A garage door hums as it closes. Listen for the “testing, testing 1,2,3” of a microphone, the tuning of a bass, the strumming of a guitar and the pounding of a drum. It’s dim in the garage, but much darker outside. Inside the garage, four people play their instruments, causing music to bounce off the walls. Here sits the four members of the Sticky Rice Band: Gunn students
sophomore Gabriel Lopez and senior Sarina Reed, as well as American High School students sophomore Milie Lu and sophomore Nicky Cheung.

Last November, they created the band and began holding weekly practices in Lopez’s garage. Since then, the group has hammered out songs, but chase the bigger goal of one day  producing their own album.

Lopez is the lead guitarist and does backing vocals, while Reed plays the bass. Lu is the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist and Cheung plays the drums. Together, their performances at places such as Red Rock Coffee or California Avenue take on genres of rock, Japanese rock and pop music.

Although the two hadn’t known each other for long, Reed and  Gabriel decided to start a band together. A few connections later, they brought Lu and Cheung into the mix. Outside of practice, the four band members bond with each other over calls, time spent together and Roblox game nights.

For Reed, the process of getting to know one another helped bring all the members closer together.

“It was awkward getting to know each other at first,” she said. “It was really slow and, honestly, we didn’t sound that great,  but I feel like getting to know each other and just having that connection on a personal level really brought our sound out. It  really just made us better as a group.”

Lopez has a goal of creating another outlet for Gunn students to play or showcase their musical skills and plans on making  that possible by funneling his experience and skills from Sticky Rice Band into his club, the Audio Arts Collective.

“Through our band and through our club, I want to bring more of that sense of community of music and artists to Gunn,” he said. “You really get to know a person on a much deeper level. I want that for more musicians at Gunn.”

Blues chords, swing rhythm, stacks of harmonies — these sounds fill the practice room where senior Elijah Leppert rehearses with his jazz-themed group of six: the Dome Combo. Coming from Gunn and Paly, student musicians are featured on the bass, guitar, drums, piano, saxophone and trombone.

Since Leppert joined as a member a few months after the group first began, Dome Combo has continued to run for over a year.  Playing among others with diverse musical knowledge, he has found, brings out a variety of musical tones and textures that can be overlooked in solo ventures. The combination of qualities and chords also strengthens his connection to the music.

“We started pretty informally, kind of just finding more ways to play music together with others, because music, if you’re just playing by yourself, can be a little bit boring sometimes,” he said. “But playing with other people, it’s a lot easier to have fun and to learn a lot more about how to play music well.”

Now, Dome Combo dabbles in a variety of jazz styles, including swing, classic, ballads and Bossa Nova. Leppert’s favorite genre has recently landed on a fusion of soul, jazz, rhythm and blues: funk.

“Funk is really fun, especially because I’ve been playing bass recently in the group and there’s a lot of really cool bass lines for funk,” he said.

While Dome Combo doesn’t formally advertise its performances, the group has played at flea markets, Paly’s  second Sunday event and even on television, where the set list included one of Leppert’s favorite group pieces, “On the Sunny  Side of the Street” by Jimmy McHugh.

“There was a film class going on for a bunch of graduate students in Mountain View, and they needed a group to film for the final project, so they invited us to play,” he said. “We were in a giant recording studio, the four of us playing for that gig, and we played three songs.”

Dome Combo’s members come from across grade
levels, and Leppert enjoys the time they spend together.
The future of their shared music space after graduation,
however, is on the minds of the group’s current seniors.

“We’ve definitely talked about coming back and doing  rehearsals together, or maybe one performance over winter break, and definitely over the summer,” he said. “I think we’ll continue (performing), but we’ll see what happens.”

With the rest of the year still ahead, Leppert looks forward to every chance to perform — no matter how big or small.

“If you want to have a jazz band play at one of the events that you have, I think we’d definitely be open to having more opportunities to play, especially with people we might know from Gunn,” he said. “If you want us to play, just let us know.”

Notes For All, a student-led music group and non- profit organization based in Palo Alto, was founded in August 2023. Originally a small group of friends playing music together, Notes For All has grown into a much larger organization that brings chamber music to the wider Bay Area.

Notes For All performs at senior centers, neurodiversity events and in underprivileged communities. Their vision is to spread joy to local communities through their volunteer music concerts.

The small organization quickly expanded into a community of high school students from Palo Alto, Los Altos, Mountain View, San Jose and other areas in the Bay. One difference between Notes For All and other music groups at Gunn is their goal of bringing chamber music to the wider Bay Area.

Co-Executive Director junior Vincent Tsai
highlights some of the aspects he finds beneficial and specific to Notes For All in the world of music groups.

“You can choose your own (music) pieces,” he said. “You can choose who you play with. You get to perform for a lot of different (types of) people and that’s very nice.”

The music group is also home to some smaller programs, such as a community of composers and jazz groups. All of the group’s members
volunteer their time and energy playing traditional music and exploring individual choices for performance.

Another one of the four co-executive directors, sophomore Tey Lee, enjoys the time she puts into practicing for Notes For All performances as well as spending time others.

“My favorite part of being in Notes For All is probably rehearsing with my friends because honestly, it’s pretty relaxed,” she said. “Everyone can enjoy what they’re doing instead of being forced to do it.”