The Band that Brought a School Community Together

When a band is really cooking, it’s tight, in time and cohesive there are fewer finer sights.

It’s a lot more than just music though, there is practice, sharing of resources, support, achievement and the realisation of potential, all the good stuff that helps a school community and its students to interact across year levels and thrive.

The music programme at Sunshine College in Melbourne has a huge impact. The school is in a low socio-economic area where a lot of students would not have access to the arts if it wasn’t for school. For many students school is a safe place to be creative.

Susie Kelly, Music & Productions Focus Group Leader Sunshine College says, “One thing I love is the multi-year level experience of Concert Band. Almost everything else the students do is in year level silos so it’s wonderful to see year 7s interacting with year 12s at rehearsals and students from across different year levels working together as a team to create something beautiful.

“It has also given us better connections with our primary schools as we take the bands on tour to visit them which has become an annual event which the schools look forward to.”

The College is very inclusive and has had both blind students and deaf students as part of the choir, as well as many students on the spectrum or with other learning challenges within the Concert band programmes.

“Our leadership believe strongly in the transformative power of music and therefore heavily subsidises instrumental lessons in order to make them accessible to all. Instruments are provided to those who need them as part of the $75 a year fee.”

The program has had real positive effects. Take Jesse Gatt, a year 11 student at Sunshine College who leads a musical double life. During the day he is the percussionist for the school band, by night the drummer behind thrash metal outfit Deranged Military.

While the genre might not be to your taste Jesse’s technical ability is undeniable as he navigates 2 bass drums, 3 rack toms, 2 floor toms, a snare, 3 crash cymbals, a ride, a china, a splash, a pair of hi-hats and a cowbell as he lays down a beat.

The school’s music program was key to Jesse discovering a passion and a talent.

“I started playing drums 8 years ago, since then I’ve learned to play hundreds of songs from a plethora of genres. I joined the concert band as a percussionist in its founding year. I started my musical journey with the hope to learn to play electric guitar, which I would still love to do. However, after playing drums I knew that I wanted to invest a lot of time into it. To this day, drums and percussion is still my favourite thing ever and I would never give it up for anything.

“The concert band has given me the opportunity to learn a number of new pieces and has also allowed me to practice my music reading and sight reading. I was able to apply all of this practice in VCE music and it has really assisted me.”

Over the past few years, he has helped several percussionists in the Junior band to play the basic music at the start. This year's new junior band at Sunshine, which just started last week, has several new percussionists joining and Jesse will be on hand to provide support to any students who need it.

The cross pollination between metal and classical has influenced Jesse’s playing and improved it.

“Playing classical music in concert band has encouraged me to appreciate the technical side of metal. Drum parts from bands like Death, Lamb of God, Iron Maiden and Slipknot are very technical and intuitive. Being able to read and play classical and jazzy music inside of concert band has improved my ability to analyse and play the complex drum parts of Metal.”

Jesse loves music and envisions it as continuing to be a big part of his life, “I want to be able to be a casual musician and play the music that I love, I do song writing for the band and I love doing that as well. I want to learn guitar and bass and become a multi-instrumentalist. I want to record music and release our art for the world to hear.”

The music department at Sunshine is a very eclectic one with a range of different talent amongst the staff. The school has three full time classroom music teachers who work across two campuses, as well as seven instrumental staff who teach woodwind, brass, percussion, guitars, keyboards and singing.

Sunshine College runs VCE Contemporary Music at years 11 & 12 and students have a compulsory semester of music in years 7&8 before it becomes an elective subject at years 9/10. The school has always had a strong contemporary music programme, and are now extending that into classical instruments.

“We have a weekly lunchtime choir, Junior and Senior Concert bands after school, a lunchtime “Jam club” and monthly open mic performances as well as evening concerts and performances throughout the year.

“Last year we implemented a new cross-curricular project with our year 7 cohort, creating a whole year level performance project. They put on a musical for parents with the drama students acting and the music student singing. It has been very successful in encouraging kids to be more active in the performing arts again after taking such a big hit during COVID,” Kelly says.

“One of our biggest challenges is the number of students who do not have access to instruments at home, or a place to practice. We try to aid families with this as much as possible and have been lucky enough to receive a large number of donated instruments, following a localised campaign in the past year, which we have then been able to loan to students.”

Sunshine College’s music program found much needed support through Yamaha Music Australia's Great Start Grant.

“Winning the Yamaha grant was an incredible thing for our school. We would never have had the funds to purchase a full concert band set and therefore our students would never have had the opportunity to experience this type of instrumental music without the grant.

“We now have students arriving at the school in year 7 already excited to learn instruments such as the trombone or the clarinet because they have been inspired by the band. I’m a strong believer that you can’t be what you can’t see so that visibility in the community is important. The grant has also given us the opportunity to make connections with community groups such as Sunshine Community Brass Band and Westgate Concert Band, with a view to encouraging our young musicians to become lifelong learners and to see music as something they can continue with beyond school, no matter what they choose as a career.”

One of the biggest challenges the College is currently facing is the negative attitudes of families towards music once students hit VCE. There is a sharp drop in participation at year 11 as students say, “I need to be serious and focus on my studies now”.

“There is so much research that shows that learning an instrument actually enhances your studies and builds your brain capacity. There’s a reason there are so many doctors orchestras and lawyers choirs around the world! Unfortunately, it is very hard to change this negative perception in our culture of music being a “fun add on” rather than an academic pursuit, not to mention an essential creative pathway which is so life affirming and stress relieving,” Kelly says.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to find good music staff (or indeed any staff!). We are lucky to be fully staffed at the moment but it is a concern, seeing how few teachers are out there in Victoria at the moment and hearing from other schools how difficult it is to find music teachers.  The continuation and success of a music programme is so reliant on the right staffing. I feel really fortunate to work with a great team, all focused on helping our students to become the best musicians they can be."

Applications for the Yamaha Music Australia's Great Start Grant are open.