This is freshman Brody Schoon’s story quoted by him, prompted by questions through the Live Wire Staff. 

“I always liked music my whole life. Music was always playing through my household and I just kind of decided that I wanted to do band and my parents approved. Then in seventh grade there was choir available and I just said sure. My mom and dad were both in choir and my siblings [are also in choir]. 

“I decided to play [the trombone when] we had the whole thing to try out all the instruments in fifth grade.  I just really thought the trombone would be a lot of fun to do and so it has just kind of been my thing. The trombone is a lot of fun to play.

“[I decided to do jazz] in seventh grade. They said here’s this thing called jazz band, and I was like, sure why not. Then I was really enjoying it and then online I found Carlos Eiene stuff and just overall I started loving it. He makes jazz arrangements of stuff, and his music is really cool to me.

“Here [at Liberty] I’m currently in the regular band, choir, show choir, and once they start up I’m planning to join jazz choir and jazz band.

“[At Liberty] it’s a lot cooler. There [are] a lot more opportunities, and everyone is very excited to be doing what they are doing; no one is really forced to be doing it. Everyone around you is just very excited, so it’s a really awesome environment.

“There’s occasionally some fun people you run into, especially being in the trombone section. I have found that [there are] some really weird people when you go to honor band and stuff. We’ll just start a discussion about crabs or something  just in the middle of rehearsing and it’s just a lot of fun with people. Or with Mr. Pringle; he’s this one director who is just like super weird and I loved him.

“I’ve participated in the Liberty Jazz Festival, and Fine Arts Day at North Central which is a couple performances with music programs. In seventh grade [I attended the] Coe college honor band, [and in] eighth grade [I attended] SEIBA [where I was in the] top three there so I went to All Iowa Honor Band.

 “[The All Iowa Honor Band] was really cool. It’s where we had the discussion about crabs, but it was just awesome to hear everyone start playing. You would go and get set up and play and you could just tell, like wow this group is really phenomenal.

“[It feels] really nice because when you’re performing [because] you’re not thinking about your grades or [what] stuff is going on or any drama. You’re just thinking about performing and doing your best. It’s really nice that you don’t have to worry about anything, just living in the moment.

“[Some goals for this year are that] right now I’m preparing to hopefully do All State Auditions and the All State band if I can. [I also want to] get better as a musician and get better at singing.

“[In the future] if I could, it would be cool to play professionally. I also think it would be really fun to teach music to people, like a band director or something.

“[Another interesting thing about me is that] I can solve Rubik’s cubes in under 30 seconds. I’ve gone to a bunch of competitions throughout my whole life, like 30 or something. Every year they have the cubing nationals and we’ll fly out and do that. That’s always really fun to do.

“Going to [cubing] nationals for most of the years the places are really awesome. We went to Portland, Oregon once and that place is just really cool and the whole community is very supportive and nice.

“My older brother is more into it, Kale. I was eight and he all of a sudden got really into it and I said ‘that’s really cool I want to get into it too’, so he taught me how to do it and I’ve just done it my whole life. He got super good and wins competitions and stuff, so we do that together.”