Pandemic has led to global outbreak of music
Serenades from Italian balconies. Bagpipes in a London, Ont., neighbourhood. Guitar-strumming police officers in Spain. Mini-concerts created and shared online by Western students. When almost everything else has been stripped away, music is amplified as one of the essentials.
“It just shows how important it is to our society when even in our hardest times people get together and make music,” said Music professor Sophie Roland, Chair of Music Performance Studies at the Don Wright Faculty of Music. “That’s just the way they are able to reconnect.”
Third-year Music Education student Roisin Miland is doing so by urging fellow students to send her their weird and wonderful music contributions, for her to post on the House Music Challenge Instagram, Twitter and Facebook feeds.
So far, one student has translated the Kodaly teaching method to an adaptation of Mr. Sandman, while another edited a beat of household music sounds into a “weird ambient track.”
“We’re usually all together making music. With social distancing, we don’t have that opportunity to connect,” Miland said. “I figured, ‘Let’s start a challenge and see who picks it up.’ I actually want it to be that simple. You’re challenging yourself and you’re also making people laugh or making people smile or trying to do something new or weird and support each other.”
Read full article (via Western News, March 25, 2020)
Photo credit: Screen grab from a recent House Music Challenge video (via Twitter)
Related links
House Music Challenge on Facebook
House Music Challenge on Twitter
House Music Challenge on Instagram
Ensembles at the Don Wright Faculty of Music
Visit the official Western COVID-19 website for the latest campus updates.
