2B — Thursday, March 24, 2016
the b-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW

A broken record sputters 

and repeats, much like the 
opening of Little Scream’s 
“Love As a Weapon” music 
video. Zooming out of an 
ornate frame, 
the shot 
reveals singer 
Laurel Spren-
gelmeyer 
lounging in a 
wooden chair, 
surrounded 
by wood-pan-
eled walls. The scene changes 
only slightly with each repeti-
tion, not unlike a game of spot 
the difference. The rest of the 
video follows in an equally 
quizzical fashion: metallic 
hands dancing in American 
Sign Language, tube lighting 
illuminating a man voguing 
and Sprengelmeyer dancing in 
a brightly lit entryway wear-
ing a sequined windbreaker 
as he sings, “Remember your 
greatest gift is to dance.”

The majority of the video is 

surreal, making it impossible 

for viewers to place the house 
in which the actions take 
place at a certain point in time 
or space — decades and genres 
are spanned. There doesn’t 
seem to be any connecting force 
between the barrage of scenes, 
colors and movements other 
than their randomness. It’s not 
until the shot again moves to 
the picture frame that opened 
the video that the pieces begin 
to fall into place. Continuing 

out through the frame hanging 
upon the wall, Sprengelmeyer is 
shown walking down a snowy 
lane alone, repeating “gonna 
work it out, gonna work it out.” 
As this sentiment echoes, we 
see Sprengelmeyer strutting 
through the snow, puzzling 
the same conundrum as the 
audience — how to make sense 
of the home within her head. 

- CARLY SNIDER

B

Love as a 
Weapon

Little Scream

SECRETLY CANADIAN

the city but my observations 

at our destination also lead me 
to lend credence to Saunders’s 
statements regarding the posi-
tive energy of the community.

The trip in which I took part 

was actually one of Seven Mile’s 
newer 
offshoot 
programs, 

dedicated to a combination of 
visual art and creative writing. 
The art program goes to the 
neighborhood 
on 
a 
weekly 

basis. There are also two weekly 
music trips, a large trip with 
about 20 teachers on Fridays 
and a smaller trip with about 
six on Wednesdays. We arrived 
at the building of Mission: 
City — one of Seven Mile’s 
community center partners — 
around 7 p.m., finding a handful 
of 
students 
finishing 
some 

tutoring sessions. 

The common room of Mis-

sion: City had the smell of an 
elementary school classroom 
and complimentarily themed 
decor (an example: a poster of 
check-boxes, reading “Bullies 
are: Not Cool, Not Friendly, Not 
Popular, Not Respected, Not 
Welcome, All of the Above,” the 
last option of which bore a big 
red checkmark). To our right a 
boy was constructing a Eiffel 
Tower-like 
structure 
using 

gumdrops and toothpicks. On 
the back wall of the community 
center there were several rows 
of uniquely patterned tiles, 
each apparently hand-crafted 
and bearing the name of a per-
son or group to which it was 
presumably dedicated.

While I conducted an inter-

view with Saunders, students 
worked with Seven Mile’s art 
teachers on a Van Gogh-themed 
project. At the beginning of 
the activity, students wrote 
haikus about sunflowers, and 
then proceeded to draw their 
own sunflower images, using 
Van Gogh’s famous painting as 
a model. In a side room of the 
building, a couple of boys could 
be heard drumming on a table 
with markers, prompting Cece 
Simonsen, a teacher with Seven 
Mile, to say to Saunders, “Go 
talk to them; they should join 
the drum corps” — another of 
Seven Mile’s more recent pro-
grams.

During the course of the 

trip, Saunders showed me a 
closet full of the instruments 
Seven Mile uses, a collection 
of various keyboards, violins, 
cellos 
and 
guitars, 
most 

of 
which 
were 
purchased 

using money collected via a 
GoFundMe page. Like many 
nonprofit organizations, Seven 
Mile is frequently low on 
monetary resources, and relies 
upon public donations given 
through either their GoFundMe 
page or website. Currently, the 

organization is in the middle 
of an instrument drive, the 
goal of which is to collect both 
instruments and funds with 
which to buy more.

“We’re doing an instrument 

drive with Spring Fest, with 
Music Matters … that’s the thing 
we’ve been (flyering) around 
campus about,” said LSA junior 
Mike Payne, Seven Mile Music’s 
board chair.

