Photo via Skitterphoto on Pixabay
Fanshawe’s music industry arts program was one of the hardest-hit programs when the pandemic first started. Second-year MIA student Roxanne Afara spoke about the effect the pandemic had on the program.
“At first, it wasn’t too bad, then it kind of got worse. It was kind of frustrating to deal with at first. A lot of us were like, oh no, we don’t get to go to the studio anymore. We don’t get to hang out with our band anymore. So it was hard to make music.”
For students in the MIA, program communication and collaboration are the keys to success. The move to online learning forced students to find creative ways to communicate and collaborate. Second-year student Dylan Colthirst spoke about the challenge of adapting.
“It’s kind of hard to collaborate. We collaborated through zoom and stuff like that, and sending out emails and all that good stuff.”
Both Colthirst and Afara believe the zoom classes have been okay, but they have a similar view on changes, they’d like to see.
“They’ve been doing pretty good with zoom classes with what they can, maybe if they charged less for school with the zoom classes, that would be cool.” Said Colthirst.
“I would think that maybe they give some of our money back because of the amount of, studio time we missed last year. Even if they could give us more studio time if possible during the day and open it up. I don’t think it’s really fair that we lost a lot of it.” said Afara.
“Just in general, like a bunch of our classes is online. And I feel like we lose it because, in person, it’s different. It’s different chemistry between the students and the teacher. It’s a different dynamic. And I feel like a lot of opportunities to be met by not having that improvement experience.
One of the hardest things for both artists was staying creative during the quarantine.
“Obviously, just like staying inspired, because you’re kind of locked inside. And like you can’t see your friends. You can’t really like get together as people and make music. So like it’s kind of hard to stay inspired. And since there’s so much downtime, it’s easy to get comfortable and not be productive.” said Colthirst.
Afara admitted that early on the pandemic had a negative effect on her songwriting.
“I think it definitely put a roadblock in my songwriting at one point. I was kind of stuck with writing because I was like I don’t know what to write about. Usually, as a songwriter, we write about our experiences. But due to being quarantined, it’s hard to write about experiences when you’re not really doing much.”
Afara explained that she used her situation to her advantage.
“You know what, I need to channel this energy, where I’m not motivated into words, I need to put how I’m feeling into words and express that in my music.”
Even with all the challenges, they’ve had to face over the last year. Both artists believe the MIA program has helped them grow.
“I think it is definitely more than helped me grow as an artist and as a person. Networking has helped me so much as an artist and I recommend that to anyone going through the program. If you do not network, you’re messing yourself over because that is a majority of the program. You need to talk to many artists and people as you can, as there are so many creative individuals here and it’s hard to get to know everyone.”
Colthirst’s praised the quality of both the students and professors in the MIA program.
“Being in the program all of your like classmates are into doing the exact same thing as you. Some of them are better, some of them are worse but everyone kind of has something to bring to the table. Then all your professors are successful at what you want to do. So you have people who have actually made something of themselves to bounce your ideas off of and ask for advice and kind of be mentored by.”
Fanshawe’s MIA program is a two-year degree program. Both artists will have music featured in this year’s Share The Land concert. This year’s concert will be completely virtual.
Comments