Welcome to the Ceili

Breaking Frames

2010-05-21T19:09:00.002-05:00

I've been blessed with good teachers all my life: my parents, my 2nd grade teacher, my middle school science teacher, my high school AP junior english teacher, and most recently my two mentors from FDP, Dharmonia and Coyotebanjo. I think many of the teachers surrounding me now will join that group of people.

This week was hard, in a lot of ways. The world is so full of truly awful things and it feels as if there's nothing substantial a single individual can do against that onslaught. What I'm learning is that we all have to find our little world-improving patch of ground and hope that others do the same, and teaching is proving to be at least part of my little patch of ground.

After 8 weeks of a Music and World Cultures class several of my kids turned in an assignment using pejorative, evaluative terms about a culture they "othered." What I've discovered this week is that my teaching priorities are threefold:

Introduce my students to the music I love, and the music I don't love so much, because I truly believe in the power and beauty of music as a vehicle for positive change in the world.
Advocate tolerance of difference through the study of music and culture, because kids need to learn that different [sound] doesn't automatically mean bad, or ugly.
To help kids identify how their media is framed, and to break frames I find particularly destructive, because everything is spun and people need to realize the difference between spin and data.

How does that apply to this week in teaching?

I broke some damn frames. Particularly the Self/Other frame.

In case of emergency: BREAK FRAMES

Ask students why we study music and culture (or why we study at all in the age of The Google).
Tell students that knowledge/data/media is mediated through frameworks (very often in an entirely subversive way)
Identify a major framework as the self/other dichotomy, particularly the notion of defining ourselves and our culture by what we're not
Self: White American Middle-Class Straight Christian Male
Other: Minority African Lower-Class LGBT Islamic Female
Identify the evaluative terms that cause a positive gut-reaction often associated with Self: Cultured, Educated, Hard-Working, Pure, Moral, Civilized
Identify the evaluative terms that cause a negative gut-reaction often associated with Other: Lazy, Immoral, Feminine, Dirty, Uneducated, Classless, Primitive, Hypersexual
Show how these terms are used to describe certain groups of people, even though these evaluative terms have NOTHING to do with the actuality of the people represented: African/Primitive, Lower-class/Lazy, American/Moral, Islamic/Uneducated, LGBT/Hypersexual, etc.
Ask again, why do we study?
We study to break the frame (erase self/other and evaluative terms, leaving only people).
Empower your students to question their frames.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Arcing towards Justice

2010-05-17T13:47:00.003-05:00

Buddhism tells us that life is inherently painful. Not all of life is suffering, but life is inherently full of attachments and conditions that cause us to suffer. Really, I try to be optimistic about life and the world, and the change and progress I believe we're capable of, but it seems as if the news cycle is against me.

My home will probably not recover in my lifetime.

Nashville's gonna take a while to clean up.

Arizona's f***ed (see both Papers, Please legislation as well as the banning of ethnic studies).

Liebermann's introduced legislation that would strip people of their citizenship based on who they associate with.

And while we're fighting for LGBT rights, it doesn't seem as if we're gaining any ground does it?

Add that to the fact that I had three students tell me that certain people in Africa were primitive (no wonder we ignore any and all problems in Africa....we've othered them to the point of no return) in papers for class and the fact that I'm inputting cases for the ACLU where police are incredibly trigger happy with their tasers (including against 18yr old kids).

The sense of utter hopelessness is a bit overwhelming.

More than anything, I want my life to mean something (after all, we're all looking for our purpose in life, aren't we?). I also feel like I've been given things (an education, the ability to think and argue, an artistic voice that allows me to cross boundaries, mentors in a tradition of artists who use that power to create positive change in the world) that make my voice powerful, if I can just figure out how to use it. If I can just make sure it doesn't get squashed by hopelessness, hatred, or doubt.

I've recently been reminded of the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery....or should I say marches. It took those marches three tries to get to Montgomery, and Bloody Sunday had to happen first. And when they finally got to Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. gave the "Arc of the Moral Universe" speech.

I must confess, my friends, the road ahead will not always be smooth. ... Our dreams will sometimes be shattered, and our ethereal hopes blasted...When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

We're gonna build a better world. And when I doubt that, when my resolve fails, let me remember Selma. Because it took them three tries, but they made it.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Week 7

2010-05-11T12:59:00.003-05:00

So for those of you keeping score, it's week 7 in the Spring term--end of my first year of my PhD program. If anyone's wandering, the quarter system is indeed BRUTAL. It probably doesn't help that for Spring term I'm carrying my heaviest load since starting the program here (2 seminars and a survey plus a pretty heavy teaching load).

Anyway, good things and not so good things happening out here.

The Good:

I'm learning a lot (although sometimes barely keeping my head above water).

I love my classes (except when I feel completely unprepared...I got back ahead of the curve this week): Women in Music in Medieval Germany, Medieval Survey, and Historiography of Black Music.

I love the final projects I'm working on: The Hirsau Reform in 12th c German-Speaking Women's Monastic communities, Medieval Sephardic Music, and Negotiation of the "Folk" in Black Music: A Case Study of the Carolina Chocolate Drops. It feels like good work, y'know?

I love my students (I hit the jackpot this term).

I have people willing to help me build a traditional music community here. Slow session has at least 4 regular attendees.

My blues class has 13 kids so far for this summer....this is the first year that I will be an employed musicologist for the entire year (ie no crappy summer job).

I am working on a folk music project with senior faculty at my university (it's grunt work, but again, it feels like good work, y'know?).

The Bad:

I am barely keeping my head above water. Seriously. This week is better, but I've taken on too much. Must figure out how to make sure this doesn't happen again.

That's most of the bad actually....except for:

I have my first bad seed (here after referred to as BS.....fitting don't you think?) in the slow session. BS is a beginner (very) fiddle player (retired ex-professor). After his second slow session, BS wrote me an email detailing his problems with what I was doing. First off....SLOW SESSION IS FREE...you don't like it, DON'T COME! As my former roomie said, "You're outta the herd!" His main complaint was that is wasn't as "satisfying" as the first time he attended (ie it wasn't catered entirely to his playing/learning level). His first slow session, he was the only melody player, so I taught the Kesh Jig (easy, basic tune). BS had come in, and wanted to play tunes he already knew. I explained what a slow session was, and wanted to teach him a new easy tune because he had a really hard time playing in time (he compresses the beat like crazy). His second slow session I taught a harder less well-known tune because there were other melody players. In his email complaint, he also complained that I wasn't sure about the name of the tune. He said, "a name is really important." What is it with people and their obsession with tune names here? He also told me the way I was leading slow session was impractical.

I waited a week and then replied to BS, basically telling him that this is the way I learned the tradition so that's the way I'm passing it on. In addition, I explained the fluid nature of tune names, and the idea that the pedagogy of the tradition developed this way for a (good) reason.

BS returned to slow session last week and was combative in his attitude. I'm giving him one more week, and then I'm going to flat out tell him that these are free group lessons taught in a very specific way for a very specific reason, and if he doesn't want that, he's free to leave and go learn somewhere else. Any advice?

Also, it feels completely insane to me that _I'm_ the one passing on the tradition. I feel inadequate, because I know how far I need to go to be the player I want to be (especially because I'm talking to people in both the melodic and accompanying parts of the tradition). I don't know how to stay in the shallow end do I?

Ah, the politics of community building....

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Stepping Up

2010-04-04T16:14:00.004-05:00

About a year ago, I was trying to figure out where I was going to spend the next four-ish years of my life. I had been accepted to two schools (three if you count FPU) and hadn't heard anything about money. The cycle of acceptance/rejection letters was really hard. My top two choices (most notably the Fulbright, and a second expected rejection from U Michigan's Ethno program) were both no's, but I got two really good acceptances from both PNWU (where I currently attend) and an Unnamed Midwest Institution. I have to admit the Fulbright hurt a lot, and for a lot of different reasons. Not the least of which it was the first response of all of the applications I completed. More importantly, it was the thing I wanted the most, and there are very few things in my life that I have gone all out for and still been told, "No, thank you."

Ultimately, I got a great offer from PNWU, I felt really confident about friends' experiences there, and the professors seemed willing to invest their time and energy in me from the very beginning (which is really important to me). So I finished my thesis, packed up my life, left people who had come and still mean the world to me, and moved to the Pacific Northwest. In retrospect, moving there a full two months before school started (with nothing to do and knowing exactly four people) was probably not the best idea. Before I left FPU, Dharmonia told me that "the universe will put you where you're meant to be." I have to admit I'm a skeptic. She's never steered me wrong, but still, my brain was very quietly saying, "Are you sure you're meant to be here and not Ireland?" Surprise, she was right.

Sometimes where you need to be, and where you want to be are two different things. This move, and this institution has done a lot of things for me that I needed. One of my greatest fears revolved around my misplaced belief that I wouldn't keep up with my playing/songwriting. Here I was, put in a situation where I don't play with people regularly, and in a town where the Irish scene is not what I envisioned. And so I came to a point where I could either step up as a musician and a community builder or I could lament things and sit at home waiting for my community/musical opportunities to change. So I stepped up.

I'm running an Irish slow session every Saturday, just like Doc Coyote taught me to. I'm playing open mics in the hopes that I'll eventually get to play/perform on a regular basis (I have an art gallery gig in July for their version of First Friday Art Walks). And I'm being myself, and learning to never apologize for who I am.

Is it perfect? No. But I do feel as if the Universe put me where I needed to be, specifically to give me the opportunity to Step Up. Stepping up is hard, and some days I really doubt myself and my ability to do this, and I still miss FPU and the people there a lot (although I feel a lot more confident that those relationships will last even though separated by great distances after spending a week there over Spring Break). But in order to be an active force in creating the world I want to live in, it's vital. And I feel like PNWU is where I'm meant to start doing just that.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2010-03-21T15:41:00.002-05:00

Wow. It's been awhile.

