Maeve Hibbert, Blogs Editor
@mhibbertcourant
A teacher walks around the classroom, handing out a test to each student. Most people would picture this testing environment as one of complete silence, minus the stifled coughs and anxious tapping toes on the ground. In science teacher Mr. Michael Miceli’s physics and geo-physical science classes, this is not the case. He plays instrumental music for students while they take assessments to help them feel more at ease in a testing environment.
“We all know that with assessments and tests comes high anxiety,” Mr. Miceli said. “The hope is that when they’re listening to music that they might be familiar with, it puts them in a more familiar or comfortable surrounding environment, reducing their overall stress.”
Playing instrumental music during tests is one of many ways that students take advantage of music as a resource. Music is also used as a tool to study with, de-stress, and connect with others. “If I’m studying, I listen to something that’s really less lyrical, mostly jazz, so I can focus,” Junior Daniel Ristic said.
Jazz music has more than one meaning to Daniel, and being part of the school jazz band has impacted Daniel’s taste in music. “The reason I started listening to jazz is because of the school jazz band,” he said. “I’d hear a piece in that and I’d say ‘Oh, this sounds good,’ and then I’d go listen to it on my own time,” he said.
Daniel plays the saxophone and often collaborates with peers to create a performance, which has changed the way Daniel thinks about all the music he listens to. “If I hear an instrumental part of a rap song, I’m able to appreciate it a lot more because I understand what goes into it,” he said.
Along with his love for jazz music, Daniel also listens to rap, and this interest was influenced by his older brother. “My favorite rap artist is Tyler, the Creator,” he said. “When I was around eight, my brother would listen to him all the time.”
Daniel isn’t the only student whose music taste has been influenced by his older siblings. Senior Tommy Goetz credits his older brother with cultivating his love for country music. “My brother used to play the song ‘Every Other Memory’ by Ryan Heard all the time in the car during my freshman and sophomore years,” he said.
Although students all have different tastes in music, many have found common ground in connecting with others through music. “I feel like I know the music tastes of many people that I’m close with, and have an awareness of what they do and do not want to listen to,” said sophomore Maggie Marshall. “I kind of base what I listen to when I’m with them off of that.”
Another way that students use music is to match their mood throughout the day. Maggie has different playlists for each activity that she does. “Usually my music starts more mellow during the day and at school while I’m studying or something like that, but if I’m working out, I tend to listen to Kanye, Jay-Z, or some older rap music,” she said.
Maggie also noted a change in her music taste and the kind of music she listens to throughout the day from when she started high school to now. “As time went on, I feel like the more time I had to listen to music, it kind of had to fit into my day, which was a more mellow tone. So then my music kind of changed with that,” she said. Maggie attributes the change in her music taste to having busier days in high school than previously had.
Mr. Miceli lets students pick the genre or artist when they are participating in lab work. “Groups are kind of all over the room, so when it’s that type of scenario, I’ll let them have some sort of a genre topic to pick from,” he said. “Other times I will just stick to my baseline and go for something like country music,” he said. “Taylor Swift, or just some of Pandora’s greatest hits or today’s top hits.”
Beginning this initiative when he started teaching here four years ago, Mr. Miceli has noticed that students’ respond well to the music that he plays, and are more focused and energetic in class.
Students throughout NCHS enrich their lives with all kinds of music and use it as a companion in their everyday lives as a tool to connect with others. Mr. Miceli has noticed that students’ moods significantly change when they’re listening to music. “I definitely have noticed that when I’m playing music during labs, you kind of get more of an upbeat feel,” he said. “The students become more awake and alive.”
