“Have yourself a Covid little Christmas. Keep your mask tied tight…” West clubs fight virus woes with holiday cheer

With the myriad trials and tribulations the world has faced in 2020, the holiday season delivers a well-needed respite for many. In years past, the holidays have been a huge center of focus for West clubs, such as band, where it has been a longstanding tradition to march in holiday parades. 

“Normally, a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving, we usually do the Oshkosh and Appleton holiday parades,” band director Daniel Singer said. “They’re important in a curriculum sense, because that’s the first time in the year the band learns about parade marching and music memorization. In a community sense, they are really big moments as a band community, as all four West bands come together as one unit. Outside school, in Oshkosh: people love to see us, love to cheer us on, and see what we are doing. In Appleton, we get to be on TV on a big avenue.”

Another major band event is the annual Sounds of the Season Concert. 

“Sounds of the Season is usually the last Sunday before winter break,” Singer said. “It brings in community members who want to hear holiday and Christmas music. Before Sounds of the Season, we always had community members coming up to us asking ‘where’s the Christmas concert?’, and this is the answer to that. The thing I like about Sounds of the Season is that it’s not just band, choir, or orchestra, but all three. And then when we perform for the school, the faculty and the student body see the skills and abilities of our music students.”

Meanwhile, West Choirs also have many holiday traditions, especially with the Madrigals group.

“Typically, Madrigals starts rehearsing in late-September/early-October, and we rehearse until December where we travel from nursing homes, holiday parties, and other places to sing for the community,” choir director Bethany Meyer said. “There’s anywhere from 30-40 gigs in the three-week season, so Madrigals are usually pretty busy.”

Unfortunately, with COVID-19 ever present on people’s minds, the music department has faced many difficulties in continuing these traditions, forcing many cancellations. However, due to the difficulty of Madrigal music, some in-person interaction was required. 

“Madrigals all met up in the school recently, all dressed-up in order to record our music together, but with social distancing and masks. We have met up in-person before this as well,” senior and choir student Ben Kopper said. “We needed to because madrigals music in particular is very tricky to do on your own, because it’s four parts and they’re all very different but they sort of cue each other. You can’t really get a feel for what that sounds like until you are singing together in-person. It’s been difficult, especially for new Madrigal students, but I think we’ll end up with something cool.”

On the flipside, with the help of online technology, standard choir classes have been able to create “virtual concerts.”

“For choir, instead of having auditorium concerts, we learned some simpler carols, because it’s a lot harder to learn music when you aren’t together. We each then recorded our parts’ video and audio using an online program,” Kopper said. “Mrs. Meyer had a recording of her playing the music and conducting and we could record our video at the same time as the music, and then the program would take all the student’s parts and sync them up together so they’re sort of in the same time, and we have a sort of ‘virtual’ choir. That’s what our concert is this year.”

In the band world, students have been taking part in simplified virtual rehearsals in order to have some guidance with the music they are recording for the holidays. 

“Three of the bands: Wildcat, Concert, and Varsity, are working on a piece called ‘Ancient Carol Variants,’ and Wind Ensemble is working on ‘Minor Alterations: Christmas Through the Looking Glass.’ During online classes, we are having rehearsals, using a technology setup with a play-along music track, a metronome track, and a harmony director. Mr. Wilson has a microphone and directs the students and Mr. Fowler, our student teacher, and I are spaced out with many instruments so we can play along,” Singer said. “It’s not a normal rehearsal because the students have to be muted, but they can follow along with us, so it’s a lot of individual work for students. If a student is playing wrong, we can’t tell them because they’re muted, but hopefully, students can hear their own mistakes and make adjustments. We are then having audio files recorded by students as assignments and I will be mixing them into a band.”

With the state of music clubs being drastically different than usual, some difficulties have arisen, largely due to the strangeness of making music independently.

“I have a very hard part as a clarinet player, and staying in time with the metronome is difficult sometimes,” senior and band student Marcus Wakefield said. “It’s discouraging if I can’t get it one day because I don’t feel like I can move on to the next assignment, and I got a few weeks behind at one point.”

With new challenges and new technology, teachers have had their own struggles.

“I’m not an audio engineer, and I didn’t go to school for video editing, so that’s a struggle on my personal part,” Meyer said. “But we’re all learning new skills.”

These new skills are just part of the reason why it’s so important to keep going, despite the difficulties due to COVID-19; being forced to adapt often fosters creativity and problem-solving.

“The audio setup for online classes in the band room for our live lessons can be difficult, and it’s taken some troubleshooting for all the band teachers to hear each other in real time,” Singer said. “But it’s kind of fun figuring out these puzzles and I enjoy the learning.”

Ultimately, it comes down to ensuring students can have the best experience possible.

“None of the classes that students signed up for are exactly what the students wanted—registration was back in the beginning of the year,” band director Brian Wilson said. “So, we’re trying to replicate the class experience the best we can.”

Beyond the music department, the O’Neil National Honors Society strives to not only ensure the best experience for students, but hopes to lend a helping hand in the community in these trying times. However, they have had their own share of difficulties.

“Usually, we do volunteer events like blanket-making for the Oshkosh Police Department and elementary school students, bell-ringing for the Salvation Army, and Race for the Light for the Christine Ann Center. These events are especially important because our community needs extra help during the holidays,” O’Neil adviser Vicki Ramus said. “But this year, it’s been a challenge finding activities that can be done in a safe way. Normally we do things like supply drives at school, but since we are virtual, that’s not easy to accomplish. But if there's a safe way to help make someone else’s holiday a little brighter, it’s definitely a positive.”

This holiday season, O’Neil students took part in events like the Celebration of Lights and a virtual Race for the Lights.

“I volunteered at the Celebration of Lights at Menominee Park,” junior and O’Neil member Anders Larson said. “I basically just helped plug-in all the Christmas lights and worked stuff out with extension cords.”

Due to COVID-19, the Celebration of Lights event was running low on volunteers, highlighting the need for O’Neil members to help out in their community whenever possible during this particular holiday season.

“Community service is always important, and it can be done even now as long as social distancing guidelines are followed,” Larson said. “Especially during the holidays, it’s important to support the community and those in need, now more than ever.”

  All across the world, people have been yearning for a sense of normalcy within the chaos of 2020, and that’s what many West clubs have been striving to achieve. Hopefully, with the progress made, the world can look to the future with hope and positivity.

“It’s cliché, but trying to have that normalcy is important. I know when I put my Christmas lights up I felt a lot better,” Meyer said. “We just have to remember that this year is a special circumstance, and we will go back and we will be back to those things that we love doing. 2020 helped us realize that we also can find ways to do what we love, even if it looks or feels different.”

By Akashraj Karthikeyan 

Oshkosh West Index Volume 117 Issue III

December 14th, 2020