All three students walked into the music library room.
"What are those? Music files?" Friednmann said as she explored one of the file cabinets. "Yay! They are awesome."
Later, Wickersham and Friedmann closed themselves into a practice room and yelled as loudly as they could to test out if their screams could be heard by Grosch, who was outside.
"Could you hear us?"
"Not much, just a little bit," Grosch said.
The four individual practice rooms are on the perimeter of the larger classroom. The walls separating these spaces are 8 inches thick, constructed of five layers of drywall and have layered insulation to deaden any potential sound penetration.
The trio said the 2,100-square-foot facility, separated into two spaces, was much better than the old band room.
"We used to have very little rises built in and the chairs would fall off. We felt cramped," one of the students said.
The practice rooms were half the size of those in the new band room and had a piano inside so they felt smaller, the trio said. When students were playing in the old room others could hear all them all the way down the hall, they said.
"The ceiling is probably the signature element of the space," said Nicholas Cunico, regional manager from Lundgren Management.
It is a series of specially designed inverted pyramids intended to absorb most of the low frequency sound, while reflecting and refracting the mid and high range sounds.
Metal panels run around the perimeter of the space, intended to allow sound to penetrate above the ceiling level where it is trapped.
Total cost of the seven-month project, which included a home economics classroom, was roughly $1.4 million.
Obvious benefits include providing space to accommodate the ever-growing band, providing storage for instruments/equipment, as well as individual practice rooms.
"We are very pleased with the band room, said Band Director Susan Hamre, "It will be a nice place were our students will be spending a lot of their time for many years to come."
