Music is the one language everyone in the world shares in common. We listen to it to relieve stress, to pass time, and to bring a little more happiness into our lives. But what if it is doing the opposite?

Here at Blaine High school music is played over the speakers during passing time, but is it doing its job of relieving students’ school stress? Can music chosen to make students feel more confident and proud of themselves not reach due to a barrier? Students at Blaine High School seem to think so. 

A simple switch-up within the passing time music may alleviate its problems of causing stress and making students feel less ready for their classes, through the students’ answers the reader may understand why. We will also learn from Ms. Hoffman’s, the person who chooses the music’s, perspective.

First I asked people throughout the school from different grades what their thoughts on passing time music were. An overwhelming majority of students agreed with the sentiment of music not alleviating their stress saying they enjoyed the music but felt there wasn’t enough variety.

“They need to switch it up and not have the same song every day. They play bad songs that aren’t even popular, and no one seems to like it,” said sophomore Lily Johnson. 

She as well as others stated that because of this the music would often annoy them. 

“I think we could use some more recent music, a lot of the stuff they play is old, or like to dive into different genres because it gets repetitive,” said junior Alec Harris. 

Not only Alec felt the music could use more diversity within choice, many others I asked felt it would be worth hearing a few songs they disliked if it meant hearing more music in the styles they preferred.

Wondering why they wouldn’t already do this I decided to figure out who picked the music and ask them. 

After asking quite a few different people around the school who coordinated the music I was led to Deidre Hoffman, one of the administrators involved in the process of choosing passing time music. There are others involved as well, such as an administrative team she is a part of, who pick out and approve the music that’s played each trimester, though I wasn’t able to get into contact with them. 

So I paid mind to get as much information from Ms. Hoffman as I could. She informed me that for a song to be approved a majority of the team must not only agree the songs are appropriate but the music must also “try to maintain the four pillars of empathy, integrity, resilience, and responsibilities,” fitting those standards to be “positive in nature.” 

This of course comes with a few limitations as few songs fit all the criteria. As well as how they decide what counts as fitting these standards.

She admitted that “The system has limitations with size so the quality can sometimes not be the best,” basically stating that by using this system it will always be hard to get more variety within the music. 

The songs played during passing time can become the stress reliever students desperately need throughout the day but first it needs some minor changes. The language of music is ever-changing and so are the students at Blaine that it could stand to represent. Passing time music has a real chance of being something calming and exciting but until then it will just be another thing students are not excited to listen to throughout their school days.