The recent Hawke’s Bay High Schools Tour was a taste of life on the road for EIT music students.
Enrolled in EIT’s Certificate in Contemporary Music Performance, the students formed into four bands to road-test their original compositions at lunch-time sessions staged at Karamu High School, Tamatea High School, Taradale High School and William Colenso College.
Over the week-long tour, the musos set up, performed and packed down like regular touring bands.
Lecturer Tom Pierard and learning facilitator Ron Kessels say the live performances didn’t daunt the students, who have played gigs at Napier and Hastings venues and on the EIT campus as part of their study programme.
With classmate Jo Vrijs as compere, the bands each played for 10 minutes and enjoyed the lively audience feedback.
Tom and Ron say the schools’ heads of music were all very accommodating.
As the first year for the certificate nears an end, the pair are feeling well pleased with what’s been achieved. Twenty-three students are close to completing the 34-week full-time programme and, with performances videotaped during the year, they have seen their improvement.
While there have been challenges along the way, Tom and Ron appreciate the payoff.
“Having a high proportion of more mature students may have been a bit of a gift. It developed into a very supportive environment, and the class has become a real family with students keen to help their peers out.
“It’s good having the opportunity to work with them, and the students are lucky enough to have purpose-built facilities to demo, rehearse and record their work in.”
The certificate was launched early this year after EIT assessed likely demand. Applicants who had studied music or had performance experience were auditioned for the limited places available on the programme.
Based on the auditions, students were then grouped into bands to learn theory, practise, rehearse and perform. Eight genres of music, including home-grown, blues, reggae, hip hop, R & B, rock and pop, were each covered over the course of a month.
The same approach will apply for next year’s intake, which Tom and Ron expect will include more school leavers – alerted to the programme by the Hawke’s Bay Today Careers Expo and the High Schools Tour.
Meanwhile, the current students will have a final opportunity to perform together in public at the Music Performance which is to be staged at Napier’s Shed 2 on Friday, 23 November, as one of the events encompassed in the EIT School of Arts and Design’s inaugural IS Showcase.