Jason

I joined School of HONK to be able to play trombone after not having played for a number of years. But in the year and a half that I’ve been with the band, it’s become so much more than that. School of HONK and the HONK community in general is an amazing group of people and I’m so happy that I’m able to be a part of it. I had played trombone through high school, but stopped in college and for a couple of years afterwards. Playing with School of HONK has left me kicking myself for stopping in the first place! Plus, after playing trombone for a while, I’ve been able to branch out and learn the sousaphone as well, which is a ton of fun.

Marta

I joined School of HONK about 6 months ago because I was looking for a good way to improve my musicianship. Over the past couple years, I have been extremely serious about music and have taken classes at colleges such as Berklee and NEC. When I heard that School of HONK taught members the songs mainly by ear, I knew that this was something that would help improve my listening skills and ability to pick things up by ear. As soon as I arrived to SoH on my first day, it was clear that I would be sticking around; I immediately fell in love with the environment as well as the repertoire that we played.

Another thing that I absolutely love about School of HONK is the way that members help each other. As someone who is interested in pursuing a career in music education, I felt more than honored when I was asked to be a mentor about a month ago. Although I am still learning just like everyone else, one of the main reasons why I come to SoH now is so I can have fun helping others who are newcomers or just unfamiliar with their instrument. Everyone in this community has contributed to helping me become a stronger leader and I cannot thank them enough for that. School of HONK is truly a special group!

Kirk

My parents were officers in The Salvation Army and while I no longer follow the fold their British brass band tradition gave me my start on tuba. I combined those bands with a pile of high school and college groups – concert bands, orchestras, jazz bands – but the marching bands and pep bands were where my bass-y heart got its beat: simple, driving music with a bit of funk, and ever-blessed by the Bb Blues Scale.

In 2013, after a decade and a half in the (figurative) wilderness, I finally got hold of a sousaphone but still had nowhere to go. I ran into the Second Line Social Aid and Pleasure Society Brass Band doing a gig at Harvard Square, and from there Shaunalynn played matchmaker and set me up with The Jamaica Plain Honkband, a community-oriented, open-membership street band with whom I am still very active. Folks from the JP band joined up with School of HONK for a march on Cambridge City Hall, and I’ve been attending ever since. (I think I dig how the School’s every Sunday parade and concert echoes The Salvation Army’s old “Open Air Meeting” tradition…)

Irene

I don’t think I would have continued to play music if it wasn’t for the incredibly inclusive, fun, stress-free ethos of honk. Coming from a small public school band program, I was lucky to have some really dedicated teachers, but the structure of a couple high pressure performances a year in front of a silent, stationary (and probably very bored) crowd seemed to be missing the point.

Honk changed my entire perspective on what music is and should sound and look and feel like. Learning simple but groovy parts by ear, trying different instruments, soloing without complicated and long lectures on theory, and playing outside for random strangers has given me confidence I didn’t think possible as an amateur teenage musician.

Playing with people of different ages and musical backgrounds has instilled in me a sense of respect for everybody, regardless of experience, who puts themselves out there and plays music for all to enjoy.

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.

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.