Joni Elliot admires this space and believes that music is a gift to all people. “It’s for everybody,” she stresses. 29-years into her career, and she couldn’t be more rooted in her principles. Music was accessible to Joni when she was a young girl, and it was her interest in its sounds that made her consider becoming a teacher in the first place. 

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Now she spends her days spreading that interest to multiple grades who are discovering music for the first time. “I divide [it] up into two groups,” she says, describing her classroom, “There's first and second grade, I kind of think of it as a group, and then third and fourth. First, second, we work on the beat, feeling a beat. From there we go into rhythm. We do quite a bit of rhythm reading at that age.” Once students have mastered the fundamentals, then they’re ready to pass onto the vaulted gates of fifth grade and into Jeffrey and Brian’s capable hands for band, chorus, or both. “Some kids are very natural,” Joni says, “It just almost was born in them.” 

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Music and art thrive in Jasper County Schools. The music born into them that Joni talks about is very much in harmony with the remarkable identification and appropriation of resources Brian and Jeffrey bring to bear in finding instruments for students whose families may not be able to afford them. “We told the kids when we started out,” Brian says, “You might [play] exactly the instrument that you tested for but if we can’t find one, we will find something for you to play.” 

While some of it may be born in them, there’s also an institutional reputation on the line to consider. Along with pep, marching, and concert band is Jeffrey Finley’s other slice of the operation: The Musical. NCHS Musicals have a statewide reputation for excellence, and members of other schools are often in attendance to pick up on the secrets of the successful productions. This upcoming Spring they’re putting on “Mamma Mia!,”, and it’ll be an upbeat, toe-tapping reemergence after the uncertainty and isolation of COVID.

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COVID left some staggering effects on the arts programs, with fewer than 50% of fifth graders starting band after the worst of the pandemic, a reduction from pre-COVID years’ participation by nearly half. Brian is optimistic, though, saying, “We’ve always been known for having an amazing band, musical, and vocal program here… We’re used to 80% of kids doing band in fifth grade, it’s going to take a while to get back to what it was.”

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Which raises the question, though obvious to most people: Why is it so important to have a robust music program?

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Joni doesn’t hesitate before hitting the buzzer: “The music is everywhere around us. In our culture, kids are watching performers and that sort of thing all the time. They may sing along, but they still kind of feel like it’s for somebody else, right?” In her music instruction, she tries to motivate students to see that music and art can be made into something of their own. It's accessible to them, whether they believe it is or not. For Jeff and Brian, they would consider this an appropriate coping skill for the future. “We do a lot of counseling even though we’re not counselors…we find every year that we have become more [like] parents to the kids than what we used to be taught,” Jeffrey explains. Often these children believe becoming a musician, singer, or actor is out of their reach, and addressing young self-esteem issues can be tough, but music is a wonderful place for self expression and the realization that we all have a voice. 

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The Fine and Performing Arts are booming in Jasper County Schools; they carry with them an inspirational legacy, and the reputation of a gold star music and performance school to go with it. Brian gushes about the school’s [small ‘m’] musical legacy, “Newton has been known for its band program for a long time. So, when we marched in Florida, somebody had stopped us to ask if we would actually go to New Orleans to march. There's a history of excellence in the marching program here. There's excellence in everything music wise, with Musical [big ‘M’] as well.” 

Music is alive and well in Jasper County and its contribution to student success, to include social and emotional learning along with cross-disciplinary brain development, makes for a pretty good reason to get together to sing some songs, put on a musical, or learn about quarter notes.