Stalking Music Students

Lobby of a music building, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. August 30, 2010. (Written during an assignment for my qualitative research class).

Vintage String Quartet

The foyer for the music building leads into the auditorium on one end and up to the hallway by a flight of stairs on the other. It has mirrored entrances on either side made of double glass doors that open on one side to a lawn and on the other to stairs that lead down to the university museum. There are two sets of light colored wooden double doors that lead to the auditorium; they are closed and sounds of brass players practicing are coming from inside. In the center of the sunlit room are four sections of circular couches with one move-able round side table sitting too close to one of the sections. The couches are a drab brown in color with a circled pattern. Around the edges of the windowed room are upholstered chairs; some with dark wooden arms covered in striped blue and tan upholstery, while others have no arms and are upholstered in a brown paisley design. The humming of the air conditioner acts as a sound blanket that warms the activity of students walking in and out, moving furniture, and talking in distant hallways. As students come in and sit down in groups of twos, some are eating lunch and whistling sections of Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony that was just being rehearsed, while others unpack laptops to study…



Later..



… It is just after dinner time. Sounds of the violin mingled with two or three voices talking and laughing in a mixture of Spanish and English are wafting in from the hallway just up the stairs. A solo musician who appears to be Latin American and in his mid twenties hurriedly walks down the stairs and then exits through the glass doors, down the outside stairs, around the corner of bushes, and finally disappears from my view. The orchestra conductor appears from the stairwell and calls to the one young woman besides myself who is sitting in the lobby. He asks whether or not her cello has been repaired. She rises to walk over to him and responds in very broken English; the conductor helps her occasionally to find her words. The conductor leaves after their brief exchange, she returning to her seat in the lobby and him exiting through the glass doors and disappearing down the stairs and around the corner. Now the lobby is quiet, with sudden bursts of motion and sound when musicians and professors walk through carrying their instruments, presumably on their way to practice or to teach. As the violin playing starts up again at the top of the stairs, I realize it had paused for several minutes. One woman in her early twenties with dark hair and a dark brown complexion walked through carrying an acoustic bass. She asked pleasantly for assistance with the door from a male student nearby who happily complied…