By Ann Driscoll
Associate Editor
We’re all familiar with this scene outside of the 150 Mass Ave building: classes are just getting out, and scores of students are lined up along the wall. They’re chatting, maybe some of them are playing guitar, and many are smoking cigarettes. This concrete strip along 150, which students refer to as “the Beach,” with equal amounts affection and disgust, has become a symbol of both community as well as billowing clouds of cigarette smoke. A study by the American Lung Association released this past September estimates that 1 out of 5 college students nationwide smoke, the lowest rate ever recorded. Regardless of whether Berklee exceeds or falls short of this national average, the visibility of the Beach conveys a powerful image of smoking as a part of the Berklee culture.
Many students had started smoking before coming to Berklee, but increased their smoking upon enrolling. “I’ve been allowed to smoke more. I have the freedom to, and I guess I just don’t really think about it, I just do it,” said Lydia Fischer, a first semester voice principal. According to the American Lung Association study, the tobacco industry has identified young college students transitioning from high school to their freshman year as a prime opportunity to develop new habits like smoking. “I come from a home where I was not allowed to smoke anywhere on the property. Those were just a part of my parents’ rules, so it has been a little bit hard to living on my own and being forced to make my own decisions,” Fischer said.
Smoking has been a part of contemporary music culture from its beginning, with many iconic figures, including The Beatles, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix having been smokers. With Dylan and Johnny Cash, the latter of whom famously had nodules, smoking contributed to their distinctive, gruff voices. David Witsell, the director of Duke University’s Voice Care Center, said in an interview with Slate Online, “Many famous voices in history have pathologies that are part of their vocal signatures.”
Photo by Cara Williams
Becca Marbach, a third semester voice principal who smokes an average of two to four cigarettes a day, has not seen an impact on her voice, yet. Shelly Irvin, a non-smoking opera singer who is studying for her Master’s degree in voice at the Manhattan School of Music, said that plenty of chain-smoking singers have had long, successful careers in opera.
Nevertheless, the overarching damages to a singer’s range, tone, and stamina are well documented and alarming. Anne Peckham, associate professor in the Voice Department and an expert on vocal health, empathically discourages singers from smoking.
In a fact sheet she published for the Berklee website, she wrote, “Do not smoke. Anyone who is serious about having a singing career should not smoke.” According to Peckham and other health experts, smoking thickens and dries out the vocal cords, which results in a loss of range and clarity. It increases the risk for growths such as nodules and polyps, both of which result in hoarseness, breathiness, and loss of control. It decreases lung capacity and thus proper breath control. Smoking also increases the risk for gastroesophageal reflux, a condition where the contents of the stomach migrate to the larynx and cause laryngitis. More severely, smoking increases the risk of cancers of the throat, lung, and mouth, which can deprive singers not only of their voices, but also of their lives. Robin Ginenthal, a voice professor at Berklee, discourages students from smoking pot as well. “Pot, even if you smoke less of it, is usually not filtered, which makes it more intense on all of your vocal apparatus.”
Many singers at Berklee choose not to smoke for these vocal and general health reasons. Third semester voice principal Georgia Wells said, “I don’t smoke because I don’t want to destroy my instrument that I work so hard to develop.” Many people quit, which helps restore vocal health, though whether the voice can return to 100 percent depends on a variety of factors, particularly how long the singer has smoked. According to Ginenthal, smokers can restore their instrument “if you warm up regularly, have good technique and follow good rules of vocal hygiene.”
Other students acknowledge the warnings, but find it difficult to quit or too tempting to begin. “I’ve tried to quite smoking many times out of sheer disgust with myself, but it is an addiction,” said Fischer. “It’s just very hard.”
Statistically, smokers who seek help from health care professionals find greater success when trying to quit. Berklee students interested in quitting smoking can find help by scheduling a session with the Counseling & Advising Department. Additionally, students who purchase Blue Cross Blue Shield healthcare through Berklee have access to smoking cessation medications with inexpensive co-pays. If purchased through the mail, students can pay $25 for a 90-day supply of nicotine gum, nicotine patches, nasal sprays, or other nicotine replacement therapies.
Most students interviewed for this piece agreed that the Beach was an important part of attracting and perpetuating smoking at Berklee. “We don’t have cool hang-out places. The Student Activities Center is too far away,” said Arooj Aftab, a seventh semester student. “The beach is the only place where people can sit, walk around, and smoke.”
“I’ve met quite a few of my friends sitting outside on the Beach. Mostly because there is a regular crowd there between classes,” said Fischer. “If it’s someone that you’re sitting next to all the time, more often than not, you’re going to strike up a conversation.” According to Marbach, the Beach is its own social scene. “It’s a place to chill and smoke.”
Aftab, who is from Pakistan, also sees a relationship between smoking and a student’s country of origin. “It depends on where you’re from. The Middle Easterners smoke, the French smoke. If your friends smoke, then you smoke, and it works like a chain.”
The American Lung Association has put forth a proposal called the Smoke Free Air 2010 Challenge, which encourages colleges to ban smoking in outdoor as well as indoor spaces on their campuses by 2010. They argue that all students are entitled to an environment free from secondhand smoke. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) secondhand smoke contains over 250 toxic chemicals, including 50 carcinogens.
Currently, the Facebook group “I hate Berklee Beach People who smoke in my face and block the doors of the 150 mass ave building” boasts 580 members, the largest Facebook group created in the Berklee network. Nevertheless, many students perceive smoking as an issue of personal responsibility. “I do appreciate that people have a right to load their bodies up with as many legal toxic chemicals as they see fit, so it’s really not my place, nor is it Berklee’s, to enforce a rule banning it,” said Erin Murray, a seventh semester piano principal. Fischer agrees. “I think honestly, we’re at an age that we are obligated to make our own decisions and a lot of us already know the details of what it’s doing to our bodies. I don’t know if there is much Berklee can do.”
