SPEA class organizes musical benefit concert for Harmony School

With less than a week until Musication, the Nov. 16 showcase benefiting the Harmony School, students in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs Music Industry I class provided updates about sponsors and musical equipment for the event.

The class, which largely consists of arts administration majors and musicians, is currently discussing Musication, its final project, which gives a practical application to the academic material taught in the course.

“It’s a class about the history of the music industry and the problems or laws that have changed and been in debate for the last 50 or 60 years,” sophomore Lucy Richmond said. “The first couple things we learned were how the copyright laws came into act and what caused the laws to change.”

The course also covers the development of record labels, as well as the differences between major and independent labels.

While academic material is an important part of the course, the professor, Dr. Monika Herzig, emphasizes experiential learning through practicums and the student-organized final project.

“The practical application of this course is to go through the steps of creating a concert and all that is involved,” Herzig said. “The practicum is for them to go out and work somewhere and get a taste of what they like.”

This real-life application will come to fruition Wednesday, Nov. 16, in the Roots Cellar, the basement of FARMbloomington.

Admission to the 18 and older venue is free. A cash bar will be available for those 21 and older. Also, a $5 donation benefiting the Harmony School is suggested.

The Harmony School is an alternative pre-K-12 private school in Bloomington. The students in the class selected the Harmony School as their beneficiary because it is not as well known as other organizations. Additionally, the class believes that focusing on music education is important for the future of good music.

The night will kick off at 6 p.m. with an industry discussion panel about the current state of the music industry.

From 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., a cocktail hour/meet-and-greet with the panel members will ensue. A string quartet from the Jacobs School of Music will provide music during this time.

At 8:30 p.m., the four bands will begin their performances. Charlie Patton’s War, Five O’Clock Shadows and Hotfox are all local bands, while the Kickaways hail from Cincinnati.

“The music is all blues and rock,” sophomore Joe Romweber said. “They all have a bluesy rock background, except for the string quartet.”

The class funded the concert through donations.

“The Roots Cellar is letting us use the space for free since it’s benefiting the Harmony School,” Richmond said. “The bands and speakers are donating their time. We are going to do a raffle to get donations to go toward the Harmony School, too.”

In addition to contributing to a good cause, the class believes IU students should attend Musication to take advantage of the networking provided by the panel guests, learn about local bands and have a good time.

“It’s going to be badass,” Romweber said.