Jason Humboldt recently stepped down from his position as the head of the Atonal Music Listening Club. Some controversy surrounds this...

However, students in Amherst are rejoicing! There is music and dancing all around, and even when there is no dancing, there is still music, and the non-dancing is done in a fashion much like a dance.

One friend told me, "I stumbled upon a piano in the UMass Amherst campus. All of the sudden I was sitting on top of it, being carressed like a child in his mother's arms, and being sung a lullably. More than anything, in that moment, I needed a rest, because I have been so stressed lately. And that piano put me to sleep. I woke up moments later, reinvigorated and ready to learn."

Another said, "I was in Roots Cafe, needing to write a piece for my creative writing course. But, hell, I was out of ideas. I felt like my mind was blank. Distracted, I began to people watch. There was one guy doing spins in the midst of a the sunny, grassy field outside. There was another running circles around a telephone pole. There was another walking the yellow line down the center of Rt. 9. Then I saw a funny looking, Where's Waldo-looking kind of boy, wearing blue stripes, hesitantly approaching a piano that I'd never noticed before. When the boy began tickling jazz the ivories, he made some sounds, but more so he streamed pure creative material into my head. With each chord, each pattern -- he provided me with an abstract Lego from which I constructed larger narative arcs and structures. He played, and I wrote. When his dissonances resolved, my plotline resolved. And it was done!"

I've heard many stories like these lately -- of people being wonderfully enabled by rhythm, harmony, and melody now available in so many study and play places around campus, all thanks to new leadership at The Atonal Music Listening Club.

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