Winter term came and went. I'm currently at FPU over spring break, trying to relax a little before the spring term comes. I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for gearing up for a third cycle of insanity before summer "break," but that's the idea.

Last term I took a seminar on Balinese music (with a final paper on Balinese cosmology and music), a seminar on History of Theory, and a seminar on Repertoire and analysis (Schubert and Brahms....). I also played in the Balkan ensemble, which proved to be insanely cool.

Next term, I'm up for Black Music Historiography, Medieval Music seminar, and a seminar on Women in Medieval German Music. I'm really looking forward to all three, and hoping I can keep my sanity while also TA-ing for the World music course.

Things I'm thinking about: possible dissertation topics.

Subjects I've recently become really interested in:

1) American Folk Revival-->I'm really interested in post-revival folk music communities.
2) Music and Politics--> I've become really interested in politics again, and lately I've been interested in look how music is used as a tool for community building and how that might lead to an effect on public policy.
3) Queer Music Studies--> Interested in queer identity and the resulting music communities

What do they all have in common? Music as a tool to build community. Just some thoughts during spring break (this proves my geek level is off the charts....thinking about dissertation topics over spring break).

Also, I'm trying to get into some political activism (lefty political rabble rousing). Before the music thing, I was really into politics....so much so that I actually wanted to work for the State Department. Now, I'm thinking I want to get involved in a little rabble rousing given that I'm have a renewed interest in politics.

Anyway, here's hoping there'll be a little more posting this term.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Dar a Luz

2009-12-15T20:25:00.002-06:00

Winter's a dark time of year, even more so for the PNW. In addition to that, it seems as if this has been a particularly dark year for everyone. It seems fitting to me, to remember that while it seems dark, there's a lot of light out there.

In Spanish, to give birth can be translated as "dar a luz," literally to give to the light. There's been a lot of that going on this year, so Ollie, Colin, and Gabe (and all their mamma's), this one's for you guys.

Lullaby

Free file hosting from File Den

Here's to the light, and those who give to it.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

What's up with Glee?

2009-12-14T14:31:00.012-06:00

I must admit, Glee has become kind of a guilty pleasure for me. It's hard for me to admit it for several reasons. Glee combines the awkward humor that's become so popular, stereotypical characters, and pop songs arranged for a fictional "show choir." I think the characterizations bother me the most. There's the popular football player who happens to have a good voice, his pregnant girlfriend (pregnant by another popular football player also in the choir but he doesn't know that until the fall finale) , the token black soul/r&b singer, the token gay guy who dresses well and loves Wicked, the token uber talented spotlight grabbing annoying choir girl (raised by two gay dads), and a host of other characters that fill out the harmonies and dance numbers. Jane Lynch's Sue Sylvester is by far my favorite character, playing an evil head cheerleading coach bent on destroying the Glee club.

And yet, for some reason, I kind of like it. The overall story is a bit much for me. Too much drama, and most of the comedy is awkward (however if you watch it on Hulu, you can skip most of this). What's most surprising? Glee seems to have become a full-fledged pop culture phenomena.

Why? Why do I even like it? What's up with Glee?

First off, despite the less than superb characters the play, the cast has remarkable actors/singers. Most notably, Lea Michele, star of the 2007 masterpiece Spring Awakening (Tony Award for Best Musical). In addition, Amber Riley lends a remarkable voice well grounded in the soul/R&B genre. With a hard core New Broadway style female voice as well as a soul female voice, Glee is allowed to go in quite a few directions musically. I'm assuming Jenna Ushkowitz also has a great voice, seeing as how she was in the Broadway revival of The King and I as well as understudied for two role in Spring Awakening. We just haven't heard her (really) yet. Noticeably lacking is the presence of equally strong male singers. While five of the male actors have taken their spot as soloists during the shows opening half-season, none of them have the strength of these two strong female leads.

Secondly, Glee stands up to the jukebox musical stereotype. I'm not really a fan of jukebox musicals, but they've become exceedingly popular. Jersey Boys, Rock of Ages, Mama Mia, and to a certain extent The Producers, and Spamalot (in the sense that both had songs the general audience was already familiar with), all are recent jukebox musicals nominated for (or winners of) the Tony Award for Best Musical. I think this reflects a trend in the way music is consumed. Playlists and ipods allow us to make soundtracks for our lives, inserting random often unrelated songs together. This is the Glee soundtrack, although they're all dressed up with show choir vocals and dance moves. I think it's become so popular with adolescent audiences, because the show speaks to the high school point of view that we're all the stars of our own stage production.

Thirdly, they occasionally perform Broadway standards. These are my favorite moments: Michele and Kristin Chenoweth singing Maybe this Time from Cabaret, Defying Gravity from Wicked, I'm Telling You from Dream Girls, and Michele belting out Streisand's Rain on My Parade from Funny Girl. I like my Broadway....and I guess it's apparent I like it even out of context.

My main criticism, besides most of the writing, is the over-production apparent in the singing (especially with the guys). Stage productions, and live music for that matter, offer no opportunity to disguise talent. It is a transformative experience to feel the energy and virtuosity of a live performer. It's what I want to be able to do as a performer, feel the audience in the palm of your hand and move them. Unfortunately, when you overproduce (rampant auto-tune correction anyone?), you lose any power these performers have.

So again, what's up with Glee? I guess for me, I wait around for Lea Michele and Amber Riley to sing. But, if I had to guess, for most of the adolescent population it's about the portrayal of a group of misfits that bands together, and takes their moment of stardom (which is what I think American audiences love about American Idol as well). In addition, Glee doesn't demand audiences to be familiar with other repertoires, it puts music (and dance routines in the case of Beyonces Single Ladies) they're already excited about, dresses it up in Broadway (or show choir) clothes, and uses it in a function we're familiar with (accompaniment to our own melodramas).

Like it or not, I think Glee is here for awhile.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Brief Rant

2009-11-30T14:14:00.002-06:00

Apologies about the lack of posting. The term has caught up with me yet again. I WILL finish the Pages to a PhD series, but most likely after the term has ended. I am currently drowning in grading, papers, readings, and exams.

But first a brief rant about a particularly bad response TA's sometimes get to bad grades.

So one of the requirements for the class I TA (ie grade) for this term is to write a term paper. I won't go into details, but suffice it to say that this young man didn't read the directions closely. He didn't do half of the requirements, so I gave him a D (which I thought was rather generous) because he met every other requirement and it was a thoughtful paper. I had planned to email the prof and hopefully let the kid rewrite (everyone makes mistakes, especially freshmen who aren't used to being accountable), but while I'm still entering grades I get an email.

Usually we describe these as tear stained emails, but this one was worse. This was the "I'm a belligerent 18yo male who is trying to 'intimidate' you into changing my grade by telling the teacher what you did" email. My initial response is to say, "Motherf***er, that crap didn't work for guys my own age when I was 18. What the hell makes you think it's gonna work now that I'm 26 and have TA-ed for 4 years?"

Thank God for FPU. I carbon copied the prof and pointed the kid to the directions, and told him I had informed the prof of his situation and would let him know if anything changed.

I really don't get the sense of entitlement these kids seem to feel, nor do I have any clue about how to communicate to them that an education is something you earn, not pay for.

Back to it!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

THAT Point in the Term

2009-11-09T13:42:00.003-06:00

It's THAT point in the semester, excuse me, term (the debate about whether semester or quarter is preferable will have to come at another point). You know that point....it's the brutal part of grad school, when it's hard to believe in the achievability of your dreams or, in the PNW, when it feels like you will NEVER see the sun again (vitamin D supplements here I come!).

You can also recognize it, because facebook status messages almost all talk about how the writer feels stupid/incapable/insert you favorite undermining head talk here. One of the comforting and scary things to me is that we ALL feel this way at some point. Including our professors/mentors. Comforting in that I'm not a psychotic weirdo, scary in that evidently this is something I/we will always have to combat.

Having already been in grad school for 4 years (starting the 5th), I can at least recognize the cycle for what it is. It comes after months of constant mental and physical exhaustion and the constant (mostly) constructive criticism that is so much a part of the grad school process. So whenever I have a day like today, when you believe you'll always be one of those people with unfulfilled potential or always sit on the musical or academic sidelines (can you tell I've been watching a lot of college football lately), I have started to ask myself, "What motivates that feeling?" Is it because I'm not really living up to my potential in some area, or is it because I (stupidly) stayed up till 2 am trying to finish grading 150 papers with 4 essays each, forgot to leave some bit of heat on last night so I woke at 6:30 am in a cold apartment, and walked outside in yet another day of cold and wet, to go to an 8am remedial aural skills class I feel a tiny bit disappointed I have to take in the first place? I may have a fear of not living up to my "potential," but more than likely, the girl from the Deep South is cold and tired and a little disgusted with herself for having to take remedial aural skills, and really wanting to make good music with other people.

Does that make it _feel_ any better? Unfortunately, no. But it does make me sit down, and move _through_ that feeling, because cerebrally I know I won't feel like this forever.

In other news, I have finally nailed down smaller concrete topics for the two papers I have to write: 1) Authority in Irish Traditional Music and 2) Gendering Accompaniment in ITM after the Revival.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Response to Weeks 5 & 6, Term 1

2009-11-04T21:28:00.002-06:00

Apologies for the abandonment of the blog these past two weeks. Midterm has creeped up, and with it a flood of assignments/grading.

The good news? I fall in love with Musicology every week. The depth and breadth of this discipline constantly astounds me, and I could not be happier with the options this gives me as a scholar and a performer.

The hard part (as there is no bad news when you're in love with what you do)? I am working my ass off. Now I know how all of my professors got their superpowers. It also brings up some of the questions I've asked previously: what do you want to do with your scholarship (ethically, personally, etc) and how do you want to further the discipline? In other words, how am I gonna find my place in this huge discipline? I'm also having problems figuring out what I "buy" in the Music & Gender articles. How far down that rabbit hole am I willing to go, and how will I nuance that?

