(Photo courtesy of Mick Haupt, through Unsplash. “Music can bring many emotions to a shared space.”)
Gaia Pirro
Connector Contributor
Music allows people to relax, but it can also help with concentration and boost creativity. While most college students listen to music through their headphones, occasionally music fills the common spaces of dormitories. Wherever it comes from, students say they need music in their everyday lives.
Carolina Tavares, a senior at UMass Lowell, said music is still a daily companion for her. “I used to do the genre charts for the radio, but since I changed my job, I don’t do that anymore, but music surrounds my life, and I really love it,” said Tavares, who has worked at WUML, the student radio station.
Tavares said that she listens to classical music when she is studying because it helps her focus on her assignments. But in the morning, when she is getting ready to face the freezing wind, she prefers some pumping melodies.
The music we listen to does not define who we are, but it can help us express our uniqueness and emotions. “I listen to a lot of Irish music because I’m Irish,” said Mark Callan, exchange student at UMass Lowell.
Nevertheless, when staying in college dorms, the pleasure of listening to your carefully curated playlist can sometimes be replaced by someone else’s music. It is common for students to play music in their rooms or for someone to be playing an instrument.
“I think that if someone is playing an instrument, I like it,” Tavares said.
But when the music is too loud or goes on late into the night, Tavares gets annoyed by the behavior of her dorm mates.
Callan has found someone in his dorm with the same musical tastes; one plays and the other listens. “I kind of listen to music with any genre, techno as well,” Callan said. “My upstairs neighbors make beats, and I’ve heard them.”
Students who play instruments do so for a variety of reasons. “At first, I used to play the guitar simply to play it and just sing good songs and stuff like that,” said Soham Sawant, an international student at UMass Lowell. “But around four or five years of training, I got into music theory, which completely was like a different perspective towards music.”
He said he brought his classical guitar from India, his home country, and has been playing it for ten years.
Sawant’s guitar
Sawant said that he could arrange more time to play back in his high school years compared to now. As he has become a STEM major, it is challenging for him to balance his college life with his passion for playing an instrument, and he would like to have more opportunities to play.
“There are times when it helps me relax, but when I’m taking on a piece that’s way above my skill level, it’s actually really challenging,” Sawant said.
Challenging oneself and striving to improve is an important characteristic of musicians. “My neighbors weren’t great at the start,” said Callan, “but they have improved throughout the semester.”
One final aspect of this art form is its power to bring people together and make them feel closer to one another, even when they do not know each other.
Callan said that he feels grateful for the opportunity to hear music in the dorm where he lives. “You’re not necessarily expecting it. Sometimes it’s good news,” he said.
“I think (music) is nice because it kind of reminds me that we’re all like people, we’re all human, and music is a big part of a lot of people’s lives,” Tavares said.
