Dave

I’ve been playing the trombone since a moment of epiphany at my Grandfather’s funeral led me to the instrument in spring 2013, after a spotty musical past. I’m famous for practicing wherever I can, such as at dozens of interminable Boston-area youth baseball and hockey events (where my kids were participating; you may have seen me; I now use a mute). I’ve always preferred to play with others, however, and had organized a few bands or concerts in different settings until I stumbled onto School of Honk. School of Honk for me is a complete godsend–a chance to play invigorating music in a friendly, supportive community, and to parade, which really is remarkably fun. I enjoy the camaraderie of the group, and like helping make the trombone and music accessible to others who are just beginning (as I am myself). I am particularly interested in the inter-generational promise of School of Honk (you can learn together with your kids!) and so I’ve also volunteered in the Honk! Amigos afterschool program and the Camp Honk summer program. My children Leah (drums) and Isaac (trombone, baritone horn), both grade 5, are now frequent SoH contributors.

Matt T

Hey there! I’m Matt – I’m one of the mentors for the low brass section. I wear many hats – but I also take on many roles in various parts of my life (nailed it). I am a learning technology specialist, social activist, musician and/or improv comedian (see: previous sentence) depending on what time of the day you find me. One of my hats my Mom made for me, and another one is a bear and has ears on it.

I’ve been playing trombone for most of my life, from school orchestra to activist brass bands. I personally find playing music in groups to be a unique and beautiful way to build relationships. School of HONK is not only a uniquely fun experience in my life, but a meaningful place to build community and meaning.

Hilary

I first heard School of Honk at Porch Fest 2015 (if you watch the aerial videos of that show on YouTube, you can see me bopping around in the crowd, mentally clearing all future Sundays in my schedule), and I’ve been a fan ever since! My first musical experiences include singing “There’s a Hole in the Bucket” duets with my father at family functions, writing wordy folk songs on my mom’s guitar, and contributing a very loud cornet to middle school concert band. More recently, I was a member of the World Music Ensemble and co-president of The Lymin’ Lyons steel band at Wheaton College (MA), where I studied Creative Writing and Ethnomusicology.

The WME and Lymin’ Lyons taught me a lot about music that can be felt instead of read, and I’m now a firm believer in rote learning and using muscle memory as a way of acquiring new music skills. I love that School of Honk creates a friendly music-making environment where much of our learning comes from listening, watching, and sharing insights with the musicians beside us– it inspires a distinct form of teamwork and encouragement that makes us groove musically and interpersonally. It’s a pleasure to know there’s a community as fun, inclusive, and joy-inducing as School of Honk, and I’m thrilled to be part of the ride!

Matt D

I have been up to various musical shenanigans since I started playing the piano in the first grade. Eight years of piano lessons was headed in the direction of assistant to the church organist when I escaped as 2nd trombone once removed in the middle school band. After that, I spent years tinkering with everything from banjo to guitar to ukulele to mandolin. More recently I have played electric bass in a group called the Hardy Boys, playing covers for local street fairs and elementary school events. I started coming to School of HONK last April with my dad’s old trombone. I switched to the sousaphone when it was clear that not enough people were sufficiently terrified by my trombone playing. I am willing to wear ridiculously polka dotted pants in the name of great music! In my free time, I run a consulting company that engineers prototype hardware for renewable energy startups. I also design and build custom tandem, recumbent, cargo, and kids bicycles.

Mister Petey

I have been drumming with the Chicago-based performance art marching band Environmental Encroachment since 1998, integrating circus arts, dance, multimedia, and custom costumes. We were fortunate to have been invited to the first HONK! Fest 10 years ago and have been hooked on HONK! ever since, traveling to other HONK! Fests in Seattle, Austin, NYC and beyond. I have studied global grooves in Chicago, Morocco, and South Korea and love to teach hand drums and percussion, especially to beginners. My day job as a grant program coordinator in the Harvard Semitic Museum supports my music habit. I was a mentor with this summer’s first-ever Camp HONK. School of HONK is a great expression of community-minded musical activism and I’m happy to be a part of this fun and experimental process of teaching and learning.

Josh

I’ve been having fun on the trumpet with School of Honk since its first meeting! Each week I look forward to spending time with all the great School of Honk members, exploring how this thing called a trumpet works, and making great music together in the practice hall and on the streets. When I’m not honking I can be found spending time with my family and building robots to operate the world’s farms and mines.

Christiana

I am from Vermont and other than being a musician I am a dancer, music promoter, environmentalist, teacher and scholar. I am a percussion mentor for School of HONK and I have been here since the beginning! I am profoundly happy and proud to be part of such a positive and enriching educational program. I have been playing percussion and drum set since I was 8 years old and performing in bands since I was 15. I have a master’s degree in Ethnomusicology from Tufts and my focus was on African and Afro-Latin diasporic music and migration. I am currently a full-time music teacher: snare technique, drum set, piano, ukulele and songwriting. I also lead a rock group called Paper Waves based in Somerville with 4 other ladies. I play with Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band, when my schedule allows. I run a concert series called Afropop Night Live, which is Boston’s monthly live Afro-centric music and dance party. Building community is extremely important to me as I can see that it allows people to thrive. I love School of HONK because it creates such a wonderful community and spreads joy when we are learning together or performing in the streets together. I love that any musician of any level can come be supported to learn while pushing themselves to the next level, having fun and being spontaneous.

