From the first tone on the pitch pipe to the wailing of horns and beating of drums, the music enjoyed by many during halftime or at singing ensemble concerts is the result of tireless work from Ohio University student composers.
“It’s all about music theory,” said Joe Brenkle, president of Singing Men of Ohio and a senior studying music theory. “You figure out what the chords are in the song and you give each voice part a different note in the chord.”
Brenkle arranged the piece “Streetlight” by Joshua Radin for Section 8, a student-run subsection of Singing Men of Ohio, as well as various pieces for Leading Tones and Title IX.
“Technically there’s not one person in charge, but we tend to give control to people who know what they are doing,” said Grant Johnson, a sophomore studying music who is in Section 8. The group’s latest hit, Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” was arranged by Adam Cesarz, a Section 8 alumnus who did not study music. Cesarz said he arranged the song by listening to it for an hour until he began to hear the different parts, and from there he split the parts up for each section.
Brenkle said the way he usually arranges pieces is by letting the basses take the root of the chord, while the baritones get the fifth and the third and the tenor Is and tenor IIs get the root again—just an octave higher.
The members of Section 8 said beatboxing tends to find its way into each song as a way for the group to add rhythm to the songs.
Johnson, Brenkle and Devin Sudman, a sophomore studying choral music education, have all arranged their own versions of popular songs. Johnson recently finished “Retrograde” by James Blake, which Section 8 will begin work on soon, while Sudman arranged “Forget You” by CeeLo Green.
“I added a bunch of different rhythms but it still sounds like (‘Forget You’),” Sudman said. “It’s a different way of applying your music theory because as a music major we do a lot of classical composition, so it’s nice to do contemporary music.”
The time it takes to compose the arrangements widely varies: Brenkle spent just two hours on his arrangement of “Streetlight” and “Retrograde” took Johnson one night to arrange. Johnson, though, said he has also taken months to arrange a song.
The work of student arrangements isn’t limited to vocal ensembles; many compose for instrumental groups such as the Marching 110.
Aaron Campbell, a junior studying music education, recently placed in the top three of the Marching 110’s arranger’s competition for his composition of the James Bond theme from Casino Royale, “You Know My Name,” in addition to many other works.
For Campbell, the process of composing for the 110 mirrors that of composing for vocal groups, but instead of figuring out which voices get which parts, he has to figure out which instruments take which sections. He added that the trumpets and trombones typically have the melody.
And while the rights give OU’s musical ensembles the ability to perform the songs, it’s the student composers who ultimately give the songs an original flair.
“Without composition, we would only have old music,” Phillips said. “In order for music to be relevant, it needs to be renewed.”
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