It’s an old nursery rhyme and a favorite childhood melody.

Hot cross buns!

Hot cross buns!

One ha’ penny, two ha’ penny,

Hot cross buns!

Over decades, Nick Goumas used the song to introduce his youngest instrumental music students to the intricacies of performing in a band.

“I built up a library of music. I felt that once the kids could play certain pages in the book – like when they could start playing ‘Hot Cross Buns’; it’s a simple melody – I would get the kids together and have their first band rehearsal,” said Goumas, who’s retiring this year after teaching at Ledge Street Elementary School for 34 years, 29 consecutively.

“Even though they’re playing just simple unison lines, when they hear all those instruments playing together, it’s, ‘Ah, yeah!’ a motivational thing.

“Then you start giving them a little more challenging music, you work with them in their music and their lessons, and you have a band rehearsal.”

Goumas is retiring from teaching, but not from leading the Ledge Street band. Goumas will work part time leading the band, maybe doing one rehearsal a week. He’s working out an arrangement to also give individual music lessons at various elementary schools in the city.

Under Goumas’ direction, the Ledge Street band was the city’s first band attached to a specific elementary school instead of pulling students from several schools.

Many have long considered Ledge Street to be the city’s best elementary school band. That’s particularly impressive because as an inner-city school, Ledge Street draws students from among Nashua’s poorest neighborhoods.

“All of us here at Ledge Street School are fortunate to have had the privilege of sharing your expertise, work ethic and commitment to your love of music,” parent and volunteer coordinator Monique Duda said of Goumas after the band’s spring concert. “You’ve made a real difference in the lives of the students you’ve taught and the educators who have been privileged to work with you.

“Amongst many things, you have taught our children to appreciate the art of classical music. You have mesmerized them with your incredible talent and limitless passion for jazz – a lesson and a gift that every student will carry with them for a lifetime. You have not only made these children better musicians, but better people.”

Goumas started the Ledge Street band around 1990, originally drawing students from fourth through sixth grades until the Nashua School District created middle schools for grades 6-8.

“We used to have 50-piece bands,” he said. “We had 12 trumpet players, 10 to 12 clarinet players, 10 flute players.”

Former Principal Bill Manley “said, ‘Take it on tour,’ so we lined up elementary schools to try to motivate their kids,” Goumas said.

Goumas got his first teaching job at Fairgrounds Elementary School in 1967. The next year, he was drafted into the Army, and during the Vietnam War era, he spent three years playing saxophone in Army bands in Europe.

After being discharged, Goumas taught at Ledge Street from 1971-76 before leaving for a job at Greater Lowell Regional Voc-Tech, a brand new school in Massachusetts.

“It was more money and so forth, brand new facilities,” Goumas said.

But Goumas’ position was cut, a victim of the Proposition 21?2 tax revolt in Massachusetts.

“Arts are the first ones to go with budget cuts, so after five years, I got laid off,” he said.

When Manley found out, he called Goumas and offered to bring him back to Ledge Street.

“There was a one-year opening,” Goumas said. “The teacher never came back, so I stayed on. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.”

The year he returned was 1982. The Nashua School District began to build a solid instrumental music program over the next few years, he said.

Ruth Tuttle was the head music teacher for the district and got the instrumental music program going. Goumas started doing lessons after school.

The elementary band was initially formed of fifth- and sixth-graders.

“I was dipping into the fourth grade, which no other school did, especially in anticipation of losing the sixth grade” to the new middle school structure, he said.

Some schools shared music teachers. Goumas saw the advantage of having one music teacher in a school who also handled the school’s band and chorus.

“I knew the kids in the school, that’s the thing,” he said. “I would scope them out from the first grade.”

Goumas said he would tell the second-graders he had his eye on, “?‘Hey, show me you’re good in class and I might have you play in the band next year.’?”

At the end of the year, he’d discuss with second-grade teachers which kids they thought were academically ready and mature enough. Then Goumas would select 20 to 25 kids, sending a letter home to their parents.

He looked for the responsible, academically sound kids. He would recruit them into the band, and then keep after them to stick with it.

“If they were missing rehearsals or their lesson and they weren’t practicing, I would remind them,” Goumas said. “I was constantly reminding them about practicing every night, why weren’t you at this rehearsal, why weren’t you at your lesson, that kind of thing. They’d see my face every day.”

He scheduled weekly band rehearsals during school time because some kids couldn’t come to after-school rehearsals.

“The teachers and the administration here always supported the band and the chorus,” Goumas said. “They always let things happen. If you called a special rehearsal and stuff, they were always behind you.”

Goumas established beginner and advanced bands at the elementary school.

By the time kids are in the fifth grade, “They’re playing some cool tunes,” Goumas said.

Such as the “Star Wars” theme.

“When I say, Do you want to play ‘Star Wars?’ they all go, ‘Whoa!’ That’s my grand finale in my final concert at the end of the year. It’s kind of spectacular. They love it,” Goumas said.

Goumas is an accomplished tenor and soprano saxophone player. He has played gigs throughout the region and in Canada, and his quartet won honors as the best small jazz ensemble in the state.

As a teacher, Goumas taught students to appreciate music. For April, Jazz Appreciation Month, Goumas brought his quartet to perform for the school.

Families who can afford it rent instruments. For those who can’t, instruments are donated, and there’s always the need for more donations, Goumas said.

“If they’re really doing well and they really enjoy it, I let them take the instrument all the way up” through school, he said.

Some of the city’s smaller schools don’t have enough students to form a band, maybe just small ensembles, Goumas said.

“I feel bad. Those kids are missing out,” he said.

What benefit does a kid get from playing in a band?

“Responsibility. An awareness. The discipline of it. These kids are going to grow up and be good listeners and learn other kinds of music,” Goumas said. “Knowing that to get good at something, you got to have perseverance.”

Goumas said when he retires he won’t miss “the regular everyday things you have to do, you know, the meetings and that kind of stuff, the politics.”

However, he will miss the staff and, above all, the kids.

“It’s a great school,” he said. “Teachers stayed here because they love the kids. It’s a different kind of school. I often imagined if I was at another school, if some of the social and economic situations were better, I know I could have an even better band.”

But Goumas felt a kinship with the families who send children to Ledge Street.

“I grew up in this neighborhood, not far from here,” Goumas said. “I used to play in this playground here as a kid. My parents were immigrants, and I relate to these families here.

“It’s a very diverse school, and I think that’s a great education for kids. Some people want to put kids in some other school, or private school, or a charter school or something. You get a good education right here.”

Patrick Meighan can be reached at 594-6518 or pmeighan@nashuatelegraph.com.