To the folks at FPU: Thank you. For the tools (or the whole freaking toolbox, as it were) you gave me, but more importantly for showing me what musicology is capable of. I miss you guys, but I'm havin' a BALL!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Weeks 5 & 6, Term 1

2009-11-04T20:34:00.002-06:00

Week 5

Intro to Musicology: Biography
Cusick, "Thinking From Womens' Lives" pg. 484-507
Miller, "Henry Cowell and Cage" pg. 47-112
Rehding, "Liszt's Musical Monuments" pg. 52-72
Schroeder, Ch. 3 "Leopold Mozart's Biography" pg. 59-85

Music & Gender: Gendered Aspects of Musical Composition and Performance
Fassler, "Music for the Love Feast" pg. 92-117
"Hildegard of Bingen: Abbess and Compose" pg. 14-20
Holsing, "The Flesh of the Vice" 92-125
McClary Ch. 2 pg 35-52

Research Methods:
Turabian Ch. 11-14 pg. 109-130
Bellman Ch. 7 pg. 116-134

Week 6

Intro to Musicology: Gender Studies
Cusick, "Gendering Modern Music" pg. 1-25
Bret, "Britten and Grimes" pg. 995-1000
McClary, Ch. 2 pg. 35-52
Tick, "Charles Ives and Gender Ideology" pg. 83-106

Music & Gender: Gendered Aspects cont.
Citron, Ch. 4 "Music as Gendered Discourse" pg. 120-164
McClary, "Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music" pg. 205-234
Solomon, "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini" pg. 193-206
Steblin, "The Peacock's Tale" pg. 5-33
McClary Ch. 5 pg. 112-131

Research Methods:
Turabian Ch. 20-21 pg. 283-307
Bellman Ch. 8 pg. 135-160

Totals for the Week(s):
Articles: 12
Chapters: 12
Pages: 506
Responses: 13
Summaries: 1

Totals towards the PhD:
Articles: 37
Chapters: 35
Pages: 1325
Responses: 37
Summaries: 3

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Response to Week 4, Term 1

2009-10-22T14:19:00.005-05:00

It seems that while searching for one of the articles to be read this week, one of my classmates found the blog. Hello to my fellow UWC-er, if she's still reading!

This week the speed of the Quarter system finally kicked in--next week we will be halfway through the first term. At this point, I'm only just comfortable with where my classes are, which days they're on, and how I'm supposed to prepare for class. I have topics for the two papers I'm supposed to write this term: one on Music and Phenomenology (which needs to be narrowed down this weekend to something manageble) and one on gender roles in Irish traditional music (something about the gendered role of accompaniment in the Irish folk revival maybe......still needs to be concretized this weekend). I also got my first quizzes to grade--about 150 of them by hand. They're not too bad, ie I can do them in front of the tv, but they still take a bit of time to get through. All in all, miles to go before we sleep.

In other news, I WILL be making beer this weekend. That's my non-grad school project for the weekend.

Responses to the readings? I guess the whole week made me ask myself, what do you want your dissertation to be about? Reading about all of these Pillars of Musicology (Treitler, Taruskin, Burkholder) really makes me want to produce a fabulous document that contributes something profound to the discipline and the body of scholarship. But I guess that's like every American writer wanting to write the "Great American Novel." How do you get there? I mean, if we aspire to the greatness of those who went before us, scholastically, artistically, and pedagogically, how does one accomplish such an abstract goal?

How do you gain confidence in the questions you ask?
For example, I could (and have) argued that my area of specialty is community and music. I like to see how the two interact. So I asked myself, "How do musicians experience community?" Which in turn led to "Do musicians feel a stronger sense of community because the music is amazing or does the community make musicians perform better?" And I have to ask myself, are those good questions to be asking? Or am I one of those musicologists/ethnomusicologists destined to be obsessed with what Beethoven had for dinner the third Thursday of March?

Anyway, it's been a good week, but it's back to work!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Week 4, Term 1

2009-10-19T14:40:00.003-05:00

Lighter load this week means concentrating more on projects than on weekly readings. I'll add a different category for reading associated with projects later on this week.

Intro to Musicology: Canon-Anti-canon/Work Concept
Grout, History of Western Music (compare same article in different versions of the grout)
Goehr, The Imaginary Museum of Musical Works: An Essay in the Philosophy of Music, Ch. 8 205-242
Spitta, Johann Sebastian Bach 1873-1880, pg. 174-178; 192-193
Taruskin, "Introduction" to Oxford History of western Music, pg. xxi-xxx
Treitler, "Transmission and the Study of Music History," pg. 202-211.

Music & Gender: Cross-Cultural Experiences of Gender and Gendered Rules
Koskoff, "Effect of post-postmodern scholarship on feminist and gender studies in musicology and ethnomusicology," pg. 90-98
McLucas, "Music of the Mescalero Apache Girls' Pubert Ceremony," pg. 198-209
McLucas, "Silent Music: The Apache Transformation of a Girl to a Woman," 49-65.
Shapiro, "A Critique of Current Research," pgs. 5-13 & 104-109.

Research Methods:
Turabian Ch. 8-10, 17
Bellman Ch. 5-6

Totals for the Week:
Articles: 7
Chapters: 7
Pages: 232
Responses: 8
Summaries: 0

Totals towards the PhD:
Articles: 25
Chapters: 23
Pages: 819
Responses: 24
Summaries: 2

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Response to Week 3, Term 1

2009-10-15T13:44:00.002-05:00

As a scholar, you're lucky if you can learn to ask questions that have larger, broader implications. I've never felt particularly good at this, but I guess some of it comes with age. You read all of the articles, and then you take a step a back, and suddenly you're asking yourself questions, big questions, you've never thought about before.

What is the purpose of scholarship?

What are we trying to do? Ellie Hisama espouses a belief in using scholarship as a platform for advocacy, in her case, for the advocacy of ethnic and gender equity. Yet advocacy can be turned both ways. Imperialist/colonialist inspired literature which made up the larger body of Orientalist scholarship until very recently, advocated for a particularly troublesome characterization of the Oriental Other. Does advocacy fit into scholarship? Again, what are we trying to do? Present a factually based interpretation of history? While interpretation implies bias, much as advocacy does, does it shade the scholarship as much as outright advocacy?

And if advocacy does have a place in the purpose of scholarship, how are (or maybe just are) we ethically compelled to use that platform as a means to promote our own personal beliefs (ie, feminism, gay rights, etc.)?

We as scholars, and perhaps more importantly artists and scholars, are given a voice few others have as well as, hopefully, the training to clearly and persuasively use that voice. How do we balance the desire to make a lasting impact upon our world with the need for scholarship that remains as unbiased as possible? How do we use scholarship as a platform for advocacy without being subjected and sometimes limited because of labels (ie, feminist musicologist, in Hisama's case the Asian-American feminist musicologist, the queer theory musicologist) that are accompanied by social stigmas?

And I guess the larger question beyond the purpose of scholarship, is who do I want to be as a scholar and a musician? What do I feel morally compelled to do with my artistic and scholarly voice? And how do we learn to embody that voice that is only authentically ours, without being influenced by how the world perceives us?

These are the questions I've been asking after the first few weeks of readings. Any responses would be greatly appreciated.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Week 3, Term 1

2009-10-11T18:11:00.002-05:00

I'm also hoping to post reactions to class discussions after they happen....but that may fall to the wayside as projects and things get started.

Intro to Musicology: Orientalism
Garrett, "Chinatown, Who's Chinatown? Defining America's Border with Music Orientalism," pgs. 119-174
Hisama, "Postcolonialism on the Make: The Music of Jon Mellencamp, David Bowie, and John Zorn," pgs. 91-104
Locke, "Cutthroats and casbah dancers, muezzins and timeless sands: Musical images of the Middle East," pgs. 20-53
Said, Orientalism Ch. 1, pgs. 1-92

Music & Gender: Defining the Field, cont.
Feld, "Sound Structure as Social Structure," pgs. 383-409
Kisliuk, "Performance and Modernity among BaAka Pygmies: A Closer Look at the Mystique of Egalitarian Foragers in the Rain Forest," pgs. 25-50
Koskoff, "The Sound of a Woman's Voice: Gender and Music in a New York Hasidic Community," 213-224
Monson, "Music and the Anthropology of Gender and Cultural Identity,"pgs. 24-32

Research Methods:
Turabian, Ch. 4-7, 16; pgs. 36-81 & 141-159
Bellman: Ch. 3-4 STILL NOT HERE!