“For the students who aren’t 

able — because of time com-
mitments or for other reasons 
— who aren’t actually able to 
help us out by being a teacher, 
by being a volunteer, they still 
can do something,” Payne con-
tinued. “If you haven’t played 
an instrument in a while, and 
you’ve put it down for a while, 
and you’re sort of at that point 
where you think you’ve moved 
on from it — that instrument 
still has a lot of value, especial-
ly to the students that we work 
with that wouldn’t otherwise 
get the opportunity to play. It 
could sit at home or it could be 
in the hands of a child.” 

In addition to the programs 

Seven Mile offers during the 
academic year, they also operate 
a summer camp in Brightmoor 
called Brightmoor Arts Camp, 
which has very similar aims to 
the main program, with slight 
additions.

“It’s an eight-week program 

… the goal was to bring in some 
of the teachers we already had, 
but also bring in teachers and 
musicians from the community 
to make sure that the music 
and culture of the area was still 
being cultivated,” Payne said. 
“It really was something that 
was sourced from Detroit.”

During the course of the 

previous 
summer 
camp, 

Saunders lived in Brightmoor 
in order to better get to know 
the 
community. 
Following 

his 
graduation 
from 
the 

University 
this 
semester, 

Saunders plans to move back to 
the neighborhood to continue 
growing the program as much 
as he can during a planned gap 
year before attending graduate 
school.

“I’ve always dreamed big 

for this,” Saunders said. “I see 
this at first spreading to the 
(rest of the) city of Detroit … 
and then spreading around 
Michigan — Flint, Saginaw, 
Benton Harbor — some of the 
more underprivileged areas of 
Michigan.”

In addition to the state 

of 
Michigan, 
Saunders 
has 

long-term 
goals 
for 
Seven 

Mile, which include dramatic 
expansion.

“I definitely want it to go 

national,” Saunders said. “I 
think there is a need for this 
all over. I see a model where 
we provide start-ups at other 
universities 
— 
like 
Johns 

Hopkins in Baltimore, we would 
provide an umbrella funding, 
curriculum, everything needed 
for a motivated student at Johns 
Hopkins to start a subsidiary 
program. I really want it to 
expand nationally, and I see 
that happening through the 
collegiate system.”

Part of the reason why 

Saunders 
is 
so 
passionate 

about 
bringing 
music 
to 

disadvantaged children is his 
own early experiences with it, 
and the transformative effect it 
had on his life.

“I started playing piano when 

I was about 10, and it really got 
me on a better track in life,” 
Saunders said. “I was just not 
doing well in school, I was not 
doing well socially, I just wasn’t 
doing well all around. And I 
discovered a love of music, I 
discovered I had a talent for it 
and I just discovered an outlet 
for myself.”

Saunders also cited the posi-

tive social health effects of 
music, particularly emphasiz-
ing the impact it could have on 
children from underprivileged 
backgrounds.

“Just on the most basic level, 

I think it is the purest form of 
emotional expression, so par-
ticularly a child in a troubled 
circumstance, with a lot of 
emotions welling up inside of 
them, it gives them an outlet 
for those emotions,” Saunders 
said. “It’s not like these emo-
tions disappear — either there’s 
an outlet or they fester and 
grow into something worse, 
like depression or violence. A 
lot of children in a neighbor-
hood like Brightmoor have very 
few extracurricular activities 
… so they have very little to do 
with their time. Combine noth-
ing to do with a very troubled 
situation and you often have a 
child getting into a bad circum-
stance.”

While expressing a wish to 

not overstate what he believed 
Seven Mile could accomplish 
— mentioning that the program 
would likely simply be a bright 
spot in the week for many of its 
students — Saunders did display 
optimism about the sort of 
existence-altering effects Seven 
Mile could possibly create. 

“I think it does have the 

potential to be transformative,” 
Saunders said. “If we find a 
couple children that really have 
the aptitude and passion for it, 
then this really could change 
the whole trajectory of their 
lives.”

SEVEN MILE
From Page 1B

By CAROLINE FILIPS

Senior Arts Editor

By BEN ROSENSTOCK

Senior Arts Editor

Since 
1928, 
the 
Michigan 

Theater 
has 
existed 
as 
a 

bastion of community culture. 
It 
was 
originally 
designed 

as a “movie palace” — an 
institution characteristic of the 
era — for silent films and stage 
productions. In these early years, 
it was common to preface films 
with a 30-minute stage show 
complete with an orchestra and 
pipe organ, which has persisted 
as an essential fixture of the 
theater.

