It’s early in the morning as Band Director Mr. Nathan Griffin gets ready for another performance from his band classes. The fanfare of trumpets, humming of flutes, and low sounds of bass instruments like the tuba fill the air creating a sense of rhythmic harmony. Every day the school band makes it a mission to practice to be the best they can be, and it certainly shows in their competitions. 

While the band classes focus on the different families of instruments and how they go together. The “Spartan Regiment”, the school’s marching band focuses on both movement and music. Their last competition at Francis Howell High School on Sep. 16, was very successful.

“We placed first in our class along with being awarded Outstanding Visual, Music, and General Effect in our class,” Griffin said. 

The recent performances of the band classes at school events have made sure not to disappoint, and the stellar shows the Spartan Regiment additionally put on make it not just a place to hear true harmony, but for students like Samantha Maxwell, a senior at FHC, to harmonize with her friends and peers. 

“I really enjoy the people. I enjoy the environment and I have some times when I don’t enjoy my instrument but [also] times that I do,” Maxwell said. “I find those things that I can play and I can enjoy.

Although at times finding your rhythm can be a hard feat, several band students like Maxwell find instruments that they truly like to play, as well as express themselves through. In this regard, music is truly an art of expressing oneself through things like the gentle strum of a guitar, an instrument that senior Tony Valera is quite familiar with. For students like Valera, the band room is a place where they can be their best, and make something both beautiful to the ears and eyes. 

“[It] is something I really enjoy that I was able to just kind of put my heart and soul into,” Valera said. 

Joy is something that exists because of the things which grant it, giving it meaning. Just as an author feels joy when they are writing or typing tales of wonder and wisdom, students and teachers that are part of the school band classes and Spartan Regiment feel joy from the music they make, and share that joy with others as they come together to make group harmony a reality.