Stone Soup

You know the story of Stone Soup: a small group of soldiers returning from war, tired and hungry, seeks a meal and shelter for the night. They approach a village, but the villagers, low on food themselves, are unwilling to share. One by one the villagers claim they have nothing to eat themselves. The soldiers confer and announce they will make stone soup, if only they may have a large pot and some water. Filled with curiosity, the villagers gladly produce a pot. The soldiers make a fire and proceed to make soup from several large stones.
“Ah,” says one soldier, “if only we had some carrots, THEN this soup would be just right!” “I might have some carrots,” says one of the villagers, and runs off, returning a few minutes later with carrots. After a while, another soldier says, “If we just had an onion or two, this soup would be perfect!” Another villager leaves and returns with onions. Before long, the soldiers have a soup rich with many ingredients.

Our “Stone Soup” is a similar progression. One instrument at a time, we added to the recipe. In this case, the performers looped themselves playing, layering in more instruments. As part of our process, we met weekly via video conference to listen to the added tracks and as a group make decisions about editing—balance and structure, where to align individual elements and so on.

The students recorded audio using the Audacity digital audio workstation (DAW) and recorded video separately. This allowed us to have a visual representation of the tracks and move them around in the editing process. Once the final audio was complete, the video tracks were lined up in a video editor.

Due to safety guidelines during the pandemic, we were not allowed to meet in person. This was our solution to making music together while also in isolation.

Special recognition to Taylor Flanagan and Evan Mitchell, two graduating seniors who have been part of the percussion ensemble since their first semester at LMU.