Photo Story: Music in Dorms
Students by day, musicians by night (or whenever there’s free time). Quiet hours? Never heard of her. Six non-music majors at UT Austin share how they manage school and practicing their instruments, elaborating upon their craft, inspirations, and aspirations.
Photos and interviews by Emma Pham
Zac Weiss and Cole Hunt
As Zac Weiss shows me into his dorm room, I’m pleasantly surprised to see that he and his roommate, Cole Hunt, are in the middle of a jam session, with Hunt on the bass and Weiss on the guitar. This isn’t a normal occurrence for them, as both have busy schedules and different majors. While Weiss is double-majoring in aerospace engineering and Plan II, Hunt is in the Business Honors Program. But, they say they find commonality in their love for punk and rock music, enjoying bands such as Pavement and Sonic Youth. They say their similar music taste is actually how they came to be roommates.
Weiss says he practices every day and starts his practices with scales and the fundamentals before learning and/or playing along to his favorite songs by The Smiths and REM. On bad days, he says he practices for about thirty minutes, but on good days, he practices for up to two hours.
“Playing guitar is cathartic,” he says. “It’s my break from the homework and all the pressure and stress of everything.” Hunt says he plays for the same reasons as Weiss but skips the fundamentals and jumps into a riff, playing however and whatever he feels. He says he doesn’t spend as much time as Weiss practicing but devotes a lot of time listening to music and working at KVRX as a production assistant.
Before I leave, they give me some last words. “If you love it, do it,” Weiss says. “If you love getting to play music, you’re never gonna let anything stop you from that.”
“Your passion doesn’t have to be your job,” Hunt says. “The disassociation (between your job and your hobby) actually improves both.”
Lior Arad
In Lior Arad’s musical arsenal, you’ll find a saxophone, a bass, a keyboard, a multipurpose amp, and a small notebook for his ideas. Among the three instruments, he says he is the most passionate about the sax, having played in his highschool’s band, in a quartet, and now for UT’s Longhorn Band. Arad says he took the saxophone “pretty seriously” throughout high school and still carries that attitude at UT Austin. He says he enjoys Longhorn Band, but feels like it’s “primarily a social function and secondarily a music function,” and looks to audition for a music major ensemble where he can challenge himself and continue to improve. “It always feels fun to get better at your instrument and try to put effort towards something,” he says.
Outside of the six-hour weeks that come with Longhorn Band, Arad says he doesn’t have much time to practice the saxophone as much as he would like. It is a loud instrument, and in a small dorm room with thin walls, he says practice isn’t feasible. The uphill fifteen-minute trek to the Music Building doesn’t help either, and Arad says his “largest gripe” about UT is how unfriendly the campus is to musicians, with practically no amenities and spaces for them to practice in besides the Music Building.
Arad is an electrical engineering major, and he says he loves it when his major and his passion for music come together. Ultimately, he says he would like to pursue a career that involves both of his interests. “I actually would like to work for a company doing some sort of instrument making or internal wiring of an amp or pedal,” he says, “because all (they are) inside is just circuits.”
Aislinn Hurley
Aislinn Hurley is a member of the University’s orchestra and says she has been playing the oboe for seven years. Additionally, she says she takes oboe lessons and audits the reed-making class for music majors, although she is a biomedical engineering and Plan II major. For her, she says playing the oboe is something that gives her release and makes her happy, so she feels that it isn’t something that she necessarily needs to pursue as a career. The oboe was not a random interest for Hurley — she says her mom played it throughout college, and she “always wanted to be in band” growing up, so it felt like the right pick. But she says she “never thought she would like it as much as she does now.” Outside of orchestra and oboe practice, she says she practices much less now than she did in high school, but still commits to 45-minute practices three times a week before or after orchestra practice. Hurley says she plans on playing the oboe and taking classes throughout her college career.
Chloe Starr
Chloe Starr says she’d just had an “accidental” jam session with her friends in her dorm room before I came. Scattered on her bed and desk were miscellaneous instruments — a tamborine, a set of bongos, and her guitar. The jam session wasn’t a regular occurrence since, Starr says. “Time coordination with other people is really difficult because we all have different class schedules.”
But that day, she says she and her friends serendipitously came together to play. Usually though, she says, she sings and plays her guitar by herself whenever she has the time. She also said she enjoys writing songs similar to those by Dodie, Samia, and Lucy Dacus. Starr says she doesn’t want to pursue a career in music — she plays and writes just for fun.
“If it had to be of value, (I think) the fun would leave it,” she says, “like reading for school.” Starr believes when you pursue music as a career, she says, “there’s always the challenge of being consistently good in order to make a living.” Starr says she doesn’t have to worry about that — she plays without the pressure to prove herself to other people.
“I don’t have to be anything when I’m sitting in here (and) I just chill,” she says. “When I have all my schoolwork, I have so much to do. I have to get certain grades. But I don’t have to get a grade on the guitar.”
Antony Sutanto
Antony Sutanto is an architectural engineering major, and he says he’s been playing the piano since he was five years old. Both of his parents were piano teachers, so he says they “set him up to it,” but at the start of high school, he made the decision to actively pursue the piano. He played in his school’s band, at a church during the summer, but says he mainly does solo performances in classical piano. At UT Austin, he says he takes a piano performance class that meets once a week in order to improve and maintain his capabilities.
“Playing piano, especially when you’re not anywhere near a music major, you need to be very active and know that you cannot sit around all the time,” Sutanto says. “When you’re sitting around, you’re doing something wrong.”
Sutanto says he practices one to two hours every day, “especially on days when he has light homework” in the Music Building. “Improvement is an aspect (of playing),” he says, “but it’s really something I enjoy doing. It’s tough but really rewarding, especially when you can play a piece you really enjoy.”