Go on over to the Jessie Mae Hemphill Foundation's MySpace site and listen to the MP3's, specifically Little Sally Walker. That's my THESIS topic. Since when is life cool enough that you can do scholarly work on music this awesome?!?!?!?

On another note, the music building is having a serious sewage problem that caused most major ensembles to be canceled today, and put a serious damper on most of the classes. Thankfully I didn't find this out until after lunch......I decided that leisurely reading through more research and drinking coffee was more important than yoga this morning. I always think it's bizarre when I get up in time to go to an 8am class, decide not to go, and then don't go back to sleep. I think it's the difference between life as an undergrad and a grad student. Bad Mac for skipping, I know, but sometimes your mental health is more important......and taking even just a leisurely half a day is sometimes all it takes to put you back into the fight that is grad school.

Planning fieldwork for over Spring Break, which is rapidly coming up. I'm also going home for a day or two to give an hour-long lecture on Medieval Music to my Dad's upper level undergrad Medieval History course. The hard part? Trying to hit all of the major points about Medieval music in an hour to a bunch of non-music majors. I'm trying to structure this sprint through history by asking myself, "What do I want them to walk away knowing?" I think that way I can decide what to concentrate on, and then how to communicate to a non musician audience. Since in my teaching I deal almost exclusively with musicians, it should be interesting to see how it is with the non-majors. I know I need to correct some basic misconceptions about all medieval music being only monodic, or only liturgical, but other than that I feel like I'm tackling way too much information in such a small period of time.

Anyway, go listen to the Jessie Mae Hemphill tunes!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.