New features have enhanced the music program of Marist School, including a unique electronic synthesizer that is used daily by students. Expanded facilities, band uniforms, and field trips have also improved music studies at the private high school.

“A college would be fortunate to have one,” said music director Donald Day of the new synthesizer. “Not many high schools have been able to appropriate money for these. A lot of teachers are against them,” Day, who took a crash course in teaching electronic music last summer, added. The director got funding from the Marist Chairs of Excellence program to buy the Arp 2600 synthesizer.

But without an enlarged and improved music area, such new items could not be housed at Marist. The music department now occupies almost all of the ground floor of the cafeteria building. When asked how the area has improved music at Marist, Day said, “Basically because we now have four walls. There’s expanded space for rehearsal, the synthesizer, band storage, and the director’s office.”

New facilities are one reason students have been “beating down the doors” to take music, Day said. From a total of 51 music students when Day came to Marist four years ago, the program has grown to reach more than 300 students in a year. “I think it shows we’re offering something interesting to the students,” he said.

Day believes in exposing students to “weird” or “avant-garde” music to entice them into studying all music. “My first objective is to get students to open up their ears and put away their prejudices.” Besides electronic music, courses in guitar, History of Rock Music, music theory, band, chorus are offered. Field trips are frequent—like one last week to Valdosta State College.

Twelve students – a number Day said is certain to grow—now learn on the synthesizer and accompanying tape recorder, oscillator, and amplifier. They study a different vocabulary, an electronic language rather than musical notation. In electronic music, the student composes, conducts, and performs all at once, Day said.

The most productive of the music program is the Marist Marching Band. Though the band has only 35 members, this is 10 more than last year. In addition to football games and a campus Christmas concert, the band will perform at Perimeter Mass Dec. 13.

“The band is really enthusiastic this year. The (addition of) girls helped somewhat. The new uniforms are a big improvement. The parents in the Music Association are active and lend their support,” the director said. The “first big project” of the music program will be a public concert by the Notre Dame University Concert Band, March 19, 1977, Day added. The concert will be co-sponsored by the Marist band and the Music Association, which was started by parents Jim and Mary Kay Graybill.