there is no known group of people across
the world or throughout history that has
not had music and it's important for me
to understand why that is.
everyone has some sort of engagement
with music strong association with it
and so the reason why the study of music
has the potential to be so captivating is
that gives us an opportunity to learn
more about why this phenomenon is as
powerful as it is
music is present in movies at sporting
events people associate emotional events
of music weddings parties dances
everything involves music many societies
music is essential to their culture, to
understand the culture and to
participate let's say in their
culture
I do truly believe that like studying
music and playing music with other
people can bring people together in a
really really unique way. I'll go big
and say music is at the heart of
understanding human communication I
think music-making allows us to put
aside whatever our diverse backgrounds
and experiences are and come together
doing something that's very powerful
what i like about the music department
is that they'll take the talents and the
skills of the students and they'll back them
with the resources of the department to
take them places and allow them to do
things that they previously thought
impossible we integrate the study of
performance with theory and history and
ethnomusicology and this is really
unusual because in most schools you're
either performer or historian or
theorists and in this department we
really encompass you know everything
especially a performance I think the
study of music at Pomona College is
particularly marked by the camaraderie
and the unity amongst the faculty in the
Department of Music. We're all able to come
together
and pose questions for each other and have
conversations across the sub disciplines
of music. Pomona provides lots of
opportunities for both majors and
non-majors to participate in recitals
and there are a variety of lessons that
we can take everyone really gets the
opportunity to experience music and to
learn it on another level with the
dedicated faculty here and I know plenty
of kids who aren't even minors or majors
who have relationships with a lot of
faculty I think that's important and
that's different than a lot of programs
my professors are paying attention to
what i'm doing and what I want and you
don't really get that a lot of places
and I think that's how you really help a
student a musician grow. As a performer
and a student in the music department
I've had a chance to do everything from
composing my own music in theory class
to playing in a new music performance
that has been composed by one of our
faculty members
so I've been able to take regular
classical piano lessons but also to play
in the Jazz Band and the chamber music
if I wanted I could also play in the
balinese gamelan ensemble or an
afro-cuban drumming so it's a small
Department but there's so many things to
do that you could really get quite a
full and rich education a lot of times
at pomona it's so busy and easy just
kind of like shut off and just the kind
of workforce but music really keeps you
sensitive to what's going on inside and
gives you an outlet for expressing it
and also a way to communicate with other
people and that's really valuable in
this environment for many people music
is extremely personal and seeking to
understand it to make it to perform it
is incredible and not to be missed out on