AU offers campers lessons on music world
July 17th, 2008
For the first time, Anderson University is hosting a summer camp for teenagers considering careers in the music industry.
The camp, an offshoot of the university’s student-run recording label Orangehaus Music, offers campers early exposure to sound engineering, music marketing and other skills not usually covered outside of a recording label office or college class.
“We’re just seeing a growing trend that high school students are interested in the music business and how to become independent artists,” said Rebecca Chappell, an AU music business professor who organized the five-day camp.
The goal of the camp, she said, was to give students a big enough taste of the music industry so that they leave either feeling confident about going into the music industry or knowing it’s not for them.
Most of the 38 campers hail from the Midwest, but some live as far away as Texas and Georgia.
With sessions on sound editing, song writing and artist promotions, Chappell said, the students are getting the basic information from AU’s complete music business curriculum and then participate in a real recording session before the camp ends Saturday.
Based on each student’s interest, the campers are divided into groups. Then, beginning today, each group will work with professional sound engineers and producers to compile a CD. The songs it will include are a mix of original compositions and covers, but students will help produce each track.
“They’re getting a crash course,” said Joe Freeman, an AU instructor who is leading the camp’s sound editing workshops. “What the average student would learn in three months, they’re getting in six hours.”
On Wednesday, Ben Sanborn, 16, of Warsaw was manipulating the bass line of a musical track using the popular professional music editing software Pro Tools. Ben, who is thinking of becoming a sound engineer, had used similar programs, but nothing as complex as Pro Tools.
“It’s not entirely different,” he said. “Once you pick it up, it’s great.”
Sarah Warner, 18, of Galloway, Ohio, said the camp was teaching her about aspects of the music business that she’d not considered before. She’d just listened to Chappell talk about all the opportunities artists have to promote their music online, and while Warner said she regularly checks out singers on MySpace, she was learning that the music business is more than that.
“There’s a lot more to it than I thought,” Warner said. “It’s not just music. It’s how you get it out into the world.”
If you go:
What: Orangehaus Rock!, a concert open to the public and part of the Orangehaus Music Business Camp at Anderson University
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: AU’s Byrum Hall
Featuring Sense of Reverence and Réaul
Tickets: $5
—Barrett Newkirk is a reporter for the Herald Bulletin in Anderson. Story republished with permission.
Anderson University is a private Christian university of 2,700 undergraduate and graduate students in central Indiana. Anderson continues to be recognized as a top Christian college: in 2008, U.S. News and World Report ranked Anderson University among the best colleges and universities in the Midwest for the fourth consecutive year. Established in 1917 by the Church of God, Anderson University offers more than 65 undergraduate majors and graduate programs in business, education, music, nursing and theology.
