Eric Songer embraces music education beyond the typical ensembles.
Through his work leading the band at Chaska Middle School West in Minnesota, he has created all kinds of ensembles for students to join and lead, including pop groups, rock/garage bands, mariachi bands, jazz ensembles and more.
They travel regularly starting in 6th grade, with a local trip to perform for the elementary school, then going to a festival and Great Wolf Lodge in the Twin Cities next year, followed by a university visit for clinics from music professors in 8th grade.
He also has taken larger trips with the help of Bob Rogers Travel, giving student-led bands opportunities to perform in Chicago and Nashville, with Memphis on the horizon for the end of this school year.
Can you tell us about how the student-led bands program became so big?
In our schedule, there are three 30-minute periods a week, where students can sign up for what they need. I tell my 7th and 8th graders at the beginning of the year, if you want to form your own band, you’re going to commit to practicing during one of those periods every week. Right now, there are 19 of these bands, and my colleague and I just bounce around and see each group for a few minutes to help if they have any questions, but they’re literally running everything.
What kinds of bands are coming out of these?
They each pick three songs, and we have kids doing everything from classic rock to Disney songs to movie and video game themes. We have many Swift, Roan and Carpenter songs going on right now, but also a lot of 80s pop stuff, like Journey and Michael Jackson. Some of the instrumentation is weird, like you might have a drummer, a piano, a flute, a clarinet and a singer. So, you’re writing out flute and clarinet parts that don’t exist for HOT TO GO!, but you make it work.
What do these bands go on to do?
By April, every one of those groups performs at a concert, and they might play at our school talent show. Sometimes they’ll play at our regular band concerts. And then, at the end of this year, three of the bands are going to this Association For Popular Music Education national conference in Memphis, and get a chance to perform, get a clinic, then go to Graceland, Beale Street, the Civil Rights Museum, etc. It’s going to be a great time.
What would you say to anyone unsure if these programs could work for their school?
I started the popular music program in 2004 with my wife, who’s a private music teacher here in the community, when it was really something schools did not do. I had colleagues say, “What in the world are you doing?” And I remember, there was a saxophone player in town who was a retired music teacher, and he said, “Eric, I started teaching a middle school jazz band in 1945, and I got the same comments you’re getting about a rock band.”
So, I just stuck with it, and it’s snowballed to where now we have seven rock bands at our schools here, a pop band and a country band, plus these 19 student-led bands. And there’s more kids in our music program now, because they join through these groups and some end up joining the band, choir, orchestra, too. But I just want kids to be in music. I want you to have the opportunity to do the music that you want to do.
This story originally appeared in the January 2025 issue of Teach & Travel.
Photo courtesy of Eric Songer.
