{"id":90029,"date":"2018-09-28T10:14:04","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T08:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=90029"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:23:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:23:06","slug":"the-hidden-musicians-of-eur-have-come-out-of-hiding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2018\/09\/28\/the-hidden-musicians-of-eur-have-come-out-of-hiding\/","title":{"rendered":"The hidden musicians at EUR have come out of hiding"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a tiny, sterile studio at Codarts University of the Arts, psychology student Tom Vrolijk walks up to the mic holding a guitar and announces he\u2019s going to play a song he’s written himself. Around him is a cluster of musicians, all clutching their instruments, all waiting to hear which key he wants the song to be played in. The gang of musicians, which features three guitars, two basses, a keyboard, an organ, and a set of drums, follow Vrolijk\u2019s voice and work in unison to take his song on a wild trip.<\/p>\n

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They may not have known each other beforehand, but they play as if they had.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Any stranger watching the spirited synergy with which the band played Vrolijk\u2019s song would assume that these musicians had been making music together for years. In reality, most of the people in that studio had only met each other an hour before \u2014 all thanks to a new initiative called the Erasmus Music Collective.<\/p>\n

The Erasmus Music Collective is intended as an antidote to the lack of collaboration opportunities for musically-gifted students at the university. It\u2019s the brainchild of Lucas Vermeer, a double degree student who studies at both the Codarts University for the Arts (the Rotterdam-based university for music, dance and circus performance) and Erasmus University College (EUC). The idea behind it is two-fold: firstly to give students the chance to make music together, and secondly to provide the university with internal musicians to play at events like Eurekaweek parties and graduation ceremonies.<\/p>\n

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The only left-handed guitarist at the jam session.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

\u201cDoing the double degree at Codarts and EUC, I really see it as an opportunity to combine the intellectual self with the creative self,\u201d said Vermeer. \u201cThere are lots of people who have both those sides, but there\u2019s not a lot of musical space at the EUR and we want to create that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Working in tandem with Studium Generale, the Erasmus Music Collective has now become an official initiative that will offer its services to the university.<\/p>\n

\u201cWherever and whenever music is needed by the university, we want to be there to provide them with an internal group of musicians, rather than the university having to find external bands to play at parties like they usually do,\u201d added Vermeer.<\/p>\n

The jam session<\/h2>

To get the initiative rolling, the collective hosted jam sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday night. An announcement for the jam sessions has been floating around the EUR website and Facebook for several weeks, but the questions was whether or not any musicians would show up. For Florieke de Geus, who helped Vermeer set up the initiative, the turnout on Tuesday was beyond expectation\u2014with more than 16 musicians showing up (over 40 musicians in total signed up for the pair of sessions).<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not only delighted about how many people came, but also with how people were so happy to be together with other musicians,\u201d said De Geus, who also studies at EUR and Codarts.<\/p>\n

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Lucas Vermeer, the man behind the Erasmus Music Collective, sitting behind the keyboard.<\/span><\/p><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Within the tiny studio where the jam session took place, there wasn\u2019t the slightest hint that these people had never played with each other before, let alone met each other.\u00a0Any song that was thrown out there, whether it was a Stevie Wonder track or Vrolijk\u2019s own song, was turned into something that makes any pair of sneakers start tapping the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were playing one of my own songs which has something like eleven chords, but eventually we just took the first four chords and used those to jam,\u201d said Vrolijk, who has his own band. \u201cSlowly the song drifted into a completely new track that we created with each other. I thought that was pretty special.\u201d<\/p>\n

The real ones<\/h2>

After Vrolijk\u2019s mutated song, a new singer stepped to the mike and belted out\u00a0a famous Alicia Keys track<\/a>\u00a0with a chorus that goes something like:<\/p>\n

\u201cCause\u2019 a real man, knows a real one, when he sees her\u2026\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

A fitting track, one could say, because everyone on hand could see that the singer, along with all the musicians surrounding her, were the\u00a0real ones\u00a0<\/em>\u2014 the real groovy souls who could finally release their contagious musical passion with their fellow academics. And it wasn\u2019t as if they were playing simple\u00a0Hey There Delilah\u2013<\/em>type music. No, the\u00a0makeshift band of students from studies like medicine and psychology to business and communication executed tracks from colourful artists like Stevie Wonder, Amy Winehouse, and Prince. As one tasty track followed the other, a single question kept coming to mind: why did no one think of doing something like this sooner?<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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