Totals for the Week:
Articles: 7
Chapters: 7
Pages: 326
Responses: 4
Summaries: 1

Totals towards the PhD:
Articles: 18
Chapters: 16
Pages: 587
Responses: 16
Summaries: 2

While there are more pages to read this week, there are far fewer responses (thank god!). Responses are basically paragraph summaries of entire articles. It takes quite a bit of time to cut to the quick of an article in three or four sentences. However, I have found that the responses helped me articulate my understanding of some of the more difficult articles (ie Shepherd's Music and Male Hegemony from last week's readings). Summaries are longer, but I feel easier. You can go into more depth about the article (still only about 3 pages at most), which requires much less brevity (musicologists are never good about that). In addition to these, I'm starting the reading for my final projects, which I guess will take time as well. Back to reading and soup making!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Pages to a PhD: Week 1-2, Term 1

2009-10-11T17:41:00.003-05:00

Sometimes blogging can keep you honest, or in this case help you keep perspective. There's a heavy reading load here at University of West Coast (UWC), and I think I want to blog those readings. Pages to a PhD, hopefully, will help me track what I'm doing/what I've done over the course of my PhD classes. In addition, I'm hoping that it might spark some discussion about what I am (or am not) reading. So below is my first entry:

For First Class:

Intro to Musicology: Defining Musicology
"Musicology" from The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

Week 2:
Intro to Musicology: Thinking & Writing About History
Butterfield, Herbert. The Whig Interpretation of History, pgs. 1-33
Carse, Adam. The History of Orchestration (we quickly nicknamed this, "History gone wrong."), pgs. 110-111; 198-201
DeVeaux, Scott. "Constructing the Jazz Tradition: Jazz Historiography," Black American Literature Forum 25 (1991) 525-560.
White, Hayden. "Introduction" to The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europ, pgs. 1-42

Music & Gender: Defining the Field: Historical & Theoretical Background
McClary, "Feminine Endings in Retrospect" & Ch. 1, pgs. ix-xx & 1-34
Ch'maj, "Reality is on our side," Sonneck Society Bulletin, 16/2 (1990), 53-58
Clement, Introduction to Opera, or the undoing of Women, pg. 3-23
Fausto-Sterling, "The Five Sexes," The Sciences, 33 (1993), pgs 20-25
Hisama, "Feminist Music Theory in the Millenium: A Personal History," pg. 1287-1291
Shepherd, "Music and Male Hegemony," pgs. 151-172
Solie, "Defining Feminism: Conundrums, Contexts, Communities," pgs 1-11
Solie, Feminism in New Grove

Research Methods:
Turabian, Ch. 1-3, 15 pgs. 5-35, 133-140
Bellman, Ch. 1-2, (book not in bookstore as of week 3, which is incredibly annoying)

Totals for the Week:
Articles: 11
Chapters: 9
Pages: 261 (excluding the two New Grove Articles)
Responses: 12
Summaries: 1

Totals towards the PhD:
Articles: 11
Chapters: 9
Pages: 261
Responses: 12
Summaries: 1

Here's to watching the numbers grow!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Nose to the Grindstone

2009-10-10T20:50:00.002-05:00

You know all of those "study hard" montages you see in really bad teen movies? If I don't blog for awhile, you should imagine me in one of those montages (because it's true).

I am working on trying to find a place for a slow session. Once I find a place, I really hope someone shows up.....but I guess I'll worry more about that when I get to it.

I've been thinking a lot. The program out here is, by it's very nature, a rather solitary one. Classes meet once, maybe twice a week, and since reading and writing are not generally group activities there's quite a bit of time at my apartment. I'm sure there will be more outings once I get to know people in the program a bit better (the other two entering musicology grad students are in most of my other classes), and I'm going to the wushu meeting (again....no Soo Bahk, but free martial arts are good), but right now there's a lot of sitting in my apartment and thinking.

A PhD program is a time to learn to do for yourself what teachers have previously done for you. It's a time to realize that (hopefully) at some point in the not too distant future, you're going to be the musicologist at the university, the mentor in the mentor/mentee relationship. And I find myself wondering how I'm going to step into those shoes. In addition, I've been thinking about what I want done when I go out on the job search. So that I can point and say, "See, I've done that." And I also wonder if I'll be able to do that. A PhD program is a time for self-doubt you learn to dispel yourself, and it's a time to learn to create for yourself and your students the community that has supported you, and the love and holiness inherent in your art (even if you can't feel it sometimes).

Here's hoping I'm up to the challenge.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Last weekend of Freedom

2009-09-27T14:30:00.002-05:00

School starts on Tuesday. This week was a haze of meetings about teaching and Doctoral requirements, and every time someone said, "This is only for Doctoral candidates," I had to remind myself that I was in that crowd. Of course, embarking on a new program, and facing ALL of the degree requirements of a PhD makes me feel both excited and anxious/scared at the same time. You see two full pages front and back of just courses to take, and then you add the three major exams before you even get to the dissertation stage, and it seems all a bit much. However, as my thesis taught me, you have to take it one semester/exam/requirement at a time.

Entrance exams were also last week: music history, written theory, and aural skills. All of these started at 3:30pm and went until 9pm after a morning full of meetings. Aural Skills came first, and while melodic dictation went well and sightsinging went ok, harmonic dictation was a complete and utter bitch. It didn't help that I hadn't done harmonic dictation in YEARS, and that the example was played as a midi file, with the soprano turned WAY up (hello, flute players' ears go up easily....not down, and it's fairly difficult to do a chordal analysis without the bass line). After half of the harmonic dictation I seriously just wanted to hand the exam in and walk out so that I could focus on the music history portion, but I sucked it up, and did pretty well on written theory (part writing w/chordal analysis, some basic phrase structure questions, and roman numeral analysis). So after two hours of trying to convince your brain to focus and spell out the chord (I've found theory is like riding a bike....you never really forget how to do it, but you're certainly not as good or as fast as you were when you first learned), I grabbed a quick bite to eat and came back for the music history part of the exams. Listening identification (probable composer, 50 yr probable date range, and title/genre/form as it is evident--they had an aria from Orfeo by Monteverdi that I actually did a project on....which made my night), Short Answer term definitions (they had troubadour on there.....yay!!!), Composer identification (I actually found this one way too easy, because they asked for country and period associated with each composer and nothing else), Score identification (probable composer, probable period, probable title/genre), and then two essays (as opposed to one because I was a PhD musicology candidate.....I ended up picking history of the polyphonic mass and history of opera). Let me tell you, writing two essays with a TMJ headache and after a day full of meetings and other exams is not a fun one. My essays were probably the worst part of the exam. We had to wait two days, but I ended up passing everything except Aural Skills....which doesn't really surprise me.

I also met some really nice people. Piper Colleague met me at the bus station (we live less than a mile away from each other), and we rode over to the big faculty meeting together. I was then introduced to everyone (faculty and grad students), and I've been asked for at least three copies of my thesis, which is completely and utterly terrifying. I've met some cool people, a PhD flute candidate I knew previously in MS/TN and a PhD Theory candidate from a university in Big Red State. And I also was recruited for the Collegium, which is run by one of the instructors I studied with in Vancouver summer before last. Evidently it hadn't gotten back to him that I was coming, and he ran up and recruited me. It was also really cool to hear, "So and So's been saying you were coming. He's really been looking forward to it!" Both from Trad friends and Early Music friends, and I have no doubt that I would not feel nearly as welcomed if I had gone to the other school that gave me a full ride + stipend.

My schedule for this semester looks really good with the exception that I'll have to take classes at 8am 4 days a week. I'm taking Aural Skills review, Research Methods (for the doctoral core), Music & Gender, and Intro to Musicology (required and featured highly on the doctoral musicology area exams). In addition I'll probably be in collegium, but I'm not sure how the hours will work as I have a class conflict on Tuesdays (the professor said I'd probably just come in on Thursdays).

Anyway, I've got to get started on my goals for the day (biking to campus without getting lost and cleaning my apartment!).

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Game On

2009-09-20T17:00:00.002-05:00

Game on.

This week starts off with a meeting with my dept. chair, to figure out my first semester of my terminal degree. Wow. It seems surreal, that (hopefully) in three to four years I'll be done with the receiving end of my formal education and will be on the other side. It is similarly surreal that I am being paid to go to school. This was mostly true at FPU, but my paycheck and tuition costs kind of crossed each other out. At UWC, tuition (with the exception of less than $300 of fees) is free, health insurance is free thanks to the TA union (yes that's right....we have a UNION), and I get PAID. Definitely a positive step in the right direction financially.

In addition to my meeting with my dept. chair, I have orientation meetings all day Tuesday and Thursday and entrance exams all day Wednesday. Entrance exams are always scary....not so much the theory ones as I'm not a theory major, and I haven't really taken a lot of theory in the four years I've been at FPU. Basically if I bomb the theory portion I won't feel too bad about it...the history portion however is different. I will be disappointed in myself if I don't pass the history portion because I'm a history major and I want to represent my program and my teachers well. Only time will tell, however.

I want to start a recording project. I have no clue how to do this, or even if I'm ready to do this, but I want to start working towards the goal of making a record. I have several options for repertoire: originals, traditional songs, trad flute tunes, or different combinations of each of three. The benefit of each of these repertoires is that they a free to record...they're either mine or public domain (although some of the traditional stuff has to be checked to make sure). Flute tunes might be a problem because I don't really have any backup players that I know out here...although it is possible to make a recording completely of solo trad flute, I'm not sure that's what I want. I feel a pull towards originals and traditional songs....because all I need is me on vocals and guitar. I feel really confident with my traditional songs (at least on the vocals), but I really WANT to record some originals. However there are some incredibly seminal folk recordings that combine the two. Anyway, other than starting to think about repertoire, I have no idea how to proceed, so any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway, I'm off to get ready for the week, and for a new program.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

School's Almost Here

2009-09-17T13:48:00.002-05:00

Let me start by saying, that I'm not exactly sure what group produced the first recording I ever heard, but odds are very, very good that it was Peter, Paul, & Mary. Thanks Mary Travers for providing the soundtrack to my childhood.

So the past month has been spent getting used to living out here on the West Coast/Pacific Northwest. I am addicted (after less than two months) to Trader Joe's, I have found an incredibly good cup of coffee, and I've also visited Major City and found an AWESOME bookstore. Basically I've gotten into a schedule, which makes any place feel more like home. On Saturdays I've started getting up really early to go to this breakfast cafe that serves this AMAZING french toast made from Challah bread. I have also visited the university library, on a campus that is gorgeous. Occasionally it dawns on me that I'm about to start my last academic program, that hopefully in three to four years I will have my PhD and be competitive for a job. Speaking of jobs, I managed to get a job at a local arts institute that I'll call the Shack.....which is remarkably close to it's actual name. The great thing about teaching lessons through them is that all I have to do is show up and teach.....no worrying about money or scheduling....just show up, teach, and get a paycheck. The bad thing about teaching there, is that they want me to teach in some of my (very) secondary areas....ie beginning saxophone lessons.

