By Julia Duggan
Correspondent
The Department of Music hosted its first-ever “SOUND/BATH” Tuesday Sept. 21 at 12:30 p.m..
The lights in the Mayo Concert Hall were dimmed, and members of the audience appeared to be asleep. Heads leaned against chair arms, feet were propped up, and a couple of audience members lay down in front of the seats. Tuesday marked the first of the yearlong series in order to bring music that “heals and soothes,” according to Chairperson Colleen Sears of the Music Department.
“We'll keep the lights low, relax in the hall, and immerse ourselves in sound,” Sears said when describing the event.
Before SOUND/BATH started, an audience member asked if it would be okay to go and lie down on the stage. Despite having a piano, four timpanis, a marimba and other percussion instruments on stage, none of the instruments were used.
The point behind this event was to invite music students to listen to some calming music and to clear their heads for an hour. Students and faculty were invited to add songs to the playlist for the SOUND/BATH event beforehand. Then, the playlist was played through the concert hall for an hour with students and faculty sitting in the seats and listening.
At the very beginning of the semester, Sears hinted events like SOUND/BATH would be commencing as a way to help both students and faculty to relax.
The majority of the songs that were played in the event were purely instrumental music, but there were a couple of songs that featured vocals or had vocals in the background of the various songs. Songs included Ekki Mukk’s “Singur Ros,” Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” (the acoustic version), Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports 1/1 remastered 2004” and Arvo Part’s Spiegel I’m Spiegel.”
The lights in Mayo were technically on so audience members could just see the faces of everyone present in the concert hall, but low enough that they invited audience members to close their eyes. Most of the audience members immediately closed their eyes when the first song started playing. Throughout the hour, more students quietly entered the concert hall to join the others in listening to some calming music.
“I thought it would be really cool to enjoy some relaxing music in mayo and sort of take a break from everything since I really needed to relax and destress,” said Hannah Stratton, a junior music education major, “and that is what it ended up being like, which was really cool.”
Afterward, the lights slowly came back on and the audience members snapped in appreciation instead of the normal clapping.
“I really liked it. I wish more people came because I think it was a nice hour of just relaxing,” Stratton said. “I almost fell asleep, and it was a good way to unwind after this stressful couple of weeks we had.”
“It was a totally surreal experience where a lot of mediation could occur,” said Jayden Fusco, a junior music education major.
