The 2024/2025 school year at Luseland has brought the first year of the 10-12 grade music class. The class is taught by Mr. Williamson, the high school's science teacher with a passion for music. The class focuses mainly on guitar and bass, with a few other instruments as well.
Previously, music classes in high school were only available from grades 7-9, but at the end of last school year, the school opened the possibility of having a senior high school music class if enough students enrolled, which far surpassed the minimum requirement.
In the class, students steadily go through the process of learning guitar by developing skills in chords, learning keys, picking techniques, tuning, and more. Lately, the class has been learning slide guitar using down tuning and sliders.
In an interview with Mr. Williamson, he explained his enjoyment with the music class. "Just trying the different styles of guitar playing. Whether we're doing country or blues or straight-up hard rock and heavy metal kind of riffs. I love learning and playing all that stuff and trying to teach all of you guys to be a well-rounded guitar player so you can play a little bit of everything."
He also spoke about how he felt there was great improvement in guitar from the students in the class and would happily teach senior music another year.
The music class isn't the only way he brings out the musical talents at Luseland School. For the past 25 years, Mr. Williamson has been running the Jam Club, which is a music-based club that involves him and various groups of students getting together to practice up many different songs and performing them live in the gym at the Jam Nite near the end of the school year.
This year's performance was on Thursday, May 22nd, in the Luseland School gym. It was a busy week of prepping for the students in the club, with many on-stage practices during and in between classes, and two dress rehearsals. But it all paid off with a stunning and spectacular performance showing the many skills of the talented students at the school.
The performance had a wide range of music, from blues to hard rock to gospel and even a few duos/trios acts. All concluding with a blast of an encore involving all of the crowd to sing along with 'Hey Jude' by The Beatles.
Overall, it was a fun-filled night of music for both the students and the audience, and the Jam Club hopes to bring an even better performance next year