From the strings of the orchestra to the brass instruments of the band to the harmonies of choir, the sound of music often fills the fine arts departments.

But on the other side of campus, the strums of a guitar stand out in the social studies hallway.

Over the past year, AP Economics teacher, Scott Li, has been learning how to play the guitar, and after some practice, he brings his guitar to school to play for his students during his free time.

“When I’ve some downtime in class or like let’s say some of the students are working on activities, I like to play softly,” Li said. “I think that would be, you know, like kind of a brace of attention catching the ears. And what I realized actually, is that the students tend to all calm down and focus on their work a lot better.”

One of Li’s regular visitors is junior Evan Bullitt. As a guitar player, Bullitt found a new reason to continue visiting Li’s class.

“Mr. Li is a fun teacher already, and then now he can play the guitar and sing, and so then it’s like a fun little game to be able to do a duet with him,” Bullitt said.

But Bullitt isn’t the only person who’s been drawn into room C105 by the sounds of Li playing guitar. One afternoon, custodian Minh Nguyen walked in, and a musical connection was sparked.

“A lot of the times the janitors will come into a teacher’s classroom during their conference period, you know, empty out some trash,” Li said. “So,” [Nguyen] comes in and throws the trash out. And then because I have my guitars in my classroom, he sees the guitar and doesn’t speak any English, so I had no idea what he was saying, but he immediately pointed to it and I could tell he was asking, can I play your guitar? Of course, I said ‘Yeah. Go ahead.’”

What would come next, caught Li off guard.

“He picks up the guitar and then completely unexpectedly, he is like a phenomenal virtuoso,” Li said. “He’s playing some sort of flamenco or Spanish or Italian style guitar music.”

Being a custodian can be a challenge, especially when there is a language barrier, but for Nguyen, once he saw Li’s guitar, he had to play.

“I learned guitar in Vietnam,” Nguyen said. “I learned youth music and French music while going to work and would learn during my free time in Vietnam WHen I went to work to clean, I asked the teacher if I could play and started playing and then he started to play with me and it was fun.”

The encounter between Li and Nguyen sparked an unexpected connection.

“He’s wonderful at it,” Li said. “It was really awesome. He’s very, very good and he’s a very nice guy and really brightened my day.”

This story was originally published on Wingspan on December 18, 2023.