Art by Gabby DiGiovanni
Pepperdine’s Music Department spends their time around campus trying to provide concerts rooted in emotional and immersive performances, and the department is attempting to showcase these traits as they offer performances to their audience over Zoom.
The Music Department offers various activities in the world of performing arts, such as opera, choir, classical guitar, instrumental ensembles and music composition. While all students navigate remote learning at Pepperdine due to COVID-19, music students continue to have critiqued performances, concerts and private lessons.
“When you acknowledge there are natural and incredibly beautiful harmonies that we could be engaging in rather than all this negativity that’s going around, I think that those are powerful moments,” said Malone Blaich, senior Music major with an emphasis in vocal performance. “Those are the things I try to hold onto.”
Choir
Director of Choral Activities Ryan Board said the choirs are planning to prerecord a concert and produce an a cappella Christmas album. The pre-recorded rehearsal will be live-streamed Oct. 30 and will function as the regular fall concert. Board wrote in an email that the performances will be accessible through the department’s social media pages.
“By the time you are done, the online performances look pretty inspiring, but the process is pretty different and much more cumbersome,” Board said. “It feels more like a production rather than an artistic experience.”
Board said the process of pre-recorded performances starts with him silently conducting a piece of music on video. He then shares it with the piano accompanist, who plays the choir’s various parts. Finally, the accompanist sends the video to the students who individually record themselves singing their vocal part, and Board complies it into a master file.
“It is the best way we can recreate the experience of that creative impulse that comes when you are signing with a group,” Board said. “It is the only way to figure out how to get all the tempos and cut-offs together.”
Board said the choir also hopes to start composing and recording an entirely virtual Christmas album.
“We will post it on YouTube, and people can listen to it throughout the Christmas season as sort of a little gift to the Pepperdine community,” Board said.
Board said his students are working extremely hard, but deep down, they know the essential elements of performing — such as spontaneity — cannot be recreated.
“I am kind of a positive-oriented, find-the-silver-lining-in-everything kind of person, and I will admit it has still been tough,” Board said.
Private Lessons
Liam Nixon, senior Music major and chamber choir singer, said he chose Pepperdine solely because of the music faculty.
“They made such a great impression, and I really wanted to learn from them,” Nixon said.
Nixon said the music faculty are doing the best they can. He thinks classes and lessons are working out quite well; he appreciates that when Pepperdine had to continue online, the music faculty opened communication with their students and coordinated realistic plans for their education.
Nixon said a big part of this plan was the decision to hold private voice lessons on Zoom. The student and professor use Zoom for face-to-face lessons, then they mute the Zoom audio and use Cleanfeed, a multitrack recording assistant, to practice with better audio quality.
“It is not required but definitely encouraged that majors and minors have pretty good sound equipment,” Malone said. “I had to drop a pretty penny on some audio interfacing, some microphones and an ethernet cable.”
The students learn a song that their professors send to them, then they sing it for their professors and work on vocal technique one on one.
“I’ve had a lot of success in my lessons so far,” Nixon said. “I was really shocked because I was really hesitant when this first hit.”
Nixon also said the music students watch pre-recorded performances of each other every week.
“It’s definitely my favorite part of the week, just getting to stay and watch my friends perform,” said Haily Watson, senior Liberal Arts major with a music emphasis.
Opera
Watson is a part of this year’s Pepperdine Opera cast. She said they just started last week and are learning how Zoom will work for this ensemble, including single postings and no group rehearsals.
“It’s kind of more ‘do the work on your own’ because over Zoom, you can’t all sing together; it doesn’t work like that — there’s a lot of technical difficulties,” Watson said. “The music faculty has been very understanding.”
Watson said remote schooling has proven to be more rigorous than expected. She said it requires more self-initiative, such as learning the musical piece on her own, recording it with her equipment and sending it to her professor by the end of the week.
Community
With all the twists and turns the online semester has handed the music department, Sakeenah Godfrey, sophomore Vocal Performance major, said she understands how hard the faculty is working and appreciates all the help they are offering.
For example, Godfrey said the faculty sent her a mini keyboard so she could practice for keyboard exams since students no longer have access to any school instruments. While some students doubt the online performance experience, Godfrey has a different viewpoint.
“My favorite part of online school, by far, is that I have to deal with fewer nerves,” Godfrey said. “It’s nice to just be able to turn in my best take of a performance.”
Sophomore Sakeenah Godfrey sings during a private vocal lesson on Zoom with Music Professor Louise Lofquist on Aug. 27. Godfrey said she loves music because it makes her more empathetic. Photo courtesy of Sakeenah Godfrey
Guitar Department
Christopher Parkening, music professor and chair of the Guitar Department, said he is teaching classical guitar through private lessons and ensemble and performance skill classes — all via FaceTime or Zoom.
Parkening said pre-recorded guitar performances occur once per month, and he enjoys seeing his students relaxed during their performances.
“My favorite part about teaching remotely is that I see the student in their comfortable homes,” Parkening said. “In some ways, they are less nervous about performing.”
Music School Central ranked Pepperdine’s Guitar Department No. 1 in “The Ten Very Best Colleges for Classical Guitar Performance.” Parkening said his students are preparing for a master class, attending studio class every Wednesday and working to record and perform professionally.
Artistic Importance
While all the music faculty and students said they hope to return in the spring, they are not slowing down with producing content for everyone to enjoy this semester.
“When I am engaging with music, when I am performing, when I am performing with other people, when we are kind of doing the thing that is making music, I feel the closest that I can feel to God,” Malone said.
Even amidst the occasional lost Wi-Fi, challenging new equipment and hours on Final Cut Pro, Watson said she feels the work is worth it because music and love are very similar; neither can be shaken nor moved.
Watson said the Pepperdine music program has made her and her colleagues fall deeper in love with music.
“I’m excited to go out into the world and perform because I feel like my voice can do something unique and do something that is special — and not for me but for other people,” Watson said.
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Email Beth Gonzales: beth.gonzales@pepperdine.edu
