Vassar bands cope with lack of campus practice spaces

Sam Bloch Staff Writer

The baseball team has the baseball field,” said Director of Residential Life Luis Inoa. “There’s a place and a time for them to practice, which, in turn, makes them better. So, if you’re a musician or in a band, and there’s no practice space for you to get better, I’d say that would impede your success.”

For many informal student musicians, there is no baseball field, so to speak. According to administrators, there are only two dorm practice spaces currently available, both of which many students believe are inadequate for their musical needs.

According to Associate Dean of the College Raymon Parker, before the 2003-2004 school year, Jewett was the only dorm that had music practice space. But after the Jewett space was closed due to dorm renovations, single practice rooms in the basements of Davison and Raymond were approved to accommodate student demand, although for many students, these new rooms offered little improvement.

“Getting a practice space is a huge pain in the ass, and it has been, without change, for the four years I've spent playing in bands at Vassar,” said Hamilton Jordan ’06, guitarist for Genghis Tron. “And considering that only music majors are given permission to practice in Skinner, that leaves us to play in random rooms in dormitories, which always ends up pissing someone off pretty quickly.”

According to Andy Connors ’08 of the Martians, the Davison practice room is much more desirable than some of the other options on campus, which include less-equipped rooms in other dorms.

“It’s the only practice room you can actually use,” said Connors. “The practice rooms in Noyes and Cushing are both poorly sound-proofed, and directly underneath wellness halls, so our band had to leave both places after getting daily noise complaints.”
That these students all have different conceptions of the availability of dorm practice spaces results in a lack of effective communication between students and administrators as well. Nearly every student musician interviewed seemed to agree.

When asked if he thought there was a problem with practice space availability, Parker said that he had “not heard that students are unable to find music practice space.” But for multi-member bands, Connors said, the practice hours currently allotted by Residential Life—such as 4-6 p.m. in Raymond on Monday through Saturday, and from 12-6 p.m. in Davison on weekdays—are a logistical nightmare.

“While a two-hour practice in itself is acceptable, the likelihood of all band members being free during the same time is small,” said Zachary Kaye ’09, who lives in Josselyn and plays lead guitar in Vassar’s Newest Band.

Several students also take issue with storage policy in the practice spaces. “The Residential Life Office prohibits leaving equipment in the practice room,” said Connors. “This means [the Martians] have to bring in all of our drums, amps, and guitars every time we play, then take them home when we finish. That’s at least a half hour of set up time, and another half hour to pack up.”

“It's almost as though the school wants to discourage students from making music,” Connors continued. “With these limitations in place, it's no surprise there are so few bands on campus.”

Another student concern with campus practice spaces centers on security: keys to the rooms can be obtained by anyone who signs them out from the Residential Operations Center, which leaves some students understandably wary. “As long as other people have access to the keys, I can't see musicians changing their level of comfort with leaving their instruments behind,” said Kaye. “My ideal for practice space is that bands could sign out a room for a month, and that only they would have the key,” he suggested.

But students’ gripes with the quality of the practice rooms are not unnoticed by the Vassar administration.

According to Parker, a dorm assessment group comprised of students, faculty, and administrators has discussed the future of practice spaces.

“We could use more space for bands to practice,” said Parker. “Because the practice rooms don’t have storage capacity, it’s a hassle for bands to move their drum kits every time they want to practice.”

Parker also expressed a desire to soundproof the rooms and have separate storage spaces, but doubts that Vassar has enough money to finance such a plan in the immediate future. He also does not know where to create new practice spaces in the meantime. “Almost every space on campus is fully utilized,” he said.

“Those [practice] spaces are not ‘music rooms,’” said Inoa. “They were made to be storage. I don’t think it makes for a suitable practice space, but it’s what we have.” According to Inoa, the school will eventually look into reconfiguring some of the dorm basement spaces into genuine, sound-proofed practice spaces, but it will only happen when major Quad dorm renovations begin, which, he said, could take up to ten years.

Inoa encourages students to work with him and to come up with alternatives to the current practice spaces. “Give me a call and brainstorm with me,” he suggested.