Unfortunately the trad scene is just as bad as I expected....I had coffee with Piper Colleague and he confirmed the level of playing around here. He also offered to get together and play tunes some time. This situation, however, has made me consider my options. I have been mentored by people who came to similar situations and have changed them for the better. When Coyotebanjo and Dharmonia came to FDP, the trad scene was basically nonexistent, yet I believe last week they had 22 people dancing the sets, 4 people teaching, and a bunch of musicians ready to play, in addition to the weekly sessions that are some of the best around. Being part of a tradition, means that at some point you start to pass it on. Do I try and make this scene better? Do I have time to make it better? No one offers a slow session right now, but when I asked about it the "leader" of the session scene here seemed kind of offended. Anyway, it's just something I've been thinking about.

Next week I have a meeting with the department chair to figure out my schedule and ta for this term. Next week also means orientation meetings and the dreaded entrance exams. I've been studying, but it always seems kind of hopeless....know everything about everything.....ready--GO! Anyway, I'm building bookcases, studying, practicing, and thinking about things. Back to it!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Nothing New

2009-08-18T15:58:00.002-05:00

Wish I had something new to report on, but other than settling in nicely, nothing new to report. Every time I think I am done unpacking books.....I find more. They're like tribbles. Anyway, it's supposedly unbelievably hot here in OHC, but I find it fine....a little warm, sure.....but perfectly survivable. I am however, going to go get another fan for the living room. My internet gets here on Thursday afternoon.....I am unbelievably excited to not have to go searching for an internet connection. I am also trying to start up some studio teaching to hopefully make a little extra money. Anyway, I off back home to try and finish unpacking books.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

New Furniture

2009-08-16T13:21:00.002-05:00

I have a couch! Ok.....I have a loveseat....but it fits perfectly in my apartment, and provides a great place to read with a kitty cat in my lap. The apartment is coming along, and I'm hoping to have everything set up by Thursday (when my internet is supposed to be set up). I have discovered that a friend of mine from undergrad (O) has migrated this way, so we met up at the museum of Natural and Cultural history to take a look at the world instruments exhibit her and her husband had helped set up. O also offered to show me around town next week while she was showing one of her friends from high school around as well.

I'm heading to U(rban)C(ity) today to try and find some good tunes (and visit IKEA before the session), but I am planning on heading back to the session tomorrow night to see if there are any new/different faces. Also planning on doing at least one open mic this week, and checking out the beginning running group sponsored by the local running store.

I had my first Skype calls this week. Wow, technology is crazy. And very, very cool. I think once I get a video camera hooked up it will be even crazier.

The weather here has been A-MAZ-ING. Even the cloudy days are beautiful, because I get to wake up, make breakfast, and look at the mist surrounding the Buttes from my kitchen window.

I'm hoping to venture out into the city on the bus next week. My plan is to use the bus to investigate the used bookstores because they're near locations I'll visit frequently (ie school/coffee shops/and hello.....used bookstores).

I'm trying to put myself out there earlier and more than I did in FDP. It's odd because usually I talk myself out of doing things at the last minute (ok....I did that for the open mics I was planning on....but I had unpacked boxes all day and didn't feel like playing). To me, making small talk/meeting lots of new people takes a lot of effort/energy/courage that sometimes I don't feel I have, which usually results in me sitting with my cat on my lap and reading/watching a movie. I am being much better about going out and doing things anyway, and it's something I want to keep doing.

I want to accomplish so many things while I'm here, it's kind of overwhelming: Break into the Singer/Songwriter scene, get my PhD, take my Irish trad playing to the next level, get published, set myself up to get a good job, attempt some sort of recording, etc. Following on the heels of 4 years of grad school, sometimes my to-do list makes me tired and brings out the "what makes you actually think you can do any of that" voice just by looking at it. It's really helpful to have (almost) two months to get a break and set up my apartment, try out some open mics, practice trad flute, get up at 9 am and leisurely cook breakfast, and study for entrance exams without the added pressure of school and teaching.

Anyway, I need to make some more progress on the unpacking front before I try out the session tonight!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Being able to cook in your apartment makes all the difference

2009-08-12T14:46:00.002-05:00

Perhaps my earlier post was a bit too negative. I was still riding the disappointment of the less than adequate session scene. However, I cooked for the first time in my apartment (both dinner and breakfast), and life seems wonderful when you wake up in your own bed, go to the kitchen to make eggs, waffles, and coffee, and can sit a look out of your kitchen window at one of the Buttes here in OHC. My couch comes tomorrow (holy crap why am I not unpacking as we speak), and internet gets hooked up on the 20th.

There are so many things to do here--running groups, coffee clubs, book clubs, co-ops, farmer's markets, used bookstores everywhere, open mics almost every night of the week. It's a little hard to choose, but I'm trying to be adventurous. I'm hoping to go investigate one of the open mics either tonight or tomorrow night. I really want to work on getting a regular paying gig somewhere in town. Since I have absolutely no clue how to go about that, I figure open mics are a great place to start to a) get a feel for the venues, b) get a feel for the crowds, and c) get some (more) performance experience.

The session on Monday was a little friendlier even if the music wasn't much better. There are several sessions in Urban City 2 hrs away, which I also want to check out. The one that seems to be heralded as the better of the two I'm checking out is on Friday and starts at 9pm, which would pose a problem coming back as the session runs till midnight and I don't really fancy getting back at 2 am. There's another one on Sundays that ends around 8pm which would put me back in town at a decent hour. I really do anticipate that the session in OHC will get better once the school year starts, but I'm craving some good tunes before then, so I guess we'll see just how adventurous I get.

I have a coffee table (ok, it was probably a work bench, but it was $5 and now it's a coffee table), and I've decided I'm going to refinish it.....which I've never done before. But it's not like I haven't got a lot of time on my hands.

Well, I'm off to Trader Joe's and then back to the apartment to unpack some more!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Holy Crap....I live on the West Coast

2009-08-10T15:46:00.002-05:00

Last week I packed up my life, drove 1,900 miles, and now I live on the West Coast. Moving is always hard for me, because I really don't like change. After four years in FDP, I had a routine: where to get coffee, where to park, people to talk to/hang out with, places to eat/get food delivered, etc. Moving to Outdoor Haven City (OHC) introduces not only new places/people but an entirely different approach at life. Parking (as was predicted) is fairly hellish, but luckily the bus stops right outside of my apartment.

As I told several of my friends from FDP, when I opened the door to my apartment, I had the complete panic of, "Oh my God, what the hell have I done?" As I moved my stuff in, that feeling dwindled, and except for another similar feeling at last night's session (discussed further down), it's gone. Finding the Border's the first night in OHC helped, as did getting phone calls/emails from friends already living here, as well as mail from a friend who recently went to Hawaii.

For the first time in my life, I'm going to have a new couch. It'll be delivered sometime this week, which means I need to unpack like a fiend so that there's actually a place to put it. I'm also going to try to sell my papasan, because a) there's not really room and b) it's time to start investing in real furniture. I'm also in the process of getting reliable internet set up in my apartment.

I went to one of the two irish sessions in OHC last night. It was one of the worst sessions I've been to. One guitar, three fiddles, a bones player, mandolin player, octave mandolin, and me. I wasn't really expecting it to be in the same caliber as the FDP session, because frankly, few are outside of Ireland. Most ITMusicians are not professional musicians like those of us in FDP. Two of the musicians were ok--one of the fiddle players could play as long as someone else was playing with him (an habitual occurrence in session only players), and the mandolin player was ok, though he sounded more like a bluegrass picker (he denied it when I asked him). One of the other fiddle players was reading from "The Fiddler's Fake Book" and the other fiddler didn't connect two notes together all night. The vibe was also weird and kind of hard to describe....it was the frantic, "Play a tune, play a tune, play a tune" atmosphere which happens a lot either with beginners or with people who feel they have something to prove (both of which I have been guilty of). There were also very few sets......play one tune 40 times, then stop. Repeat. In addition, most of them were negative about the fact that I didn't know tune names, to which I finally replied: "Tune names are different everywhere you go, so I just stopped worrying about it." In addition, there were some veiled comments about the "frantic" nature of my playing, which I took to mean the guy didn't like that I played my sets at a quicker tempo (although compared to speeds I have played at, they were relatively laid back, and I only set the tempo on the sets I started). I was really irritated and dissapointed by this point, and wanted to go home and blast Planty or Dervish. I'm hoping tonight is better, even marginally, and while the music is bad, I've been in sessions that aren't top shelf musically, but are wonderful in the sense of community they provide. Last night was bad on both counts.

There is at least one world-class ITM in this town, and Urban City is only 2 hrs north of here.....perfectly driveable if they have a good session, so I am by no means out of options. In addition, it's still summer, and many sessions take breaks or at least thin out during the summer. There's still hope that the session will be stronger in a month or so.

More updates and pictures of the apartment as it comes together. For now, I'm off to find a comcast center that can enroll me in internet and unpack so that there's a place to put my couch.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Almost Done

2009-06-29T12:53:00.004-05:00

Last week I passed my Thesis defense. I'm wrapping up this degree....and I can't seem to believe I'm actually going to pack everything up in a month and leave this place (assuming everything goes well with my Spanish reading exam tomorrow and that I get all of my revisions in on time....ok so I probably won't believe I have this damn degree until they give me my transcripts and my diploma).

Don't know what the results are with the songwriting thing.....the band running it seems to have forgotten about posting the results. It was, despite the horrible amounts of smoke, a good experience. It's basically convinced me that I want to try and find a regular gig once I get to Outdoor Haven City (home of West Coast U).

In addition to end-gaming it, I've also been looking at goals I want for the next 4-5 years of my life....I guess this is my "Goals I'd like to reach before I turn 30" list.