Paul

I have been a percussion mentor since the beginning of the School of Honk. I also play snare drum and percussion with the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band. I have played drums since my teen years when I dreamed of being the next Elvin Jones. When I realized I had neither the talent nor the ability to stay up for the late set I set my sights to the streets. School of Honk has been an amazing opportunity to share the experience of playing for whomever happens to pass by, to draw them in, and to make them smile. It has been life-changing for so many folks, including me, and I look forward to the future of this project.

Ezra

My name is Ezra, and I’m 14 years old and play the trumpet. When I was little, I played the piano, and even wrote a few of my own melodies. I also loved the HONK! Festival; I would go to the parade every year and march alongside the bands, attempting to play a harmonica (with varying degrees of success) to whatever the band was playing. I started playing trumpet in school band when I was 10, and have loved trumpet ever since. Since then, I have started formally composing music, and now compose more than ever. For a few years, I played trumpet in the pickup band at the HONK! Festival. I also participated in various attempts at creating a HONK! kids band, all of which died because of a shortage of young musicians that could come to practice with any degree of regularity.

School of HONK started just after the 2014 HONK! Festival and I quickly joined. Unlike the kids bands, SoH is still alive after over a year! I instantly loved SoH because of the way songs are taught. In school, music is taught by forcing kids to play the most boring and monotonous songs that teachers can find over and over until every single person gets it exactly right, and then we move on to the next boring and monotonous song. (You wouldn’t think music could be monotonous, but somehow the schools manage it.) This is why SoH is so great. The idea that someone still learning how to play an instrument can play good music and have fun at the same time seemed too good to be true after playing in school band, but School of HONK has it figured out. Not to mention that we have three times more members than school band and still manage to learn harder music twice as fast.

After regularly coming to practice for about 8 months I was invited to become a mentor, an invitation which I readily accepted, mainly because I thought that I could help the other members learn new songs, and I had a personal desire to learn the intricacies of our songs and other parts besides the trumpet parts. (Also, being a mentor gives you more opportunities to play music, and who doesn’t want to play more?) I have enjoyed being a part of organizing SoH practices and figuring out ways to make the practices more enjoyable. I also enjoy listening to recordings of songs and trying to find the notes by ear. SoH also helps me compose music and has taught me how to improvise. Thank you for reading this, and I hope you will join School of HONK!

Shaunalynn

When I was a teenager, my mom and my high school band director had a tiff. My mom thought I would be a teacher, but Mr. Bastien knew I’d be a musician. “There’s music in her bones!” he said. And I did love music. I played in marching band and concert band and orchestra and all-state and clarinet choir and impromptu chamber ensembles at my church. I did finger exercises and etudes and scales and played all kinds of longer pieces. I practiced every day, but I never made music.

When I was 20 years old, playing in the MIT Wind Ensemble, I was sitting in Kresge Auditorium at one of our performances. I didn’t know anyone in the audience. I was getting my music in order to perform a piece called The Isle of Man by Percy Grainger. I think he’s most well known for Children’s March, but we were playing this more obscure piece, and we’d played it a million times during rehearsal. But, when our band director lifted up his hands and we lifted up our horns, I played that song for the first time. When it ended, I couldn’t believe what had happened. For the first time in my 10 years of playing clarinet, I’d made music. Collaborative, elated, out-of-body music. And it was then I decided to stop.

I realized in that moment, with my breath gone and the last notes of the Isle of Man still hanging in the air, that I loved music because it was transcendent. Or, better said, I loved music when it was transcendent. And, if I had to dedicate another decade of focus and practice for one more such experience, it wasn’t worth it. I left school and started sprout, and for a number of years, I thought my mom had been right. And then I discovered street music. Funky bass lines, pop covers, New Orleans rhythms, irreverent volume, dancing, yelling, joy, and spectacle. I picked the clarinet up again to play with Second Line, where I also learned sousaphone, be ear and rote. Boycott grew out of jam sessions with some other girlfriends looking to kill on their horns. I joined the organizing committee for the HONK! Festival and, after years of talking and dreaming with Kevin, joined him in starting School of HONK. Ultimately, I think it’s the unraveling of a more than decade-long feud between Mr. Bastien and my mom and an expression of my deepest musical, social, and educational values.

So, why do I come to School of HONK? I come to School of HONK for music, politics, connection, and joyful noise. I come to be free and loud, seen and heard, to have quiet moments inside myself amongst the ecstatic ritual of brass music and street revelry. I come for friends and for a better world. And I come because I find it — every, single week.