Story and photos by Alayna Wright ’29
The creation of instruments is a very complicated and detailed process. In Music Instrument Design, JK-12 Arts Department Chair and Orchestra Director Dr. Jo Nardolillo challenged students to learn about the history, designs, and science behind creating instruments. Students gathered in the six full days given to work on their instruments, use the scientific process to test their instruments, find their problems, and make their products better. From the six days, these students have learned lots of new and intriguing things about instruments!
When asked about what they learned in the class, Evelyn Schawrzen ’32 responded, “Before the class, I didn’t know how much science went into the creation of new instruments. I hadn’t known how much science impacted the performance of our final products. The class taught me about the different types of music and the culture behind them. It was an intriguing class and taught me a lot of new things about music.»
The creation of instruments allowed students to be creative, innovative, and experience the work and thought that composers and instrument makers are involved with when creating their final products.
Two students from the class, Addie Rowland ’32 and Avery Brunt ’32 volunteered to show some sneak peeks of their instruments, which use recyclable materials. They have created some new and environmentally-friendly musical instruments!
When asked what the most interesting part of the class was, Addie stated, “Learning about the history of different composers was very cool. I didn’t know so many famous composers existed within close timeframes and were inspired by other composers before them.”
As students finished creating their final products, Chloe Chan ’32 stated, “Finding the resources was very challenging, as all of the materials had a small problem with the creation of the instruments. As we reached the end of the class, by trial and error, we created our instruments by using creativity and new ideas to create our final products.”
As Winter Term reaches its end, the class allowed students to learn about the different processes and history behind the creation of instruments. With the help of Dr. Nardolillo and Middle School History Teacher D’Antay Mayes, the class proved to be very educational and beneficial to the new instrument makers of MICDS!