So here goes:

Get published: I feel like this is the next big step for me in my academic career, and one I feel I need to accomplish before I can set out to get an academic job.
Present at a National Musicology/Ethnomusicology conference: See reason above.
Record a CD: Or maybe two. I really want to put out a recording or two. I'd like to record a traditional CD, but I'd also really like to do a CD of originals. I've really gotten into the songwriting thing recently, and while a recording of my originals is not likely to earn me big bucks or be popular outside of my circle of friends/family, I think it would be something I was really proud of.
Finish the PhD: I want to be done in 4 years, and have a job....please god.
Study Buddhism: I am moving to a place where this will be a lot easier, and I'm _really_ looking forward to that.
Run/Row a marathon: I'd really like to run a marathon....but I have a bad knee...and so recently I've tried rowing (on an indoor rower). I can work infinitely harder on the rowing machine and though I feel sore the next day, I can still move. So in the event that I can't run a marathon, you can actually row a marathon (something like 26,ooo+ meters). As a relative beginner, I can easily row 5k+ in 40 minutes, so I feel like it's a doable goal.
Find a life outside of my profession: I've spent most of the past 4 years solely focused on my profession. I'm going to still be doing a lot of that, but I think I need to establish hardcore boundaries so that I don't get quite as burned out.

Anyway, back to studying and revising.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Where does it come from?

2009-06-06T13:05:00.004-05:00

So.....taking a few minutes away from the thesis at this point. Most of what I've been doing since I last posted has been associated with the thesis. I am both ready to be done with the thing and also extremely glad that my program requires a thesis, because I can't imagine trying to write a dissertation without having gone through this process (an intense but growing experience....at least I hope it will be).

The only thing I've really done outside of the thesis is performing at my first open mic. Dry Flat Place is known for really good live music and really good singer/songwriters, so it stands to reason that it wasn't really hard to find one. You understand, I've only been writing songs for a little over a year and a half, and while I have played them in front of some people, I have not played them outside of a supportive audience (ie Zoukfest, for friends, for family). Not to mention, I always play acoustically. I just feel that technology most often gets in the way of connecting with an audience.

So I signed up and went down on Thursday night with my roommate, perfectly prepared to make a total ass out of myself. We got there, and it was a pretty crappy bar. Too much smoke, not a single drop of alcohol I actually wanted to pay for, and amplification that would make the hardest rock music fan reach for their earplugs. In addition, they had obviously not planned for anyone to come in without a method to plug in their guitar. Waited for about an hour while the first 6 or so people went, and then it was my turn. I walked up and asked them if they had an extra mic and stand to area mic my guitar. The conversation went something like this:

"No."

"Fine, then I'll play completely acoustically."

Horrified look on face.

"Wait, maybe we do."

Why are people afraid of acoustic performances? Sigh.

So, it took them about 15 minutes to get that set up, during which I'm sitting on the stage playing Irish tunes. They finally get everything miked up and I try to back away from the microphone (both the vocal and the guitar one) because evidently they've turned it up to 11.

Side note: I don't perform much with microphones....however I have in the past and I have also run soundboards. The whole point of a microphone, especially for vocals, is so that you do not have to scream to be heard in a very loud or large venue, and thus sacrifice nuance and musicality for volume. No one seemed to know this.

The only good thing about this was that you barely had to sing to be heard, although playing normally on my acoustic almost caused feedback.....at which point I pushed my chair back to try and put some space between me and the mic.

Another side note: I have performed in noisy Big Red State bars for 4 years. More volume doesn't make the screaming patrons getting drunk on bud lite shut up. Good music, performed well makes them shut up.

This will sound egotistical, but as my roommate tells the story, by the end of my first song (you get to play two) there was a lot of applause and then the bar got really quiet. For any of you who haven't played a noisy bar....this is a good sign. I finish up my set, and the guys who are running the event start asking me if I gig around town, and then proceed to tell me that I have a future in music.

To which I really wanted to say, "Did you miss the part where I told you I was a graduate student in the music department, and that my job is teaching music history?" I guess they think the only future in music one could want is a recording contract.....which would be great, but teaching music history/world music makes me REALLY happy. I guess not everyone gets that.

Overall, performing felt great. Getting a positive response about my songs also felt great. I really like to perform even though I'm always nervous before and after (and sometimes during if I'm playing originals). I didn't (as usual) like the smoke or the out of control amplification.

Anyway, sorry if most of that sound like ego-candy, but I'm continually surprised that I'm actually capable of writing songs. Literally I came home one day, really depressed, and I just wrote a song.....which still surprises me. And every time I write another one, it's like, it happened again? Where the hell does this stuff come from?

Off back to thesis land....I've spent far too long on this post.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

End Game

2009-04-06T12:18:00.004-05:00

It has been pointed out to me that I haven't blogged in a while. Apologies all around, but until I defend my thesis I will most likely be extremely light on the ground blog-wise.

Almost everything is set up for the PhD stage at University of West Coast (UWC). I signed my contract for my TA for next year....which insures that I have not only a stipend but 16 hrs per quarter of free tuition along with free health insurance (gotta love the West Coast). I also know my assignments for next year, which are primarily ethno assignments. UWC is on a quarter system, which means I'll TA for three different classes next year. First quarter I'll TA for Music Apprec. and after that I get bumped up in hours (and salary) and TA for Music in World Cultures and Music of the Americas. Totally a happy camper, if a little worried about affording life on the West Coast. But I'll make it work, cause I always do (even if I sweat a little before I figure it out).

Going sometime in May to find housing, but I'm hoping I get to rent one of the houses through UWC. They allow pets and seem fairly reasonably priced, in addition to having W/D hookups and a yard/porch, which means I would be able to attempt a vegetable/fruit/herb garden.

Currently feeling very inspired by a conference the Musicologists from FPU tracked off to this weekend. Heard some great papers/presentations and feel completely inspired to up my game/finish the dang thesis.

I'm really looking forward to the move out to the West Coast, but also a little apprehensive about leaving people here, having to prove myself again, adjusting to the quarter system, and hoping my Academic Institution Karma will hold out. In addition, I have the great fortune to know I'll be surrounded by incredible performer-scholars at UWC but feel a little anxious about measuring up to the standard they set and representing my teachers from FPU well.

But none of that can happen until I finish/defend the damn thesis!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Struggling to get things done

2009-03-17T17:07:00.002-05:00

My thesis does not have to be the great American novel.....it also doesn't have to be the best thing since Burkholder, Kubik, or Evans.

In fact some have argued (to me) that a Master's thesis is actually just about proving that you can take on a large scale research project and get it finished.

However that is not what it feels like. I want it to be an amazing piece of scholarship.....and every time I sit down to right, all that comes out feels like mediocre garbage. I am trying not to censor myself (ie stop myself before it gets on the page), but it feels as if I have a rambling stream-of-consciousness monstrosity that will take forever to turn into a coherent piece of scholarship.

I also must remember that the worst that will happen if I fail (I've had some serious failure dreams in the past few weeks), is that I will not have a degree and I will have to try again. I will not die and everyone will not hate me. However, it's hard to convince yourself of that when you've got so much (money, time, future) invested in the outcome.

Also, I have forgotten how hard it is to get someone in rural MS to call you back on time. When you're just keeping up with your contacts, you're not worried about a time deadline. So I'm staying here for the rest of Spring Break with the goal of finishing all of my papers for the semester along with getting more stuff written on the thesis and hoping I get a call back from MS sometime soon to arrange some more interviews.

Deep breath.

In positive news....I have glasses and I can SEE again!!! I had not realized how blurry my distance vision had gotten until I put them on today. I will now actually be able to read what is on the board/powerpoint projections in class!

Anyway, happy St. Patrick's day to you all (drink some proper Irish tea and eat some soda bread!)!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

I'll be on the West Coast next year

2009-03-13T12:35:00.004-05:00

After considering a lot of things I decided some time last week to accept the offer from West Coast U.

The thought that I'm going to be living on the west coast for the next four-ish years is A-MAZ-ING. I'm more than a little overwhelmed with what has to happen in the next 5/6 months (finish things here, move half way across the country, etc). I'm really excited about starting a new chapter in my life, but also very sad to be leaving FPU and all of the amazing people here.

Anyway, I'm looking at apartments and such and trying to find something decent and affordable. I had planned to fly out next week (we're on Spring Break here) because I found some insanely cheap flights.....I went to book the flight yesterday and discovered that they were cheap because the airline wanted you to stay over for 5 nights. Ummmm.....no. So I'm planning on flying up in May to get everything settled. This is actually better for me, because I'm thinking of making a trip to MS to arrange some interviews.

Also...I have a raging ear infection for the first time in about 15 years. I now remember why I pitched such a fit as a kid. Massive amounts of antibiotics and ear drops, which will hopefully make life bearable without the aid of massive amounts of advil. One good thing about ear infections though, as long as you're sitting you can basically function mentally....which means I can still work.

Speaking of working (or not.....I'm kind of dozing most of today......this particular brand of antibiotics tends to make me conk out), I'm going to get back to it!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Many, Many Updates

2009-03-07T12:23:00.002-06:00

Very many updates.

First off, I have now heard back on all of my applications University of Michigan was a no. I'm a little bummed, but only the slightest bit because I've got two really good yes's from West Coast U and Flagship U. I've been offered a TAship at West Coast U, which puts it in the front running.

West Coast U has a department dedicated to Performance and Scholarship, meaning I wouldn't have to fight my professors to work on advancing my performance abilities and my scholarship. Their other PhD students are of the HIGHEST caliber (I could study with two of them and be happy), and they're all very happy with the program and the professors which means that I could probably finish my degree without all of the horrible battle scars. They also offer places to study Irish traditional music AND Medieval music....there's not really anywhere else in the country that can offer that. Not to mention that the head of the division was very up front about TA's and told me he would contact me at the end of the week....and then he did (on a Saturday morning). That says a lot to me about the department in general. The TA covers up to 16 hrs of tuition and fees per quarter (about 17,000 a year) in addition to a monthly stipend. The only possible problem I can see is that the monthly stipend is fairly small compared to the cost of living on the West Coast. I think it's doable though. Still doing the math. Other positives: there are Buddhists at WCU. Lots of them! There are several places that teach the Dharma in the city. No Soo Bahk Do to be found....but I'm pretty sure I could find a martial art I'd like on the West Coast (because FPU offers a hell of a lot of Tae Kwon Do aka let's beat the crap out of each other with large amounts of protective gear on but not actually teach you anything about a living tradition/art form/self-defense--learning how to get hit with a big chest guard on does not teach how to take a punch in real life). I could also ride my bike to school, saving lots on gas $$. And for once in my freaking life I would be able to live in a BLUE state.

