A8 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2020Tracking an OutbreakThe New Reality
In 13 years of playing flute, Ga-
briella Alvarez never imagined
playing with a clear plastic trash
bag around her instrument. Kevin
Vigil never foresaw his fellow tuba
players wrapping pantyhose
around their instrument bells.
And neither expected to watch
their marching band at New Mex-
ico State University play through
cloth face masks, separated by
six-foot loops of water pipe, with
bags filled with hand sanitizer and
disinfectant strapped around
their waists.
But this is band practice in a
pandemic.
The two students, both seniors,
are grateful to have practice at all.
In March, the coronavirus shut
down their band along with much
of the country, painfully demon-
strating that the pandemic would
leave no part of their education
untouched. It would take five
months for them to regain the pre-
cious ability to play together
again.
“In the middle of this summer, I
started playing my instrument
alone and sat there crying be-
cause I was just so upset,” Ms. Al-
varez, 22, said. “Making music
with other people is part of why I
do it.”
In dozens of interviews, stu-
dents and educators described
similar travails — and similar ad-
aptations — in music programs
across the country. In many dis-
tricts, schools have paused their
music programs or moved them
online out of concerns that aerosol
transmission of the coronavirus
during band or chorus practices
would turn them into super-
spreader events.
Those bands and orchestras
that have moved their programs
online often found that ordinary
video chat platforms are inade-
quate because of audio lag. And
students have said there is simply
no substitute for in-person prac-
tices, performances and instruc-
tion. Even in small group or pri-
vate lesson via webcam, the de-
tails of proper posture, pitch and
rhythm are lost, they said.
Ms. Alvarez, who is studying
music performance, lost the one-
on-one guidance she needed to
prepare for auditions with profes-
sional orchestras. Mr. Vigil’s first
student teaching position, critical
for the degree in music education
he is seeking, was canceled.
Rather than risk entering a job
market ravaged by the virus, both
chose to postpone graduation.
Unable to introduce music to
children during their formative
years, teachers fear a lasting drop
in participation that could wipe
out much of the next generation of
musicians.
“If children and even college
students can’t participate in mu-
sic, it’s going to create such a void
and it’s going to reverberate for a
long time,” said Mark J. Spede,
president of the College Band Di-
rectors National Association.
Instead of ensemble music,
some programs have been teach-
ing music history or theory, or
having students submit videos of
themselves playing their instru-
ments that are incorporated into
collages that make it seem as if
they are performing together. But
creating such collages requires
resources that many schools can-
not afford.
At North Kansas City High
School in Missouri, where the gov-
ernor has slashed the education
budget, the band director Carrie
Epperson has only half of last
year’s funds, and she is still wait-
ing on bell covers her school dis-
trict promised to send to wind in-
strumentalists. Nevertheless,
mask wearing and strict social
distancing seem to have worked:
no band members have tested
positive for the coronavirus.
Brenna Ohrmundt is the band
director for a small, low-income
district in rural Wisconsin, where
coronavirus cases have skyrock-
eted in recent weeks. When
schools shuttered in March, many
students did not have instruments
at home. When they returned to
classrooms this fall, they still were
not allowed to play together.
“What I’m afraid of is, students
are going to say, ‘This is not what I
signed up for,’ ” Ms. Ohrmundt
said.
Yet, at a time when students
could be discouraged from con-
tinuing to study music, educators
are finding innovative ways for
them to play together safely.
Mr. Spede, who is also director
of bands at Clemson University,
recognized early on that educa-
tors did not know which music ac-tivities might be safe. He initiated
a study in which researchers at
the University of Colorado and the
University of Maryland have been
measuring the spread of aerosols
when people sing, dance or play
instruments.
“My biggest fear was that peo-
ple, administrators, whoever
were going to have a knee-jerk re-
action and say that can’t possibly
be safe, to play music in person,”
Mr. Spede said. “What we’re try-
ing to do with the study is, literally,
save music.”
Preliminary results from the
study show that some simple
rules can help prevent the virus
from spreading in music groups:
mask wearing, even if that entails
cutting a hole in it to play an in-
strument; covering the bell of
brass instruments, such as trum-
pets, with nylon (pantyhose
work); and practicing outdoors
where possible, or in properly
ventilated areas.
“Even that information gives
people hope right now, which we
desperately need,” said Rebecca
Phillips, president of the National
Band Association and the director
of bands at Colorado State Univer-
sity.
Ms. Alvarez cried tears of joy
and relief on the day in Augustwhen New Mexico State’s march-
ing band reunited.
Steven Smyth, the university’s
associate director of bands,
worked all summer with faculty
and students to put into place
safety measures. Practice is now
always outdoors. To enforce social
distancing, Mr. Smyth designed
six-foot “hula hoops” made of wa-
ter pipes that encircle each musi-
cian. He recruited a flute player
who is studying engineering to
customize masks with slits that
snap shut magnetically for the
woodwind players.
