Original songs produced by the BYU-Hawaii Student Music Association will be featured at a free concert in the McKay Auditorium on Saturday, Nov. 29. Braden Wiscombe, a sophomore from California studying business administration, is president of the Music Club and said a lot of work has been put into the album. Wiscombe said, “We start off with finding musicians, people who are ready, and then doing auditions. After that we take every single musician and do a rough take of their song that only takes around 30 minutes. I take it home and adjust the levels so the audio is listenable. Then we add in all the extra instruments and harmonies. Finally we re-record the main instrument and vocals. Once all that’s done, I take it and mix each part and master the song so that it sounds good on an iPhone, computer or car radio. Each song takes a couple of hours each depending on coordinating schedules and how fast people can record.” Kalima Watson, a junior studying business management from Honolulu, is one of the students performing an original song on the album. “I think the coolest thing about it is all the people recording songs are students. I’m just a random guy from Honolulu recording a song. I’ve never recorded anything before. I’ve always played in venues and stuff but never sat down in front of a mic so I thought it’d be a good opportunity,” said Watson. Wiscombe said the album will feature a variety of music. “There’s some that are slow and laid back while others are pure instrumental and heavy guitar. We have country songs and uke songs too. It should be a full-sounding album with a bit of variety,” said Wiscombe. Dr. David Kammerer, associate professor of Music and the faculty advisor for the Music Club, said recording songs is a experience for aspiring musicians. “It’s a real world experience we have been lacking...I’m happy to see that through the club avenue students are taking advantage of the opportunity. We also have some new management in the Media Production Center who are more open to making the use of these facilities available to students for their projects,” said Kammerer. The physical album will only be available at FoodFest, according to Wiscombe. “People can only buy tickets there because of the school’s policies on clubs and fundraising. The albums will be distributed at the concert and everyone who is a member of the club will receive a free copy of the album. We’re trying to keep it really cheap for the general public so we hope to sell it for around $3.” Wiscombe said his passion for the project comes from wanting to give students the opportunity to record. “I think it’s something that is just naturally a good idea because there are a lot of people who are talented with writing music. To give someone the opportunity to record it is a great thing because if you go to a professional studio, it’s going to be extremely expensive. We thought if we could provide something for the students to get their foot in the door of trying this out that it would be really cool for them. I think anybody who hears about it gets interested because it’s something new.” The album’s quality is solid, said Wiscombe. “Lots of time you’ll walk around campus and see people without realizing they’re so musically talented. I hope that as people find out more about this album that the interest in being part of future projects will increase so we can get more variety. When we have students from all around the world, we definitely get some cool stuff going on,” he said.
Writer: Joshua Mason ~ Multimedia Journalist