FPU fell into my lap.....so much so that I don't believe I really had a choice in the matter......it was meant to be. WCU has the same feeling....but I'm not entirely sure I could make it financially in such a rough climate (it would probably be tighter that FPU, though without having to worry about tuition and fees). And that's the only doubt in my mind right now.

Paper didn't get accepted to the regional AMS meeting, but I did get a paper on Andalusian Spain and Performance Practice accepted to a Hybrid Cultures conference later this month.

On another note....I think I need glasses. I can read fine (thank god), however the board/power point projections at school are getting a bit hard to see (my roommate can see them but I can't). So I'm probably going to cart myself off to Lenscrafters at some point today and see if I can fix that soon, because I need to be able to see the freaking board.

Here's to REALLY REALLY good weeks!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

In the "What the hell" category....

2009-03-01T12:47:00.002-06:00

So, I compulsively check one of my online applications, and today I had a new link called "Application Decision." Thinking, naively, that it would give me a straightforward answer, I clicked on it. It said:

"A decision has been made. Your program of application will inform you of the decision."

What the hell does that MEAN?!?! And of course, the mind games I barely keep at bay are now running rampant. Let the mind games begin.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2009-02-18T16:18:00.006-06:00

I am frustrated. I'm back on the running schedule, and today was interval training. With crappy winds yet again, it wasn't a good run. And the more I ran, the more frustrated I got.

With my inability to get anything off of my desk (ie make progress on the g**d*** thesis), with my inability to be patient while waiting to see what happens, with my inability to feel like I'm doing anything right, with my inability to be compassionate to myself or others, and on and on and on.

Usually running helps, but sometimes things get to be too much. Too much expectation, too much to do....just too much.

Hopefully tomorrow will be a better training day, and I'll get some stuff done. More on the masterclass I gave this weekend later....after rehearsal and some form of chocolate.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Busy, busy, busy

2009-02-13T12:32:00.002-06:00

Holy crap, it's busy out here.

On a happy note, my cat has come out and has decided my bed is awesome. Brigid has also decided sitting in my lap and distracting me from the computer is her job. I'm also discovering that when she dozes while I pet her, she drools just a little bit. Cats are funny creatures. :)

Been running quite a bit lately. I'm hoping to one day in the not so distant future run a marathon. But first you build back up to a 5k (which I don't really have a problem with), then the 10k, then a half-marathon, and finally up to a marathon. I'm one of those people who's not really built for running, but I like it anyway. Last year I hurt my IT band trying to up my mileage too fast (and also switching from the treadmill to the outdoor track I prefer to run on), so this year I'm going to take it easier.

I've also been doing interval training. For those of you not into torturing yourself two days a week, let me explain what interval training is. 8 minute warm-up jog, then 4 minute run at 80% of you capacity followed by 4 minute recovery jog (not quite as slow as your warm up jog), repeat the 4x4 4 times...followed by a 4 minute cool-down jog. Translate this as 8 minutes of "Gee isn't running swell." Followed by 1st 4x4 of, "This isn't as bad as I thought it was." Second 4x4, "Ok....it's not comfortable, but I can definitely do this." Third 4x4, "You've got to be kidding me....why do I want to run faster and longer?" Fourth 4x4, "F***. G**d*** piece of s***. When is this dumbass workout over?!?!" Recovery period, "Did I leave my lungs on the track?"

Mileage this week is only 7 miles, but I've got my long run on Saturday which'll probably be around 3.5 miles, but trying to avoid injury this go around (IT band injuries are hellish to get over).

What should I be doing today....writing, writing, writing. What am I actually doing? Practicing for the masterclass/concert I'm giving on Sunday and CLEANING. Washing clothes and dishes so that my house is relatively liveable. Oh...and waiting for PhD application decisions. And probably writing eventually today too. Anyway:

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Work hangover

2009-02-07T14:13:00.003-06:00

So I woke up this morning at my normal 8:30-ish and had what I describe as the "work hangover." You wake up, and your head almost immediately says, "Really....you're gonna do this again." Fortunately it's a Saturday....which means I can cut myself some slack. So I turn on a DVD and do the dozing thing, which was pretty great even if I still feel out of it.

Yesterday I brought the cat home. Got her in the carrier without a scratch (even if it did take two of us). I was feeling guilty for taking her home instead of the first guy I had looked at, but I feel good about the decision because when I was signing the adoption papers and everything one of the workers said that they were amazed that she was in the carrier and getting adopted. Evidently she doesn't like any of them and they had assumed they would be at the shelter until she died. She of course is scared out of her wits right now, and once she was let out of the carrier ran directly for the bed. This has been what every cat I've ever had has done. She has, however come out because small things have been moved, and last night I woke up hearing the distinctive sound of a kitty jumping up on top of things in my room.

I thought I was going to name her Eloise (as in Abelard and), but I got her home and something in my head said, "That's not her name." So she's gonna be named Brigid.

Also went to Petsmart yesterday to get all of the pet accoutrement and I went in with the resolution to not act like a dorky pet owner. Several catnip toys, bags of treats, and a cheap scratching post later.....I have decided it's ok to be a dorky pet owner. Pictures will be up as soon as she decides I'm not gonna eat her and will come out long enough for me to take them.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Things turn around fast

2009-02-05T11:07:00.002-06:00

So.....last weekend was possibly the most bipolar I've ever experienced. It started with the "No" from the Fulbright people (sad). Then I went and looked at pets (happy). Then worked on editing things all day and actually realizing that I was going to be in the US next year (sad). Then on Sunday night got an email from one of the grad schools I applied to (which I'll start referring to as Flagship U) saying, "You're in....by the way we want you to apply for this insanely good scholarship (ecstatic)." And I'm picking up my cat on Friday (different cat....who will soon have her picture taken and put up!).

I'm still waiting to hear back from other schools, because Flagship U was definitely not my first choice, but (if I get money) it certainly is a viable option--specifically because the scholarship they want me to apply for is to study Irish and would pay for school and give a *hefty* stipend to boot. The perfect scenario would be to get full rides from West Coast U and Northerly U and then I get to decide where I want to go based on something other than finances.

Let me just say this: "I don't do moving on well." One of the reasons I'm ready to be done with grad school is that I want to build relationships with people and not have to leave them after 4 years. I don't think I can really convey how much these people mean to me here. And while I'm incredibly excited about the future, because it looks as if I'll have options, I'm sad because I believe that this community of people, people who have become family, are extremely rare and I can only hope that I'll find people like them wherever I'm off to.

I get to pick up my cat tomorrow! Pictures to come.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Moving On

2009-01-31T17:40:00.004-06:00

Yesterday was obviously not a good day. However, you cry....drink a few pints (or fingers of Bushmill's) and move on. I think the hardest thing for me is trying to remember that 1) I will go to Ireland again someday and 2) this is not a prediction of how the rest of my applications will turn out.

Decided to go to Petsmart and look at one of the local No Kill Shelter's pet adoption days. I came up with two great options:

<---Terrier Mix & Beautiful Tabby--->

The dog is laid back but still engaged and active. Also very much a people dog. The cat reminds me a lot of the cat I have at home and would probably be a total lap kitty (when I was looking at him, one of the volunteers took him out of his cage and put him in my arms, and then he sat and headbutted me). I really want a dog....but I want the dog to happy and healthy, and I travel quite a bit. The cat would be able to survive me going away for a week or two. But I can't go running with a cat....or play frisbee.....or go to the park and play. It all may be a moot point as the dog is slightly over the weight limit for my apartment (they're just trying to keep someone from getting a St. Bernard and keeping it in a 1 bedroom apartment). So I'm talking to my office manager on Monday. At some point this week I'll be going out to NKS and seeing if one or both of them is still left after adoption day. I'm hoping the universe makes the choice for me (but doubtful).

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

No to the Fulbright

2009-01-30T15:05:00.002-06:00

So I wake up this morning to the dreaded, "I regret to inform you" form email letter that means that my Fulbright was turned down. I wish I could say that I feel something other than bitterly disappointed, but that's where I am right now. Trying to stop the head games before they start, specifically because I'm proud of that proposal. It was a good one and I wouldn't change a bit of it. And it's because I so wanted to do that fieldwork, that it feels so disappointing to have them tell me no on the first round of cuts. Also not really looking forward to admissions decisions regarding other grad schools at this point. What I do know is that the trade-off I made with myself was that if I couldn't go to Ireland, I would get a pet. Hopefully I'll follow through with it.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Something to work toward

2009-01-29T09:57:00.001-06:00

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Patience is a virtue.....

2009-01-28T14:25:00.002-06:00

One that I don't have.

Should hear about the first round of cuts for the Fulbright sometime around Jan. 31st and about at least one grad school "in early February." Until then, I have MORE than enough stuff to work on.

I am rapidly losing hope that I will ever write, defend, and be done with this thesis. Of course, I've thought that about almost everything I've accomplished at FPU, but that fact doesn't help right now. Sometimes when I run and it's a bad day, I count to ten over and over again. "Just run ten more steps....you know you can do that.......You ran the last ten, you can go ten more." And on and on. You'd be surprised how far you can push yourself this way. In the same way, I guess I have to take it paragraph by paragraph.....edit by edit and hope for the same results.

