In the 2025-2026 school year, Liberty High School’s band program will expand with the addition of Modern Band, joining Symphonic Band, Jazz Band, and Wind Ensemble among the offered band classes at Liberty. Modern Band is a class focused on pop music, giving students the opportunity to perform contemporary pieces of music. From R&B to corridos, students will have the chance to explore music from diverse cultural backgrounds.
Modern Band has been in consideration by Liberty band director Jared Tanner for some time.
“I’ve been thinking about doing it for many years,” Tanner said. “Modern Band is a class that happens all around the country. Some schools have multiple bands and they’re really serious about playing at different events.”
One of Tanner’s main reasons for starting Modern Band was to give students – particularly ones in his Guitar 1 and 2 class – more opportunities to continue music at Liberty.
“I felt bad for my guitar students because they don’t have a path to just keep playing music in high school,” Tanner said. “I really wanted a place for those kids to keep playing after they finish the semester-long classes”
The class will require students with no previous musical experience to take prerequisite classes such as Guitar 1 or Piano 1. However, students of all instruments and skill levels are still invited to participate in the class.
“I’m open to anybody- if you play violin or a different instrument and want to come and do it, that’s cool,” Tanner said. “I’m going to push everybody to play a couple instruments; you’ll have a primary and a secondary instrument, so you might be a drummer as well as a bass player.”
Modern Band will bring collaboration between different skill levels, allowing everyone to find a place in the class.
“I think the class really lends itself well to having a lot of levels in one place,” Tanner said. “There’s room for a hot shot guitar player to play solos or if one song feels too easy, maybe you learn how to play the chords on the piano for the song. There’s a lot of room for there to be people that shine and people who are still learning.”
Despite Modern Band being a part of the band department, the groups will not be present at band concerts and instead will have separate opportunities to perform in and out of school, taking on the same concepts seen in high school modern bands across the country.
“We’ll probably do concerts similar to last year’s Open Mic Night,” Tanner said. “Depending on how much time we need to fill, we might perform a full concert ourselves with a mix of tunes and small groups, or we might invite others to join. Either way, it will be its own concert.”
Though learning and performing instruments may be challenging, Tanner hopes students will step out of their comfort zones and join the class.
“It’s pretty cool and fun, and I think some people might be intimidated by the idea of playing in a concert or singing in front of other people,” Tanner said. “I just hope that people will give it a go and take a risk.”