It’s no secret that WCU is heavily affiliated with the arts—particularly music. With the countless ensembles, clubs and impeccable music teaching staff, it’s not exactly a secret why so many students choose to study music here.
A professional career in music is not tailored for everyone, though. On top of that, not every student has the desire to play an instrument as a hobby. Even so, many that fit this bill find deep interest in and appreciation of music—yet, besides the radio station, West Chester does not offer many options for those who choose to simply listen to and talk about music. One new club has come to mitigate this debacle.
Sound Waves is the only club at WCU that offers a chance for anyone to come and listen to and speak about anything they love about music. Conceived in the fall 2017 semester, founder and president of Sound Waves Shane Cloutier has seen a similar challenge: a desire to get involved on campus, a desire to speak about the music he loved with a large group of people and no means to do so.
Cloutiercreated the club as a means for “listeners and lovers of music” to get together and listen to records together. The format is as such: Every week, the club listens to an album picked by one of the club’s members. When the group gathers, they listen to a few tracks from the record, talk about what they like, what they dislike and that usually leads to an open forum regarding anything having to do with music. The group has listened to everything from “Jericho Sirens” by Hot Snakes to “Smile” by The Beach Boys and even some lesser known oddities, such as “Hawaii: Part II” by Miracle Musical. Even more ambitious, the club has planned and executed a couple concert outings this semester.
I have been a member of the club ever since the interest meeting back in January. Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting up with the rest of the group every Monday night to talk about some great music. It’s wonderful to sit down and discuss with people who not only love music, but think about it and introspect on it on a near-daily basis.
I’ve also gained a few new friends through the club, including Cloutier and fellow Sound Waves members Pete Marrandino and Brendan Lordan. The latter two and I have discovered through the club that we all have similar musical interests and the desire to play music in a band. For about two months now, we have been getting together to perform original and covered music together. It just goes to show how much of an impact a club like this could have for so many.
The two concerts we have gone to are a testament to the range of music the club is open to. Lordan, Marrandino and I all attended the Godspeed You! Black Emperor concert at Union Transfer back in March, which was some deeply political post-rock. Only a couple weeks later, Cloutier, Marrandino and I attended the Of Montreal concert at the same venue. There, we saw some seriously catchy psychedelic indie-pop. The dichotomy speaks for itself.
It has been a real pleasure being involved with this start-up club this semester, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds for our small but burgeoning group. Needless to say, if you’re deeply into music to the extent where you just want to talk about it, this club is the place for you. With Cloutier off to Norway next semester, we will have to do some serious reorganization between now and then to keep this club afloat for fall 2018, but the club has only gotten started, and it can only get better from here. Next, we take on bylaws, the SGA and the Involvement Fair.
Gabe Sagherian is a first-year student majoring in communication studies. ✉ GS889554@wcupa.edu.