The pandemic quarantine meant that people stopped attending public areas such as stores, offices, and schools. This caused many people’s lives to be greatly affected and their daily routines had to be changed. However, as time eventually progressed, the state of the world began to gradually become better, and people were able to slowly come back into the public. In my personal life, my school’s music class had the greatest effect on me as people could not play nearby, resulting in the program to take many different methods to somehow work around the situation and get the students to play together again.
When the school year first began, the state of the world was not the healthiest. This caused the students to not only no longer play instruments at school, but students could not go to school in general. To make up for the lost time, the music program managed to think of a way to play music together: to have the students first record individually and then combine the recorded tracks together in the end. This method managed to work successfully when looking at the final product, but everybody worked on it individually alone for most of the time.
Luckily, as time passed, the conditions became better, and students were able to play instruments at school, but with many regulations. These included staying approximately 12 feet apart from each other, wearing specific instrumentalist masks, and having covers for instruments. Although the situations were much different from the previous years, the students were finally able to play together again after some time, and as the conditions become better, the program will eventually go back to normal.
For bands outside of school, such as honor bands, they also had specific rules and regulations, as the members of the band were from all around the state. In these groups, the members also followed the recording method, where they recorded their own tracks for the songs and sent them to be combined together with the rest of the band. The students were also provided with materials to help them with the recording much as a metronome to keep their playing on track and a backtrack to see what the final version will sound like and how their part will contribute to it.
Currently, the situation has gotten much better, and in our school, the students are able to finally play indoors again, but still with many regulations. The students can now play about 6 to 7 feet apart from each other, and masks and covers are still worn. Although not many aspects of the routine have changed, being able to play instruments indoors is a significant improvement into closing the distance more and playing normally again.
For how much the pandemic has affected overall daily life, the music program has managed to produce creative and effective solutions to help get the students to play music together again. Although everybody wishes to have their normal lives back and no longer live with all of the health regulations, the many ways that people have thought of to help them in these struggles will truly be a memorable experience for them all.
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