Electricity meets music at CSM

Lights dimmed in the CSM theater as music students featured their tracks on Nov. 30 at the Electronic Music Concert.

Many of the songs performed had audio playing from the theater speakers while lights accompanied them. While the majority of performances followed this format, others showcased tunes with projected visuals mixed with live performances.

One performance started with Eligo Tapia, 20, playing his Jackson Soloist guitar to a mellow drum beat as blue background projected behind him.

"I had an atmospheric sound for the first part," he said about "Shimmer," the solo he had performed. "(The) second half was more of a soundtrack influence."

Red lighted behind Tapia while the electronic beat sampled powerful drums over heavy shredding from his guitar.

"I wrote and recorded (the song) yesterday," he said. "I stayed up till 3:30 (a.m.) to practice."

Another piece, called "Overcuriosity," had music student Billy Bate, 33, using Abelton, a device used to do electronic performances, to perform live synthesizer sounds and visuals to go along with it.

"I never did live visuals," he said. "This was more of a show of years of ongoing work using techniques from the class."

The visuals showed a mirrored image focusing on a road that lead to an abstractly colored moon. As this flashed on a projector, electronic drums played with samples, one including a laughing man, fitting the visuals with a spacey track.

In the audio and visual department, a video clip from the film "Game of Death" had audio dubbed over the scene, giving a comedic spin to the Bruce Lee action film.

Allen Haysbert,19, had created the piece in the Electronic Music 293: Audio for Visual Media course.

"I was going to do something more violent," he said. "But I decided on my second option of Bruce Lee."

The video had kept the audience laughing the whole time.

The band Courage performed two songs to close the concert. Joey Hassid, 19, sang and played the piano, Belen Alvarez, 23, sang and played the violin, Sam Miller, 20 was on bass, Dominic Mercurio, played the drums and Jordan Grimes,19, played the saxophone.