Just listen to your way through the situation.

Many kids agree that music helps them cope with hard times and puts how they feel into enjoyable beats and rhymes.  

From freshman to seniors, 44 out of 50 students stated that dealing with a worldwide pandemic would be much tougher without music.  It’s not just students who listen to music, it’s students who play music.  In these times, it is easier for teenagers to reach out to drugs, go into depression or hurt others because they don’t have a coping method with being in a stressful pandemic.

“In the beginning of quarantine, I decided to learn guitar as I used to play when I was younger with my dad.  Playing every night kept me occupied during quarantine because I knew I always had something to rely on,” senior Xavier Glauber said.  In a survey of 25 band students, 100 percent all agreed that playing an instrument has helped in many ways of keeping them busy during the pandemic.  They now have time to learn new skills and improve their knowledge of overall playing an instrument.  

“It is important to have something positive to put your feelings towards.  Some people unfortunately put their feelings toward negative things that will come back and affect them later.  Putting them towards music can be healthy not only for your mind but the soul too,” senior Pierce Williams said. 

It is very common for teenagers to go down the wrong path in high school.  They’re learning to find themselves such as their likes and dislikes.   Isolating them from peers can not only stress them out, but it can also depress them.  Music is a great getaway for your mind.  

“Music helps put how I feel into words.  It allows me to just relax and especially during these times it helps with anxiety,” sophomore Layla McAllulife said.  Music can be a mood changer.  You can hear a happy song and be happy, you can hear a sad song and become sad.  In these times it’s important to listen to music relevant to your feelings because like Layla said music puts how you feel into words.  

“My favorite genre of music is old because it reminds me of times when we weren’t in a pandemic and that makes me happy,” sophomore Travis Egan said.  

Every person has a genre that fits them.  Whether it’s R&B, hip-hop, pop, country, etc, one fits a person and affects their mood and souls.

“Over quarantine, you get really bored, and finding new music and likings for new genres really gives you something to do,” Addison Stopher.  

For many students and myself, it’s hard to find time to listen to new whole albums or keep up with the newest song coming out.  Over these past 9 months, it’s been found to be easier to do those things.  “I had to quarantine for 2 weeks recently, it was hard.  I had nothing really to do until my mom turned on some old 90’s music and we jammed.  From then on when I found myself bored or impatient, I turned on my jams,” sophomore Mariah Gardeners said.  

Music is a great way to mourn a loss, celebrate, get in your feelings, get out of your feelings, focus, etc.  Today, find a song that makes you happy.  Find a song that makes you hungry,  Find a song that makes you want to scream. Remember, if you don’t know how to say it, music will find a way.