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Music, Technology Find Common Ground
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The first rumblings of this new concentration reached ORU about ten years ago. Dr. Gene Eland, who was chairman of the music department, and his son Don (75;84), then a music faculty member, went to a National Association of Schools of Music accreditation meeting.
"The overwhelming focus was technology," Don said of that gathering in Chicago. "Most of the sessions had maybe 40 people in attendance. The tech session had about 300. People knew something really big was on the horizon."
The "trouble" that led to the eventual acceptance of technology began in Los Angeles in the 1970s. The introduction of the synthesizer had put a sizeable number of top recording artists out of work. When the musicians union tried to outlaw the use of synthesizers, much of the work (such as film scoring) being done with them simply moved to London. The union finally realized that it was fighting a losing battle, and technology triumphed.
"Dad immediately supported all efforts to get the tech program going," said Eland, who focused on the saxophone, flute, and clarinet as an ORU student. He moved last year from music to communication arts, where he is the senior multimedia producer.
music technology photo 2 What ORU decided to do was add a concentration in technology to a bachelor of music in composition degree and offer several tech courses. (The composition/technology major received formal approval from the NASM Commission on Accreditation in July.) Today, ORU's tech majors take courses called Intro to Music Technology (now required of all music students), Studies in Advanced Music Technology, Sequencing and Digital Audio, Multimedia for Musicians, and Music Technology Practicum.
Jason Moore, a minister of music at First United Methodist Church, taught the Intro and Sequencing courses at ORU last year. He describes music technology as "a way to put ideas in a nonlinear form quickly. Before, you had to sit down with paper and write the notes by hand." With technology, "you play it on the keyboard and the notes are written into the program on the computer." The synthesizer, which plugs into the computer, allows the keyboard to talk to the computer and vice-versa.
Using a microphone, vocalists can sing into the computer and print out the notation or record on the hard drive.
If you weren't a music major, this might sound like something new, but it's not. "Music technology is now old news," Eland said, unlike ten years ago when he couldn't find an existing program within 100 miles of ORU.
Nearly three years ago, the north end of Timko-Barton Hall was remodeled and computer labs were created. The main lab has eight stations, each containing a small keyboard, a computer, and an interface. The advanced lab has just one station, but it is, Moore said, like a studio unto itself.
Department chairman Dr. Edward Pierce says the computer equipment, primarily Macintoshes, is about ten years old and has stood up well. But it needs to be replaced, because it can't run the new software. In order to stay current and keep up with student demand, the lab needs twelve new stations--computers, software, keyboards, printers, a scanner, a DAT recorder, a CD burner, a mixer, and other special equipment.
Using some of the equipment in the communication arts department's MultiMedia Institute, four music students from Don Eland's Media for Musicians class designed and created a CD for all ORU alumni. The CD is part "walk down memory lane," part "this is what ORU is like today," and part "thank you for supporting us." It took Emily McIlvaine, Tom Besser, Amber Warner, Ryan Galmarini, and Eland nearly a thousand man-hours to complete the project, which includes sound, video, and 3-D elements. The CD will be available from Alumni Relations in the near future.
Included in ORU's long-range plan is a new music technology/business degree program (contingent on adequate funding). A proposal has been submitted and the business department has agreed to cooperate. The current comp/tech major is geared toward composing, but as Dr. Pierce points out, a lot of the students in the program are in it for the technology training, not the composing courses. Moore concurs. "Some students just want to mix sound. Right now, the Intro class is the only one that deals with sound reinforcement. It would also be good to add courses in Miking Techniques, Advanced Studio Recording, Live Mixing, and Lighting."
The possibilities with a program like music technology are, as they say, endless, but music educators need to remind students that it's an enhancement of, and not a replacement for, what their departments have always offered.
After ORU took the plunge, Eland said, he realized that "buying the equipment wasn't the greatest challenge; learning it was the problem. But now, I'd say the really difficult thing is figuring out how to integrate these new tools into professions. How does it work with something like an orchestra? You need to tackle the learning curve and figure out ways to integrate it."
There's also the danger, he said, that "some musicians might see it as a shortcut. If you're a good musician, it makes you better. But everything you don't know about music becomes apparent when you use a computer.
"You can't practice less or cut corners. It's no good to you if you drop lessons or your commitment to the craft. The fact is that you must use technological assistance to compete with other musicians who do."
Moore agrees that the new technology "definitely makes things easier," especially in a worship setting or when you want the sound of an orchestra. The downside, he said, is when someone uses MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface), which can mimic eighteen instruments, "and feels that they don't need training. That can lower the quality of the music."
What sorts of jobs can graduates of this program secure? Moore says some of the possibilities include multimedia producer for CD-ROMs, studio music producer, engineer (editing music and audio), and sound director in a church or other live-music setting. Eland says that school systems now prefer to hire music teachers who have a good working knowledge of technology. And, he adds, "It's likely that some of the most rewarding jobs in technology-related music careers haven't even been recognized yet."
So, is technology a bane or a blessing? Eland believes "it's the best thing that ever happened to music. Synthesizers are bringing music back into homes. It's a healthy worldwide trend that will make great musicians marketable class="text" again."
