By Courtney Lyle
The sounds coming from the men''s bathroom and rumbling up the stairway in the HFAC aren''t sounds of indigestion; they are coming from music student David Kjar''s saxophone.
'You have to be creative to get a practice room,' said Kjar a freshman from Sandy, Utah, majoring in clarinet performance. 'I''ve practiced in the men''s bathroom on the first floor before and I''ve practiced in the stairways.'
Kjar comes at 6 a.m. to use a practice room. He said there aren''t practice rooms available in the middle of the day between his class breaks, which causes him to resort to other areas for practice.
'We just need more practice rooms,' Kjar said. 'I''m not bitter about it, but it is really inconvenient.'
Students in the music department are required for their classes to practice several hours a day. The question about practicing is, where.
'There aren''t enough practice rooms,' said Luke Bahr a sophomore from Payson, Utah, majoring in vocal performance.
Bahr sat at the practice room sign-up table, which was located on the fifth floor of the HFAC from Sept. 2-17 on various days and times. The sign up allowed students to reserve certain times for the 42 practice rooms all located on the second floor of the HFAC.
Students that are not in a music class were not permitted to reserve a practice room.
Graduate students started signing up first, and the sign-ups ended last week with Music 160 classes and ensembles finishing the sign-ups.
Now, almost all of the practice rooms are reserved from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m.
'I''ve kind of given up getting a practice room being a non-major,' said Rob Bennion a senior from Springville, Utah, majoring in Portuguese with a music minor.
The only way to use a practice room, without having reserved it for that time, is determined by fate. Once a practice room is reserved, if it isn''t claimed within the first fifteen minutes of the hour it becomes free game to anyone.
'The last couple of weeks I''ve been able to find in the evenings,' said Katie Halverson from Redmond, Washington who is majoring in pre-management with a music minor.
Dale Monson, Director of the School of Music, said the issue of practice rooms is a difficult one. He said some colleges have many practice rooms and other colleges have virtually no practice rooms and the students are left on their own to practice.
'Our goal is to try to provide practice rooms for our need,' Monson said. 'The alternative is to cut student body, and we don''t want to do that. It''s a difficult problem to try to resolve.'
There was a fluorescent pink sign posted on the sign-up table that said, 'Attention: We want to notify each of you that there is a possibility that we will lose 10 practice rooms in the F-wing in Winter or Spring 2005. We will provide further information as it becomes available.'
Monson said there will be some room changes during winter semester, and even though some practice rooms will be lost, there will be small ensemble rehearsal rooms created.
The rehearsal rooms will be an upgrade from the ensembles'' current practice facility: the DeJong Concert Hall foyers.