In a small and quaint classroom are eight keyboards. For more than three years, the class had been devoid of the signature sound of the piano that once echoed through the room. According to choir director Angela Hampton, the once-popular class was taken by the pandemic, and only now is the class coming back into the limelight.
When the pandemic started, the class was deemed “unsafe.” In such a small room, an outbreak was almost bound to happen.
“Well, this was a class that I used to have all the time, and when I started teaching here, 30 years ago, we had this class and just with teachers, schedules, and things, it got shifted around. Mr. Elmore taught it for a while. Mr. Yankee taught it for a while. It then went to somebody they only brought in for this class. And then when we shut down for COVID, they didn’t bring this class back after that,” said Hampton.
Recently, a new generation of pianists of all different skill levels have come to Floyd.
“I started piano last year, so it’s probably been seven or eight months since I’ve been in lessons,” said junior Maylee Wheatley.
For experienced pianists, the class is an outlet for more practice, giving them an extra 50 minutes of practice every day on their material.
But normally the class is a more beginner-centered course that gives students a musical basis to be used in life and get better at piano out of school, said says Hampton.
Students in the class get to work at whatever pace fits them for their enjoyment.
“Yeah, we have these units, so it’s self-paced. I have gotten through three so far, so at the end of each unit, there is a written and a playing test,” said Droddy. Despite some students being further behind than others, Hampton finds a way to keep them all together at a relative point in their studies.
“So we play. We usually start every class with group playing, so they’re all using the same book, but they’re allowed to move through that book at their own pace. So when we do group stuff, I’ll try to pick something that’s kind of like right in the middle,” said Hampton.
In addition to group performance at the beginning of every class, the class also includes a special curriculum on Fridays.
“What we do, though, is every Friday we do a group recital, so we go to the choir room so we can play Korean piano, and everybody prepares one piece. Very informal. Some of the songs are gonna be, like, 10 measures long, yeah, something like that, very short. But each person says what they’re going to play, and they play it, we clap, and then we offer comments to each person before they move on. It’s a participation-based thing. You’re not graded on how well you perform, just that you performed,” said Hampton
Starting this class back up could’ve proved to have been a challenge but things turned out differently. Starting the class back up went off almost without a hitch and the only difficulty was getting Hampton said.
Juniors like Callie Yasuyo are an example of this. “I always wanted to learn piano, so I think it’s fun,” says Callie.
After the class being away so long, Hampton realized she could do something about it.
“They didn’t have this class in the fall of 2020, and then it just kind of disappeared off the books for a while. Last year I had two prep periods, which was unusual for me because of the way my schedule worked out, and started talking last spring to the administrators about, you know, with one of those prep periods, could we bring this class back, and they said yes.”
It can’t be understated that the class is more beginner-focused than anything, but many students in the class have some sort of prior musical knowledge.
“Prior musical knowledge helps because I can identify every note and I know every flat. It’s really helpful,” said freshman Hayden Ferris.
Even without prior musical knowledge, the class teaches basic musical knowledge to all the students including theory, musicality, and technique.
“We worked a lot on technique and theory, the first couple of weeks, getting that hand position and the fingering and yeah, because right away, some of them were playing notes like this, you know, with the fingers buckling and things like that. Or they’d have their hands down,” said Hampton.
The newly incorporated class has brought basic musical knowledge and piano skills back to the halls of Floyd Central. Like a phoenix from the ashes, the class has risen from its former pandemic absence back to its original standing as a staple of the Floyd Central music curriculum.