found
sounds Listening to campus life
sparks unique compositions that open ears and eyes to
the power of imagination.
BY DAWN BONKER
How do you capture a sunset in sound? Would a cupcake parade be noisy or as soft as buttercream frosting? And how do you transform such thoughts into music? Those were some of the challenges tackled by students in a Chapman University music technology course this spring semester. The young composers were challenged to write such music in an assignment you could liken to a mashup of old-fashioned games like charades, musical chairs and telephone. The result is a collection of contemporary minicompositions that represent the sounds of campus life as heard and interpreted by the students in Principles of Music Technology. “There's just so much creativity because it's so open-ended and flexible,” says Adam Borecki ’12, who teaches the class offered by the College of Performing Arts’ Hall-Musco Conservatory of Music. The project began with a deceptively simple assignment early in the semester. Students went to a place on campus where they’d never been. There, they turned off all devices, including headsets and phones. They sat, observed and listened. The campus-listening part of the assignment was completed before Chapman shifted to remote instruction due to the coronavirus pandemic. Using only the inspiration of what they saw and heard, the students drew a picture.
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CHAPMAN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE
