Admit it. The typical symphonic concert can get boring at times. Fortunately, professors in the music department know how to mix things up by allowing students to create music that goes against the norm, like electronic music.

A free concert of electroacoustic music will be held in Crowder Hall of the Music building, Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.

"The concert features works for live instruments and a variety of digital media ÷ the live instruments, including electric guitar, percussion, djembe, trumpet, violin, saxophone, bass and others," said music professor Craig Walsh, whose Music 442 students will be performing in the concert. "It is stylistically very eclectic."

The concert will consist of 15 student composers and more than 20 performers, Walsh said. He describes the class as "diverse."

"Some are actually composition majors, and others are psych, fine arts, music performance, engineering, music business. ... They all come from different musical backgrounds, but all love electronic music," Walsh said.

"The composers tend to write more serious music while others are influenced by pop, techno, rock, jazz, et cetera. That is what makes it so interesting in the end ... and the use of technology, of course."

The sounds of digitally manipulated music are created with various types of software, Walsh said. Some of the students use programs, like Digital Performer, Peak and Metasynth, to create their music, said Jeremy Young, a music sophomore.

"Some of the pieces are for live instruments and prerecorded sounds, and some will come from live synthesizers," Walsh said. "Many of the live instruments will also be amplified."

Some students will be performing live instruments, while others, like fine arts senior David Morse, will play recordings of music projects. Morse plays guitar and piano, which are both incorporated on his piece "Day of the Dead."

"I just chose a weird title because it's such a ridiculous piece," he said. "It started off with a hip-hop beat 'cause that's more of what I'm into. But the class wanted something more experimental, so I put a lot of sounds into it to kind of create a really weird mood. And I kind of put a speech in there (about) global war just to put a whole feeling of texture in there. It's like zombies walking around."

Young will play saxophone for his original piece entitled "Colors."

"Basically while writing it, as the sections change, it just reminded me of different colors, sort of like a rainbow," he said. "It's basically just a lot of what you would call electronic synthesis. There is a little bit of piano and drum stuff that I altered."

Music business junior Ben Icely will be performing acoustic guitar on his piece "Kyba" and will be accompanied by Young on the Austrian jaw harp.

"The jaw harp's pretty cool," Icely said. "It's kind of a rhythmic folk song."

The writing process may vary for all students.

"I find it hard to write my music when it's an assignment," Young said. "That's the hardest part.

"Deadlines are not easy," Morse said.

"I find it hard to get what I hear in my head, to actually bring it into materialization," Icely said.