Students take Music Tech class and run with it

FALLS VILLAGE — Students from Tom Krupa’s Music Technology class gave demonstrations of their work to the Region One Board of Education Monday, Feb. 4.Krupa explained that the Music Technology course is new. “These are the guinea pigs.”Juniors Rebecca Grossman and Marta Fornari (an exchange student from Italy) recorded an album’s worth of songs written and performed by sophomore Lydia MacDavid, accompanying herself on ukulele and guitar.Rebecca told the board that the recording took about three weeks, with the students taking time from lunch periods and meeting after school for the sessions. Most of the songs were recorded with Lydia singing and playing at the same time, with two microphones, but a couple were tracked separately, with music and voice recorded at different times. Rebecca said the sound mix on those tracks was, in her opinion, superior.Junior Patrick Purdy built a 5 watt tube amplifier from a kit. He said he is “not as techy” as his contemporaries, preferring the world of mechanical and electrical engineering to digital technology.He needed help from the school, in the form of a better soldering iron than the one he had available. He said his prior experience with soldering had been for plumbing; this work required more precision.He then powered up his amp, plugged in an electric guitar, and played the opening riff to Lynyrd Skynrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”What stole the show, however, was a bit of inspired lunacy from Patrick and junior Henry Yuliano. Taking their cue from what Henry described as a “YouTube phenomenon” of dubbing new dialogue and sound effects into film clips, and adding “cheesy music,” the two transformed the terrifying “Here’s Johnny” scene from Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 film “The Shining” into a piece of goofy comedy.The highlight of the new version was Jack Nicholson, taking an axe to the bathroom door, and singing, “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad.”