It’s 
nothing 
short 
of 

extraordinary for the Michigan 
Theater to boast two of these 
musical rarities, considering only 
7,000 were assembled during 
the limited heyday of theater 
organ production, spanning from 
1912 until 1932. These theater 
organs are a special type of pipe 
organ designed specifically for 
silent 
film 
accompaniments. 

Their ranks, or sets, of pipes, 
imitate the instruments of the 
bygone orchestras as much as 
possible — not just the percussive 
instruments of chimes and bells. 

Since 
1971, 
these 
giant 

instruments have dwelled beside 
each stage of the Michigan 
Theater. 
They’re 
loud, 
and 

occasionally 
fear-inducing. 

They accompany theatergoers 
throughout 
the 
emotional 

journey of a silent film, or provide 
a soothing overture to preface 
the daily matinee. Today the 
Barton pipe organ of the main 
theater and the electric organ in 
the screening room are played by 
five organists — Henry Aldridge, 
Andrew Rogers, Stephen Warner, 
Lance Luce and David Hufford — 
and heard each day.

“We are truly blessed to have 

the full support of the Michigan 
Theater staff,” Aldridge wrote 
in an e-mail interview with The 
Michigan Daily. “The Barton is 
an integral part of the theater’s 
activities. Patrons come early to 
the movies just to hear it.”

For 40 years, Aldridge served 

as a professor of electronic 
media and film studies in the 
Department of Communication, 
Media & Theatre arts at Eastern 
Michigan 
University, 
with 

the organ serving as more of 
a hobby. Much like his other 
organist peers, he was always 
interested in music — the church 
pipe organs instantly intrigued 
him as a child. 

“Our church, St. Paul’s, had an 

outstanding music program, and 
I was very familiar with church 
pipe organs,” Aldridge wrote.

During 
his 
undergraduate 

years at the University of North 
Carolina, he began playing a 
small theater organ at the Center 
Theater 
in 
Durham. 
After 

coming to Ann Arbor in l970, 
Aldridge led a team of volunteers 
in working on the Michigan’s 
instrument in l971, beginning to 
play it in public in l972.

He subsequently took theater 

organ lessons from Father Jim 
Miller of Fenton, Mich., through 
whom he met future fellow 
Michigan 
Theater 
organist 

Rogers. In an interview, Rogers 

referred to Father Jim as the best 
instructor in the area.

“Music was always something 

that I tried to do in between 
the cracks of everything else,” 
Rogers said.

What originally served as a 

hobby while Rogers worked at a 
plastics factory and then a travel 
agency 
became 
his 
primary 

source of income. Though Rogers 
now typically plays two to five 
times during the week, he’s 
always willing to substitute for 
fellow organists.

“You like it that much?” the 

Daily asked.

“That and it is my job,” Rogers 

said in response, laughing. “We’re 
really lucky to be here. It’s really 
a gift. To have an original organ 
in its original home is rare.”

The instrument’s rarity surely 

makes it a local treasure, but it 
poses challenges for the primary 
musicians. Theater organs are 
considered a thing of the past, 
and music for them is no longer 
composed.

“They can’t be taken on the 

road, and there aren’t too many 
places to play,” Rogers said. “It’s 
really a double-edged sword.”

With 
minimal 
music 
for 

organists 
today, 
especially 

theater 
organists, 
the 

musicians must take on the 
role of composers and create 
original 
arrangements. 
For 

the organists of the Michigan 
Theater, this typically means 
creating their own film scores 
for upcoming silent films the 
theater will screen. The process 
is lengthy, often spanning two to 
three weeks, during which the 
organists watch the films over 
and over, collecting moments and 
emotions to reflect in the form of 
a compelling composition.

“You’re taking this musical 

material, 
the 
basis, 
the 

melody, the harmony and just 
reorganizing it kind of in real 
time,” Warner, another of the 
organists, said. “You want to 
make what you do a part of the 
movie.”

