OU club The Sound 'mixes' well with campus music buffs
By Jillian Mapes, Assistant Managing Editor
May 24, 2007 | 10:04 p.m.
The Sound at Ohio University is music to the ears of audiophiles who have a taste for mix CDs. The relatively new student organization is one whose main purpose is to share music through the art of compiling mixes.
The concept of a club comprised of those who are interested in sharing their own musical tastes and finding new music is one that was concocted by The Sound’s founder and president, Sara Storer, a senior art education major. According to Storer, she was inspired to create the organization this past winter break as a way to be exposed to new bands and to meet new people who love music as much as she does.
Upon returning to OU for winter quarter, Storer was able to enlist the help of Shaun Adams, the club’s now-treasurer and a senior audio post-production major. Eddie Ashworth, an audio production professor in the telecommunications program, serves as The Sound’s faculty adviser.
Each week, the members of The Sound bring a mix CD to the Sunday night meeting, which is held at 9:30 p.m. in room 239 in the Baker Center. The dedicated music buffs of the organization do not just bring any old CD mix that they happened to slap together in five minutes on iTunes. Oh, no. These mixes must have a theme, and these themes provide the club’s activities with a sense of structure.
Some weeks' mix themes have been assigned at the previous meeting while other weeks’ themes are personally created mish mashes of whatever the members feel is appropriate. These themes can grow to epic proportions, with past mixes including “music you make out to,” “Gothic Americana” and “bands you’ve seen live.”
At the club’s weekly meetings, members discuss the best and the worst components of the mixes they received at the previous week’s meeting. There is obviously potential for the musically informed members to bash one another’s musical tastes, but Storer says that this is rare.
“Everyone is really respectful in our group," Storer said. "We can say, ‘This wasn’t my taste,’ but we can understand that it wasn’t a direct hit at the person who made [the mix].”
In addition to critiquing the previous week’s mix CDs, the members of The Sound also preview their own mixes for the week. Stand-out mixes become apparent during these previews, and what follows next is a battle to nab the best mix of the week from the CD pile. The policy of the club is straightforward: Bring a mix CD, take one home.
The Sound is not just a place for those who enjoy a juicy compilation from time to time. The organization encourages its members to express themselves through their mix CDs while also sharing music and engaging in musical discourse with one another.
“This is legal, and it’s a great way for students to come in and expand their music library without using peer-to-peer downloading,” Storer said.
Although The Sound’s musical focus seems to have fallen on indie rock, the members are not ones for music snobbery. The weekly mixes run the musical gamut, featuring songs from all genres and eras. Additionally, some members are far from indie rock fans and prefer hard rock and classic rock. Generally speaking, the members of The Sound do not necessarily share the same favorite bands, but what they do share is a love for music and an open-minded attitude toward listening to bands outside of their own personal repertoire.
“Pretty much everyone has their own different tastes, and they bring their own thing to the group,” treasurer Adams said. “We’re all exposed to bands that we don’t normally listen to.”
According to Storer, The Sound’s popularity among the student body reached its high peak during the middle of winter quarter through her random Facebook invitations to The Sound’s Facebook group. The close-knit club now consistently has about 10 to 25 people from numerous majors attending the weekly meetings and is looking to expand for next year.
Freshman journalism major Alisha Bicknell, who will be next year's Sound president, has plans for online expansion.
“Hopefully, we’re going to get an online library, so people can look up what songs are on the discs that we have in our library and then go and get the mix that they want," Bicknell said. "We’d just like to get our name out there more and get more people involved."
Bicknell said that she hopes The Sound can also promote and host shows in the future.
The practice of The Sound is simple: Make mix CDs, talk about music, and, finally, trade mix CDs. Yes, this is as basic as it sounds, but once a group of true music lovers get together in one room, the possibilities are virtually endless.
Sophomore telecommunications major Mike Petruccelli will be next year's co-PR and fundraising officer, and he likens The Sound meetings to a sort of religious experience.
“Even though I’ve been a member [of The Sound] for only about a month, it’s pretty much the equivalent of me going to church,” Petruccelli said.
Maybe that’s why The Sound’s meetings are on Sundays.
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Visit The Sound's MySpace page, Web site or Last FM account to learn more about the organization.
Want to know what a mix CD from The Sound is like? Check out freshman journalism major Lacey Rogers' creative mix about body parts from the May 20, 2007, meeting of The Sound:
The Anatomy of a Song: I may not all be there, but I can still function
1. “Brain Damage” - AlgoRhythm
2. “Out of My Head” - Fastball
3. “Eyes Like Yours” - Shakira
4. “Cheating” - Jettingham
5. “Where Can I Stab Myself in the Ear?” - Hawthorne Heights
6. “Dirty Mouth” - Hot Hot Heat
7. “Strange and Beautiful (I'll Put a Spell on You)” - Aqualung
8. “Bodies” - Drowning Pool
9. “Cold Hands (Warm Heart)” - Brendan Benson
10. “Dying In Your Arms” - Cutting Crew
11. “Fingers” - Joi
12. “Detachable Penis” - King Missile
13. “I Like Small Butts” - Adam Sandler
14. “Grazed Knees” - Snow Patrol
15. “Six Feet Under (Title Theme)” - Thomas Newman
16. “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” - Tiny Tim
17. “Under My Skin” - Madonna
18. “Muscle Museum” - Muse
19. “Bones” - The Killers
20. “Blood, Sex and Booze” - Green Day
21. “Estrogen Oxygen” - Loudermilk