Nylon bell covers were ordered
for brass players. And, following
another recommendation from
the study, brass players must
empty “spit valves,” a tap that
drains condensation from inside
the instrument, onto absorptive
puppy pee pads.
“There was a lot of negativity
going around,” Ms. Alvarez said.
“But once those masks came out,
a lot of people started saying, ‘Oh,
we’re coming back. This is hap-
pening.’ ”
Mr. Smyth said this week that
the marching band had not had a
student test positive for the co-
ronavirus. Nationally, the College
Band Directors National Associa-
tion reports that no infections
among college band students
have been attributed to band ac-
tivities, Mr. Spede said.
“I feel a little bit safer just know-
ing that there are a lot of people
fighting to keep the arts alive,” Mr.
Vigil said.
Other schools have used simi-
larly creative measures. Villanova
University ordered goggles for
their marching band after re-
searchers in China found fewer vi-
rus cases among people with
glasses, suggesting that eye pro-
tection could reduce spread of the
virus. At West Chester University,plexiglass walls separate instruc-
tors from students in private
lessons.
The Northern Virginia Commu-
nity College campus in Annan-
dale, Va., is home to a thriving
symphony orchestra, open to stu-
dents and members of the com-
munity. Despite having fewer re-
sources and a smaller music de-
partment than most universities,
it has the support of Reunion Mu-
sic Society, a local nonprofit group
that helped it reach record enroll-
ment this year.
“This orchestra would not exist
without community involvement,”
said Ralph Brooker, president of
Reunion Music Society and princi-
pal cellist in the orchestra.
This fall, the conductor, Christo-
pher Johnston, has been organ-
izing about 50 active orchestra
members, who include older mu-
sicians, into small groups. Some
rehearse six feet apart in carports
and church parking lots, but most
use JamKazam, a video chat plat-
form that allows musicians to see
and hear each other in real time.
The technology is imperfect. At
a jazz group meeting, JamKazam
kept booting Mr. Johnston off the
call. The musicians turned to
Zoom, where audio lag caused the
individual parts of “My Funny
Valentine” to trip drunkenly over
each other. The song was barely
recognizable, but the musicians
grinned in their little onscreen
boxes — the thrill of playing to-
gether had not been dampened.
“There is therapy in getting to-
gether with other musicians.” Mr.
Johnston said. “It’s helping us
cope with all of the negative by-
products of this time, one of which
is loneliness.”
Safety measures have gone far
to reassure students and educa-
tors. Results from a survey dis-
tributed this fall show that partici-pation in school and community
bands has held steady since last
year, according to James Weaver,
director of performing arts with
the National Federation of State
High School Associations.
Musicians at every level say
that those who were passionate
about a career in music before the
pandemic are only more motivat-
ed now. Ms. Alvarez plans to get a
master’s degree in music per-
formance after she graduates. Mr.
Vigil, who aspires to teach music
at the college level, has leaned
into his leadership role with the
marching band.
In Wisconsin, Ms. Ohrmundt
spent weeks hand-sewing masks,
soliciting donations of bell covers
and scrounging up pillowcases
that woodwind players could
wrap around their instruments —
all in hopes of gathering her high
school band in the gym for its first
practice in months. But a surge in
the virus has postponed in-person
activities into next year.
In Missouri, Nevaeh Diaz, who
graduated from North Kansas
City High School in May, is now
studying music education at Mis-
souri State University.
In playing the drums in high
school, Ms. Diaz had found a
healthy outlet for her anxiety and
depression. And during the pan-
demic, she leaned even more on
her band director, Ms. Epperson,
who personally delivered one of
the school’s expensive marimbas
to Ms. Diaz’s home for a virtual
scholarship audition.
Now she looks at Ms. Epperson
as a model for the high school
band director she aims to become.
“I’m not here for the money, I’m
here to change a life,” Ms. Diaz
said. “If I can be the teacher to the
student that Epp was for me, then
I will do that.”From Pantyhose to Trash Bags, Innovations Keep Music Programs Alive
Nobody in the marching band at New Mexico State University has tested positive for the coronavi-
rus, a school music official said. Left, Gabriella Alvarez, who has played the flute for 13 years.PHOTOGRAPHS BY ADRIANA ZEHBRAUSKAS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESTo enforce social distancing, “hula hoops” were used at the New Mexico State University Pride Band practice in late October. Covering a tuba with nylon to help prevent the aerosols from escaping.
Finding a way to regain the
precious ability to play
together again.
By AISHVARYA KAVIBAND AND CHORUS PRACTICE