School of HONK’s carefully crafted repertoire, and our playful and supportive approach to learning, provide a fun, safe and supportive environment that, time and again, brings strangers and friends together in the collaborative, joyful experience of ensemble music-making on parade. We know that learning music is easy when we’re having fun, and we’d like to show you how fun and easy it really is. We’ll bring enough trombones, trumpets, and percussion instruments for your whole group, along with street musicians and facilitators, to help your group quickly find its own groove and start playing tunes right away, no matter their level of experience. We specialize in storming empty classrooms, conference rooms, auditoriums, parks and fields — with horns, drums and newfound friends — to get everyone around us smiling, clapping and dancing to our spontaneous, ephemeral brass band spectacle.
In an hour…
In an hour, we’ll put horns in people’s hands and start playing immediately. After learning a few simple songs by ear, with the support of our leaders and mentors, we’ll go on a parade to show off our new band. With just a few notes, we’ll make irresistible dance music together..
In an afternoon…
In an afternoon, we’ll be able to take our time a bit more, getting everyone acquainted with their horns, trying a few of our more interesting arrangements, and taking some time for sectional breakouts. For those who are interested, we’ll spend some time learning the basics of improvisation, and we’ll still end with a loud, joyful parade.
In a day…
Over the course of a day, we won’t just play tunes, we’ll form a band. We’ll still spend some time getting set up on our horns, learning tunes and improvising, but we’ll also think about the look and feel of our group. We’ll watch and listen to other bands’ music and parading technique and think about our own aesthetic and movement. We’ll still end with a parade, performance, or other culminating event, involving the rest of your school, organization, or neighborhood.
For all of these, we’ll document the experience with photos and videos you can share with the rest of your group.
We hope you’ll consider bringing us into your work, school, or community. We love to make music with new friends and neighbors, and would love to do so with you! If you’re interested in getting more details or talking about pricing, please get in touch at schoolofhonk@gmail.com. We work based on a sliding scale for community and corporate events.
SOH Mardi Gras Parade 2.7.16 from Patrick Johnson on Vimeo.
All of our core programming is free and open to the public. School of HONK is a 501c3 nonprofit, through our fiscal sponsor sprout, and all proceeds from these workshops go towards supporting our larger mission of bringing loud, joyful noise to the streets.