By Rachel Galatis
From singing to learning to play musical instruments, the pandemic is changing the field of music instruction on campus.
Professors are teaching their courses remotely while students are assigned equipment which they can only use for sanitary purposes.
The school’s music program is adjusting to the new safety precautions put into place to keep students involved in activities and practices. Some of these precautions involve practicing one at a time in air-ventilated singing rooms, wearing singer’s masks at rehearsals, and only using personal wireless microphones.
Experts say singing spreads the virus easily due to the droplets and aerosol particles that are released. Some of these droplets can be so large that they are visible to the human eye during a singing session, while others may be invisible.
One of the school’s music professors, James Bohn, said that, for instance, a guitar teacher used to teach a student how to play by positioning the student’s hands on the instrument correctly. That can no longer be done.
Now, professors teach classes over “Zoom” while students practice in music rooms independently in a well-ventilated room which they are then required to let “air out,” meaning no one can go into the room for at least an hour before the next person uses it.
Bohn said one challenge involved students hearing each other singing due to the social distancing rules. He credits Dr. Ana Popa, a fellow in the visual and performing arts department, for instituting the plan to help combat this problem as well as others.
“When you sing, you have to be able to hear yourself and everybody else. We were able to buy a bunch of wireless microphones that we use for rehearsals that clip on to their mask,” he said.
Kaitlin Costa, a junior and member of the school’s a capella group Surround Sound, said singing in a group has been a challenge.
“The masks really muffle the sound of people’s speaking voices, never mind singing voices, so it can be really hard to hear what the correct syllables and vowel sounds are,” she said.
Costa said the music group meets in person twice a week for two-hour practices where they split themselves up by their vocal parts to social distance properly. They also book two rooms to allow enough space in between them, making it difficult to learn new songs because of the distance.
“With some songs, it is hard to learn without hearing the other parts and it's sometimes hard to hear each other with the masks and the distance between us,” she said. “The whole point of an a capella group is to make your voice sound like background music but if everyone is singing different syllables then the song is less cohesive and polished.”
Bohn said students are finding ways to collaborate despite only doing so occasionally in person.
“Collaborating online is big in the recording world. Students are learning this set of skills that they wouldn’t normally be learning,” he said.
Also, because of the limit on the number of people who can be in an area at once, live performances have been scarce.
In Massachusetts, the number of people who can be in an indoor space at once cannot exceed 25, while the number of people who can gather at an outdoor space cannot exceed 50.
A sophomore solo performer, Shelby Donovan, said performing is what she misses most about life on campus now.
“Performing has always been something I absolutely love doing and being onstage is a feeling of freedom for me, and it was amazing to be able to do it at my school,” she said.
Many people perform for fun, but others may do it as a job. Bohn said many colleagues lost part of their income because they are no longer able to perform.
Donovan said she was only a part of the school’s co-ed volleyball team at the beginning of her first semester of her freshman year.
Performing is one way she became more involved on campus after she was recognized for her performance at last year’s “Hilla-palooza” event.
“The chair of the Concert Coffee House Committee reached out to me in the beginning of the year asking if I wanted to open for Hilla-palooza, an annual concert to help kick off the fall semester. After I did that, more opportunities to perform fell into place for me,” she said.
Whether the school will allow live performances this semester is unknown. It depends on how the number of cases looks in the coming months and whether the school remains open for the rest of the fall semester.
Donovan said she is “okay” with how things are going right now and praises the school for the protocols it has taken to prevent the spread of the virus on campus.
“Stonehill is doing a great job of making sure that things return to normal as much as they possibly can while still making sure everyone at the school is staying safe which I am very thankful for,” and “100%” encourages students to attend a performance on campus if there is one, she said.
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