Every day in Mr. KC Perlberg's music classes at Mount Carmel, students have grown accustomed to a certain difficulty. Whether it’s Intro to Piano or Guitar, the first few months have been rather tame, as most beginner music classes should be. But in a wild turn of events students are now shocked to find out one of their final assignments: playing an actual song.

That’s right–music students are being asked to play music. No more clapping on beat for forty-five minutes a day. No matter how many drills and scales Mr. Perlberg has gone over and how many times he brought up playing real music “soon,” these students were shocked.

And needless to say they are losing it.

“Chat GPT doesn’t do music yet,” said junior Caleb Lee. “I’m cooked.” He later started working on a business pitch for a musically focused AI. But not every student can get a creative business idea from this situation.

When Mr. Perlberg was asked if he was worried about his students he very confidently said no. “This happens every year,” he explained. “We spend months going over things and then students don’t think they're prepared to incorporate their skills into real music. When in reality all of my students

 will likely succeed. Maybe not Brendan Hodges, but most of them.”

This assignment in addition to the annual Halloween hysteria has been getting to some students. 

“This final is freaking me out,” Intro to Guitar student Anthony Ortega said. “I was trying to think of a Halloween costume and the scariest thing I could think of was a power cord.”

Luckily for these students Mr. Perlberg is giving them some grace for the final. If a student wishes, they can replace any portion of the final with a song of their choice that they have to play. 

Freshman Kyi Hampton came up with the plan to play “One Hour of Silence” as his replacement song. When Mr. Perlberg rejected the idea, Hampton claimed  that it’s his favorite song. Despite his best efforts, Mr. Perlberg still refused.

John Fiske, another freshman, had a different plan. He asked Mr. Perlberg if he could play the a capella version of “Tequila” by The Champs. Unfortunately his attempt was just as effective as Hampton’s. It seems like these students are going to have to actually play real songs if they wish to replace parts of their finals.

Even if the final isn’t as easy as these students were thinking, most music students would rather have the current situation than have to study for a traditional final exam or figuring out how to write a final essay using A. I.