Usually, 
the 
organists 

start from scratch and watch 
the silent films without the 
provided score. According to 
Rogers, creating a successful 
score often means making sure 
the music doesn’t draw attention 
to itself. Still, the music does 
have the ability to control the 
audience’s expectations. Rogers 
referred to Hitchcock’s silent 
film “The Lodger: A Story of the 
London Fog,” which features a 
woman unwittingly falling for 
a Jack the Ripper-type serial 
killer, as an example.

“Musically, I have to decide 

when to let you know she’s safe 
in his presence,” Rogers said. 
“(By using music), you actually 
control part of the plot.”

“Try to capture the essence of 

what the filmmaker was trying 
to do,” Warner said. “Carry the 
emotion — intensify it, maybe, 
nuance it, but don’t change it.”

Some film scores require 

more 
work 
than 
others. 

Warner said he often creates a 
theme and assigns variations 
to different characters. This 
requires practice playing pieces 
in different styles.

The standard running time 

for these feature-length films is 
70 minutes, but there are some 
more ambitious projects. For 
long films like the often four-
hour-long epics of D.W. Griffith, 
the 
scores 
require 
broader 

brushstrokes; the music doesn’t 
change every 15 seconds.

“I haven’t done (any of those) 

yet,” Warner said. “I don’t know 
if I have the guts to do it.”

The Michigan Theater in 

particular offers the ability to 
expand the musical palates of 
its audiences, and it continually 
offers new opportunities for the 
organists themselves.

“Being in a venue like this, 

you 
can 
be 
experimental,” 

Warner said. “I know I have an 
adventurous audience here.”

To 
these 
organists, 
the 

relative obscurity of available 
organ music and the antiquated 
nature 
of 
the 
instrument 

doesn’t mean it has nothing to 
offer in the modern world. After 
all, the theater organ has always 
faced scrutiny.

“Even in its heyday, there was 

certainly a tension between the 
theater organ and the classical 
organ,” Warner said.

Warner also believes that the 

theater organ still has a place in 
modern music education.

“This is something we should 

actually learn about,” he said. 
“(After all), my personal music 
interests are far before my time. 
I’d love to start bringing back 
some of my pop music.”

Even if organ music never 

does 
make 
a 
significant 

resurgence, it still holds real 
value to the Michigan Theater 
organists.

“The instrument has a huge, 

colorful palate, and it has a 
huge, 
expressive 
capacity,” 

Warner said. “In the end, that’s 
kind of the reason I play it. You 
can have some really magical 
musical moments, singing for 
your audience through this big 
mechanical beast.”

ARTISTS
PROFILE

IN

NICOLAS WILLIAMS/Daily

The vintage organ helps give the Michigan Theater its charm.

SINGLE REVIEW

Late night, romantic 

ruminations over what could’ve 
been, what has been, and what 
may be; OVO 
Sound’s roster 
has a sizeable 
collection 
of artists 
who foster 
this sound, 
Drake most 
notoriously 
being the 
maestro of 
this aesthetic 
among them. Taking on the 
mantle from the Champagne Papi 
himelf, PARTYNEXTDOOR’s 
first single off his much awaited 
project, P3, is the latest example 
of the histrionic gunslinging of 
emotions that the two artists 
have become well known for.

While “Come And See Me” 

isn’t anything particularly 
groundbreaking or new in 
its content or aesthetic, it’s 

a reassuring message from 
PND, giving fans of his hope 
after 2014’s critically panned 
PNDCOLOURS, his last major 
release. Reminiscent of PND’s 
emotional “Kehlani’s Freestyle/
Things & Such,” the Noah “40” 
Shebib produced track is a great 
backdrop for PND and Drake’s 
signature lamenting lyricism and 
emotional sound. PND claims 
“I’ll admit I’m sorry when I’m 
truly sorry,” and Drake suggests, 
“I know you got another nigga 

tryna play the part / Just cause 
he got a heart don’t mean he got 
heart.”

PND is working with his 

bread and butter in “Come And 
See Me.” That might garner 
some critics, and it may leave 
something to be desired for some 
listeners. But all in all, the soulful 
arrangement of “Come And See 
Me” is a great move if he wants to 
safely drum up hype before P3’s 
release.

- ANAY KATYAL

B+

Come and 
See me 
feat. Drake

PARTYNEXT-
DOOR
OVO SOUNDS

CHECK OUT EVEN MORE ARTS 

ARTICLES ONLINE AT

MICHIGANDAILY.COM/SECTION/ARTS

“This really 
could change 

the whole 
trajectory.”

