Pacific Index

Music major, senior Chip Garrigan, reminisces on his time at Pacific as he begins to create an album for his Capstone 

“I mean I don’t have to be a musician… I could have done a business degree with guaranteed money… living comfortably for the rest of my life. But I really want to do this,” senior Chip Garrigan explains, a saxophone case sitting next to his chair to confirm his passion for music.    

Stepping into his final year at Pacific University, Garrigan has begun working on his Capstone; a completely original album. Having jumped through the hoops of the Pacific music program, as well as playing in both the symphonic band and the saxophone quartet, Garrigan is now moving into an independent culmination of all his skills for his album.

Garrigan reminisces about when he first picked up the saxophone, stating, “I started back in fifth grade. The year before, they had a presentation at my school, like, you know, trying to get people to join the music program. And I was like, ‘oh, yeah, that’s what I’m doing.’” While his entire extended family doesn’t share his same musical inclination, he remarks that he’s always appreciated music. “They said they didn’t know where I got it from, but ever since I was little I would always just like sit in front of the radio and listen to music instead of playing with the toys and stuff like that,” Garrigan notes in jest. This piqued interest from an early age, followed into his high school years in Massachusetts, when he would play gigs at local country clubs.

“I’ve started work on an album, and the goal is going to be to completely, independently record [and] mix this album,” Garrigan explains enthusiastically, stating that he is still in the early stages of workshopping and getting into contact with local musicians. The hope is to have his album (and capstone project) presented in the spring semester, in the form of a concert. He touches on the goal of his capstone saying that, “I want to create a large body of work that can be presented and performed at a public place.” While Garrigan hasn’t yet started the album for his capstone, he mentioned that when he creates music, he tends to lean towards more hip-hop roots, using samples from records that he owns to create new beats. He enthuses that, “I love to take bits and pieces of whatever I’m listening to and turn it into something new, transform it in some kind of way.”

Outside of the concert hall Garrigan continues to incorporate music into his life. “I always try to get, you know, a little bit of saxophone or something like that in there. And I’ve played bass in a couple of punk projects,” he remarks. Even though orchestrated Pacific bands provide a more classical sense of teaching, Garrigan states that, “I like the energy a lot more outside of the concert hall…I don’t think it’s like knocking on concert band music, but like you’re more free to express yourself whether that be musically [or] visually.” Playing in projects outside of school has become a passion of his, but more so because it gives him a different vantage point on music as a whole. When discussing why he loves performing, he states that, “I hate it when people take a video of the whole concert on their phone. And they’re like the musician is there making the music in front of them, but they just want something to put in their doggy bag and bring home.” All of his experiences in both formal and informal music settings has only intensified his desire to do this for a living.

“Ideally, you know, make music for a living. I [would] love to be on more of the sound engineer, audio engineer side of things,” says Garrigan, who currently works on both sound design for Pacific’s musicals and sound booths for concerts. While he acknowledges that art based professions are inherently risky, he makes it clear that the amount of admiration that he feels for music outweighs the risk. “Going into an art-based career is inherently risky. Which just makes the people that are in it even more committed,” he concludes.