David Ornelas ‘25 has always felt intensely drawn to music. From the sound of the notes to the emotions music evokes, to the very act of listening and processing it, Ornelas loves it all. 

Music runs in Ornelas’s family: “On my father’s side, both my grandparents were in mariachi,” Ornelas remarks. “When I went into middle school … my parents … wanted me to pick [an instrument] so I went into strings because I liked the way the viola sounded.” From there, Ornelas joined the Albuquerque Youth Symphony program which he describes as “an amazing experience.” However, the years of intense music-making and performance took their toil: “When I finished high school, I was burned out … pretty hard … I wasn’t even planning on taking my instrument to Swarthmore.” Fortunately, Ornelas’ mother convinced him otherwise. During his freshman year, Ornelas took Introduction to Music Notation with Senior Lecturer Andrew Hauze ‘04 which pulled him into the orchestra and the Music Department as a whole. 

Within the department, Ornelas notes how meaningful his experiences in both organized and student-led music-making have been. Last spring, Ornelas performed at a Lunch Hour Concert with Deborah Bergel Aquique ‘24 and Salome Jin ‘25 under the moniker of “The Scuffed Symphony” to showcase pop and rock songs turned guitar/piano and vocalist duet/trio. “We tried to discern what the most important parts were in a song and implement those in different ways,” Ornelas comments. “We did ‘The Vampyre of Time and Memory’ from Queens of the Stone Age … [and] altered some of the lines into spoken word because [they] exited [Deborah’s] register.” Ornelas recalls the project was a chance for him to experiment with composition and also perform guitar for a wider audience. He also looks back on Professor Lei X. Ouyang’s Taiko and Asian American Experiences class and his participation in Swarthmore’s Production and Jazz Poetry Nights as particularly fulfilling experiences. 

While at Swarthmore, Ornelas has also cultivated a passion for psychology, which he has combined with his love of music to research the field of music cognition. He describes music cognition as “how we hear music [and] how we process it in our brains” or, put simply, “cognitive science, but with a musical twist.” Ornelas is particularly interested in the study of timbre: “I’ve learned timbre is an enigma,” he says. “We don’t know the best ways to describe it … all we have in science and musicology [are] gross approximations of it [and] … it’s such an interesting idea that [timbre] is something everyone knows but [can’t] describe.” 

As his time at Swarthmore draws to a close, Ornelas is looking forward to planning his senior recital for next spring. “I’ll be looking at meter and beat perception in metal music for my comprehensive,” he notes. “With that the senior recital will be a few different metal songs … Rammstein is definitely going to be in there.” Ornelas hopes students will come out to support not just his, but the many student senior recitals happening next spring. Ornelas looks back at his time in the department affectionately. “If you’re a student at Swarthmore, take music classes … they’re not easy … but the pain is worth the price,” he urges. Post-graduation, Ornelas hopes to pursue a PhD in psychology so he can continue his studies on timbre and music cognition. 
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Favorite music course at Swarthmore?
Music and Disability with Jon and Donna Jo.

Favorite music-making experience at Swarthmore? 
The Lunch Hour Concert with the Scuffed Symphony.

What will you miss about Swat? 
The Music Department as a whole! It’s one of the most welcoming and helpful departments on campus.

Sound or noise that you love? 
A specific scene [in the movie Longlegs] where they reverse audio … I think that screeching sound [is] currently tickling my brain pretty nicely.

Sound or noise that you hate? 
Dry sounds … something about chalk.

Last piece of music you listened to? 
One Trick Pony by Royal Blood

Last thing you want to share? 
Take music classes!

A special thank you to David for his contributions as a writer for Notes from Lang Music — we’ll miss you!