Benton Hall: A historical home for music

Music from the windows of Benton Hall is a feature of the park-like setting of OSU's lower campus, but it wasn't always. While Benton Hall is known today for housing Oregon State University's music program, this is only the latest role of many held by the oldest building on campus, not the first — and, according to music students and professors, not the best.

Built in 1888 and conceived by an unknown architect, Benton Hall looks the part of the oldest building on campus. The building's current exterior dates back to its last major remodel in 1899, when an entrance to the second floor from a large staircase was removed and its original brick exterior was cemented over. Since then, only small and superficial details have changed: a network of pipes and fire escapes wrapping the building, a working clock that took until 1988 to install where a clock face had been merely painted before.

The most significant change to Benton Hall since its earliest years has been repurposing the administrative building into a music hall, which the acoustic and spatial state of the aging building was not designed for.

"It's difficult to be in a building that wasn't built for music," said Stephen Marshall, a sophomore in music education.

In 1885, completion of the Oregon Pacific Railroad opened up the state to growth in many locations, including Corvallis. In the next decade, Corvallis would build new mills, transportation outlets, administration buildings, hotels and more, coming into its own as a western city. The growth and accessibility combined with the Willamette Valley's agricultural richness made Corvallis the perfect place for the Oregon Agricultural College and its farms.

Benton Hall originally was built to house the entirety of OAC, a construction funded by the citizens of Benton County. Before being joined by other campus buildings, Benton contained within its walls all of the college's labs and classrooms. Until 1918, it housed the library, and non-music administrative offices occupied Benton until the 1940s. The music department first moved in in 1916, meaning that for a time, it shared Benton's limited space with both. Bandstands are seen built near Benton in archival photos from as early as 1910.

Today's Benton Hall is far from one of the most spacious buildings on campus, arranged vertically with high ceilings and not too much floor space. It is hard to imagine the coexistence of several departments inside without envisioning crowding, especially as musical instruments began to move through the halls with students, as done between classes today.

The symmetrical halls and their twin staircases are painted in powder blues and greens. The first thing to be found by each entrance is an ornate radiator of the type that helps to heat the campus's older buildings — a ghost machine. Along with Benton, students who have taken a class in Milam or Covell know what these radiators sound like. All the traveling clicks and groans of a real haunting — without the meddling spirits — the way they probably have sounded for many decades.

The only thing louder is the music from room 106, a multipurpose room used mostly for ensembles, and in the gaps of its busy schedule, sometimes a practice room. Those who practice there would do well to play their best — 106 is not furnished to reduce sound, and the offices next door can hear everything loud and clear. This is an issue for offices on every floor, despite some practice and performance rooms attempting to reduce noise with curtains and soundproofing tiles. There is only so much that can be done about loudness with walls that were originally made to house only books, quiet offices and classrooms.

The second floor of Benton is split by its largest room, the Captain Beard Band Hall, which can be entered from a stairwells on either side. On the south side, a few professors' offices and studios line a hallway wide enough only for one person to conga. One of the rooms here is the office of Neil Grandstaff, instructor of jazz and guitar.

The question of sound quality in Benton is inherently amusing to the experienced musician — he, like many who have taught in Benton's repurposed rooms and listened to a day's steady stream of classes from a Benton office, knows that the plan for the building was not for a music hall. So, acoustics are a matter of luck. The best places to play, he explains, depend on where one is standing.

"It's a good place," Grandstaff said, "if you're going to play guitar in the halls."

Feet and voices sound fine in the halls of Benton, too, possibly due to its echoing ceilings — when class gets out every hour, the sound of student traffic lights up the old building. Additionally, Grandstaff singles out choir room 303 as a room that is good for its current use.

Music major Ashley Copeland, who is primarily a vocalist, agrees about room 103, but after class she said, "I prefer to practice at home."

Benton's practice rooms, mostly clustered in close proximity on the third floor, are notorious for the failure of their yellowing soundproofing tiles. Students in practice rooms can easily hear one another — including the drum set room located a floor below the other practice rooms.