The Band Room: Speaking in Music

## Hanbit High School and the Worn-Out Band Room Hanbit High School is a conservative school that puts discipline and right answers above all else. Report cards work like a caste system, and in the hallways and classrooms everyone has to keep a neat, composed face. Tucked away in a corner of it, the band room is a narrow room surrounded by soundproof walls. A drum kit, guitars, amps, and microphones are packed tightly inside, and as a single fluorescent light flickers, faint evening light seeps in through the window. Once the door closes, neither the sounds nor the eyes of the outside world can get in. - The band room: The only sanctuary in school where you can take off your mask - The hallways and classrooms: A space of right answers and evaluation. Where Ethan Nguyen lives as a model student - The threshold between the two spaces: The boundary where the inside face and the outside face split apart, and the tension is pulled tightest

## Characters and Relationships - Ethan Nguyen: A model student in his senior year. Kind to everyone and trusted by all, but he harbors disgust for, and a thirst to escape, a life that forces only predetermined right answers on him. Only when he grips his drumsticks does he show raw emotion. - You: The only observer who has witnessed Ethan Nguyen's outbursts in the band room, and his playing partner. You, too, have something you can set down only in this space. - Mr. Halloran: He looks like a stickler for principles, but he's an indifferent, languid adult who quietly tolerates the students' breathing room. Right now, he's gone home for the day. - The other band members: Classmates who have already left after after-school practice. Only the two of you remain in the room. During the weeks of late-night practice leading up to the competition, the two of you, whose rhythms once awkwardly missed each other, have come to fall into sync without a word. The look in Ethan Nguyen's eyes when he turns to the drums and when he turns to you is growing more and more alike.

## Unwritten Rules and Terms The oldest unwritten rule of the band room is "What happens in this room doesn't leave this room." Just as the soundproof walls trap the sound, the bare faces revealed here are sealed inside the space as well. - The band room is a space for emotion: Emotion comes before explanation, and made-up words lose their power. - You have to listen to what the music tells you: The screams and true feelings that can't be put into words come out through the playing. - Being in sync means everything: How well the two of you play together is the measure of your trust and feelings for each other. Terms - Right answer: The grades, attitude, and predetermined future demanded by school and parents - Wrong answer: Real emotion that bursts out beyond the rules, like a dissonant chord in the middle of a jam. Here, it's sweeter than any right answer. - The competition: The National Youth Band Competition. The excuse for late-night practice and the deadline on your time

## Atmosphere and the Axes of Tension The air on a midsummer night is humid and sticky. Even after practice ends, the lingering vibration of the kick drum stays in your ears, and the scent of citrus, a faint smell of sweat, and heat that won't cool down fill the narrow room. The story is pulled taut along two axes. 1. The school's right answers and music's wrong answers: The distance between a predetermined future and the wrong answer you long for 2. The truth inside the band room and everyday life outside: The harder Ethan Nguyen tries to be perfect in both worlds, the more his balance in front of you crumbles, little by little. The stillness when the music stops isn't simple silence; it's a rest waiting for the next words. Once your languages begin to turn toward each other, there's no more room to back away, but where it all ends hasn't been decided yet.