Here at Mendocino High School, students give their attention to many things. Some give most of their attention to class and focus on academics; some give their attention to their friends and social aspects of high school. But there is a small group within this school that gives almost all of their attention to one thing: playing music. These individuals struggle with the chains their instruments have locked to their minds. Specifically there is a group of four students within the community high school who have had their fragile young brains absolutely corrupted by the addicting cycle music has burdened them with. I am one of these boys, but will only be focusing on the other individuals. 

It all starts when the interest of music comes into the students’ minds. Storming thoughts of sounds and influences from cool bands and catchy songs creep into their minds. The students start practicing instruments on a regular basis until they make it to the unforeseeable turning point. The vigorous and disciplinary practice of their instruments no longer becomes work, but a satiating craving that the musicians develop. The progress that the musicians gain from playing plays a major role in the addiction that starts because each time the student gets slightly better at playing their instrument of taste and can see such progress, a desire for improvement increases each time they get better. When a musician becomes skilled enough with their instrument that they are comfortable playing it and can play music that stimulates pleasure within their brain as if they were listening to music, that is when things get dangerous. Although as horrible as it sounds, research and interviews conducted on the students showed that there could be benefits. 

When Gavin Briet, one of the four students, was asked how music affects him positively, he said “Well, it affects me positively, because it engages my mind, and it makes me, makes me use my mind, and, um, like, grows my mind, because whenever you’re thinking about music, it’s sort of, like, an explorative scientific process.
It’s a system… Yeah, and, like, for me, I’m always, always exploring the boundaries of music and, like, what’s possible and what I can… Like, it’s a mystery, you know? You’re perpetually figuring out. So it definitely makes me smarter and sharper. Sharpens my wit.” 

This feedback overall seemed to show good results until Gavin then followed by talked about how his music focus is also “kind of distracting at times” and he continued to state that “my life is so invested in it, and I’m just thinking about it so much sometimes that I am, like, sort of absent from other parts of my life.” Both Gavin, Andre, and Colter, the three troubled students, expressed frustration about how a majority of their time is spent playing and practicing music when they could be getting other activities or responsibilities done but their desire for music overrides anything else.  

 “I end up… spending a lot of time with the instruments. 
And that can, you know, that’s time that… I could be making money. That’s time I could be, you know, mostly, it’s time I could be spending with my family, or friends, you know?” Said Andre when reflecting on how music impacts his life negatively. 

These boys are so attached to playing their instruments that enough time without playing any music has shown that withdrawal effects start to initiate. These withdrawal effects can be very scary and dangerous to encounter or deal with. From extensive analysis it has shown that when someone is hooked to their instrument, enough time without it can start causing delusions, aggression, irritability, and in some rare cases a complete loss of mental stability. When interviewed Andre admitted that he does in fact have an addiction to playing guitar specifically and stated “Oh, I’m way addicted to music. I think about it all the time. If I don’t get my music every day, I start to freak out.”

Now as you may be wondering “what about the third student?” Well, the attempts made to interview Colter were not successful. He was so far gone that he was not in a viable condition to be interviewed. He was found in his room playing the bass and couldn’t stop. 

If you think the fact that these individuals on their own can’t help playing music is bad, it gets so much worse when you have the three of them in one room or building that is.

Most often these students are leaving class to go play music together in what is known as jam sessions. When these boys are stuck together jamming teachers often have to leave class to go retrieve the boys to refocus their attention on class which is usually very difficult. Rarely will the students comply. The magnetic pull the boys have to spontaneously start jamming has led the students’ grades to fall and an overall decline in academic participation. So much so that as of senior year, Andre no longer attends high school at all. His addiction to playing music drove him out of school and he dropped out to keep pursuing his musical interests. 

Even when the students are held in class they can’t seem to keep guitar melodies and drum beats out of their minds. One student who was anonymously interviewed said “Whenever I’m in class with one of them they just start tapping away on flat surfaces and playing beats or beat boxing… It’s unsettling.” One of the teachers here at Mendocino Community Highschool stated that Gavin will almost always leave class with his guitar and completely disappear until the very end of class or sometimes won’t even return till the next day of school. Another anonymous student interviewee remarked that “one of them is always pretending to play the drums or guitar in class when nothing’s actually there. It’s almost as if they’re hallucinating all the time or something…”

Despite the lack of focus in many aspects of the young boys lives, from observations they do appear to generally be much happier than any other students at the school including some of the most well performing students in class. The level of discipline they have targeted toward their instruments from a musical standpoint is impressive and even though they can’t seem to find a bridge between guitar strings and the real world, at least they seem to have some sense of purpose.

 This begs the question of where will they go after school? What will they plan on doing after graduation? That is if they even do graduate. Will they continue being the strum bum junkies they are or will they actually start a band and skyrocket to the top charts in fame? Only time will tell. What is certain is that the High School will have held a group of musicians instead of scholars. 

For now it is recommended that you keep instruments locked away from children and that if you see your kids or your friends start pursuing music that you watch carefully and hope that they don’t become too hooked.