modern Band.

Music Director Kristen Englehart is using the band as a way of getting more students interested in music.

“We started seeing a drop in numbers in our marching band and so to kind of keep kids interested in the fine arts the movie school of rock was just a huge deal to kids to have a rock band at school so that’s kind of what we implemented and that way kids can get excited about rock music even though its still music and this also go towards their fine arts credit,” said Englehart.

Englehart said she’s starting to see more students involved in fine arts.

“I’ve had a few approaches me asking if they could join the modern band,” said Englehart.

Two students said why they chose to be apart of the class.

“I started playing guitar and I learned my first cord with my grandpa after that it just something I loved to do and then I come here and then all these other people learned how to play guitar too and they can kind of help me go along with guitar and I learned even more as I went,” said sophomore, Matthew Hoavis.

“I’ve been playing music pretty much my whole life so I kind of like to take an hour out of the day and come in here and do what I love,” said sophomore Braden O’Dell.

A love for music and a love for entertaining.

The Greenville Rocking Bears will have a Christmas concert at Greenville High School on Friday, December 3.