As a guitarist here at UD, I am always looking for other musicians to collaborate with. The question that often gets raised once I find someone is, where can we play? If we just want mess around on acoustic guitar, my VWK suite works fine, but if we want to add some drums and play loud, we should play at the ArtStreet music studio right? Not quite.

Despite the studio having a drum kit and allowing guitarists to use amps, the main practice room is by no means a place to play loud music.

If you ask someone who has played in the main practice studio in ArtStreet, they will tell you that the number one rule is that if you are using the drum kit you must either use drum pads (a rubber cover which goes over the drumheads and dulls the kit to a point where you would get better sound quality hitting a couch cushion) or 'splash sticks' (imagine hitting a snare drum with a bunch of dry spaghetti noodles taped together). Sometimes, if there is a film class going on in the next room over, the supervisors will ask you to use both drum pads and splash sticks (to get an idea of what this sounds like, hit the spaghetti noodles against the couch cushion). Because of this rule, we are forced to turn down the amps so that our drummer can be heard. This is no way to rock.

Is it wrong to??impose these rules? Hell no! When my friends and I play in that studio with our amps up and a drum kit untainted by the use of drum pads or splash sticks, you can probably hear it from Campus S outh because the main practice studio is not sound proofed.

Here is my point: I like to play loud music, as do many other students I have met. However, there is practically no place on campus to use a drum kit. ArtStreet has a practice studio and a drum kit. I don't think it would be asking too much if the university sound proofed the main practice studio in Art Street . This way, I can play??my music and no one would have to hear all the loud, obnoxious noise my friends and I make.

Matt Beargie
Junior
Journalism