Anyway, off to work.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

It's great when professors have your back

2009-01-16T10:10:00.004-06:00

Sorry for the absence. I seem to have caught the sinus infection rampant in FPU's School of Music. I'm feeling better today for the first time in a week, but I'm still headed to the Student ~~Death~~ Health Center to see if they'll give me antibiotics. Why? Because for the past three years my annual Spring Semester cold has turned into a sinus infection that lasted for over a month. I'm hoping not to let that happen again.

Great meeting with Coyotebanjo about the thesis. Some great suggestions and off I go into writing land. Is it completely geeky to be excited about contributing scholarship to an area that hasn't had any in awhile?

Dharmonia once said to one of our school ensembles, "I will not let you suck."

A simple, but often incredibly comforting statement in grad school. Grad School, at least for me, messes with you ability to judge the quality of your own work. You're trying to get better at everything you do, and you (or maybe it's just me) feel the need to tear down and continuously rebuild everything you do. A good impulse up to a certain point. Having professors who seem to bleed compassion and have an exceptionally high degree of skill at whatever they do means that they will talk you down from that OCD ledge when appropriate and that you can trust that your final product (recital, thesis, conference presentation) is of a relatively high quality. In short, when your professors have your back, you can worry about just getting the damn thing done.

No word from any of the multitude of applications. I guess the important thing to remember is that even "in the event of a water landing" I'll still be at FPU with wonderful people in a place I can (mostly) afford to live, doing what I love. I need to resist the urge to equate whether or not I get into a program with the future success of my career and/or my life.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Things to be excited about

2009-01-09T12:16:00.003-06:00

Today marks the end of the first "week" of school (three days doesn't really count as a week....does it?). I have decided not to look at my student account on the new system as it continues to see-saw back and forth almost hourly......and I value my blood pressure too much.

By this point in the year, all of the applications to various grad schools/other programs have been sent off and my future is currently out of my hands. As you might expect, it's not something I really deal well with. I did have some good advice from former teacher--Every time you get obsessed about it, go learn a tune.

I foresee learning a lot of new tunes this semester.

Fortunately, there are other things to think about, enjoy, or obsess over: the thesis, a masterclass/concert in Feb for a small flute studio, good classes on topics of which I know fairly little, the Lama who gave me refuge vows coming back for a month, not to mention that I hope to run, knit, and cook more.

I'm really excited about the masterclass/concert in Feb. It's the first time I've been invited to give one of these things, and even though I'm a little concerned that all of the details haven't been taken care of (ie they're supposed to buy the plane ticket and I have yet to get any type of flight details...so I guess I'll believe I'm going when I get that stuff) the opportunity to share the music is one that I'm happy about. I was a little concerned when I was asked, because you often find people who don't really understand that you're not going to go in and play Danny Boy from sheet music with piano accompaniment. Often both students and teachers have a misconception that if they can play Mozart or French Conservatory repertoire that they'll be able to magically play like Matt Molloy in a matter of minutes. Often you have to deal with condescending comments and you have to resist the urge to scream, "Just because it's 'folk music' doesn't mean it's easy to play." This masterclass has the ability to be different. The teacher in question has a student who has taught himself to play. He owns a trad flute and when I asked who his favorite trad players were listed Cathal MacConnell, Seamus Egan, and Alan Doherty.

I remember being that kid. The one in the small town in the small college surrounded by people who thought what I did was "neat" (an incredibly insufficient word for what I felt when I listened to the music) but nothing more. And I remember when Skip Healy came and played a concert, and for the first time someone could show me HOW to make the sounds I kept hearing. And I remember that after all of that classical training, I was flabbergasted by how open the tradition was in terms of teaching. The great players want to pass the tradition on.....and they are (for the most part) accessible! And until you feel that moment of, "Oh thank God I'm not a freak!" it's hard to understand how powerful that first moment of connection with the living tradition actually is.

And now I get to pass it forward.....how cool is that?

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

So Much for Equanimity

2009-01-07T14:56:00.002-06:00

FDP is in the process of a major change technologically. The entire school is switching to a new "system."

Ok.....so what does that mean exactly?

First off....it means that your transcripts are almost impossible to get. You stand in line for over an hour just to get someone who says, "I'm sorry we can't give you a set of sealed transcripts....you see, you have to fill out this form.....and because of the new system, we have to hand check all transcripts.....oh and it's at least a seven day wait for this whole process.....so we might be able to send them out in two weeks."

Breathe in.....breathe out. Ok....this is why you get your transcripts several weeks beforehand....slight problems....but not really.

Second......it means that student business services doesn't work. No...REALLY. It just doesn't work. So now I have two different totals for what I owe....the problem is no one seems to think there's a problem with this.....but the realy problem is that right now I'm only scheduled to get about 1/3 of my financial aid refund back to me. So I've called SBS a total of 4 times, and waited about an hour each time to actually speak to someone. No help....no one can help me.

Breathe in....breathe out. Fine, I'll go talk to a real person....one who hopefully is over the age of 18.

So I wait in line for.....again.....over an hour. After I've been on the phone for 1 hr 45min to try and get it solved. I have to lie to the computer system to get past the dreaded Self-Help Kiosk they want to send me to. Finally I get to talk to a nice person in financial aid, who then walks me down to SBS 19yr old. F*CK! She then cops an attitude and tells me that I should get my full refund, but it's not her problem that the computer won't show up. And in the most condescending way humanly imaginable says to just call the tech department....and again....doesn't see a freaking problem.

Pause.

It's at this point in our story, I should mention that SBS is also going to a new refund distribution system in the same semester that all of these radical changes are occurring with our tech system. Meaning it's mandatory to register for a card (which I threw away thinking it was a credit card offer....specifically because we got a few emails that looked remarkably like phishing, and the card I got mailed looked like a freaking credit card). And after you register for a card, they want you to set up an account with them, but for those of us who HAVE BANK ACCOUNTS ALREADY (IE I AM NOT A FREAKING UNDERGRAD) we have to get them to funnel the money through their bank into our bank. But of course, since I don't have the damn card, they have to send me a new one....and since the first one was lost, they'll now charge me $20 for a new one.....and I have to wait 7 days for deliver (IE refund....gee I 'm glad I got paid this month).

Resume.

Now if I hadn't already wasted several hours of my life trying to get money so that I can function financially, perhaps I would have been able to breathe deeply and continue the conversation. If I had been able to get someone to even remotely entertain the idea that there was a problem with my account and that they just couldn't figure out what it was....or maybe if the person I was speaking to looked even slightly older that 13...I could have stepped back and dealt with.

Unfortunately, none of those things happened. Now....when I get angry I get angry....and it's mostly useful. But when I get frustrated angry I cry....which is perhaps the most useless response in the world, as it make you seem overly emotional and irrational. Guess what happened.

Sigh.

So here's my plan. I will wait one more day. If my computer system still has problems, I'm going to communicate my problem to the Music Grad School Advisor (who registers all grad students in the department and has always made any problem I had with bureaucracy go away) and see if he can do any better.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Back in the Saddle

2009-01-06T13:15:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the prolonged absence. I was feeling kind of burnt out at the end of last semester and decided that stepping back from internet communications might help. I promise you'll get a real post soon, but as for now I'll meme last year.

New Year's Meme: 2008 in Review

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?

Became a Buddhist.
Had an amazing road trip to Vancouver, BC with my roommate.
Found out I could write songs.
Became a vernacular musician full-time.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't really believe in resolutions. If you want to make a change in your life, make a change.....screw the calendar.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No....but a lot of my friends in high school are starting to have kids.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No.....thankfully.

5. What countries did you visit?
Canada!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
My second Master's degree.......and maybe a bit more equanimity.

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Summer.....Zoukfest, Medieval Music bootcamp, and my first ethnomusicological fieldwork experience.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Stepping out of the classical flute world and into the vernacular music/ethno world full-time. And learning that I'm completely happy in my new identity. Oh....and playing a completely solo traditional recital.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Ummm.....I don't like this question.....I'm going to ignore it. :)

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not really.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Summer.....if you can count experiences as being "bought."

12. Where did most of your money go?
Hi....I'm in grad school....where do you think it went?

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Music, musicology, ethnomusicology, songwriting!

14. What song will always remind you of 2008?
One? You want me to pick ONE song? How is that fair to a musician?

15. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer?
a) much, much happier b) at the moment fatter because I had some great home cooking over break! :) c) monetarily about the same.

16. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Made more music.

17. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying about things that don't really matter.

18. How did you spend Christmas?
At home reading, writing, and sleeping (a lot).

19. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Nope.....but I think I know more of what I want in a relationship.

20. What was your favorite TV program?
The Biggest Loser.....while eating junk food! :)

21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is an incredibly strong word. My close friendships have shifted a bit, but I don't really hate anyone.

22. What was the best book you read?
I also think this is an unfair question. I've been reading a lot of Buddhist stuff lately.

23. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Ummm....finally buying entire albums of Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan....Joni Mitchell's Blue Album....Fairport Convention.....also not a fair question.

24. What did you want and get?
Going to Vancouver, Zoukfest (Seeing Andy Irvine LIVE!!!!!!).

25. What did you want and not get?
A pet....but that's entirely my self-restraint.

26. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Turned 25, the entire city flooded, classes were canceled, and I went and played tunes and lit a cake on fire!

27. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More time for friends and myself.

28. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Ummm....yay jeans!

29. What kept you sane?
Friends, music, songwriting.

30. Who was the best new person you met?
New friends in the flute studio, and the great musicians in Vancouver and at Zoukfest!

31. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
Your identity both professional and personal keep developing, and you can't be afraid to move into that new kind of scary place.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Top 10 Things I Learned from Martial Arts

2008-12-12T12:42:00.006-06:00

Sorry for the absence. Life has been crazy at FPU, and the first that goes is the blogging. Anyway, soon I will update about the search for PhD programs, the issues of getting the school to release your transcripts when they're switching computer systems, and yet another year of the Six Flags over Jesus gig.

FPU has almost everything I need in a place to live. School.....music......good people.....decent selection of different types of food.....but they don't have a martial art I'd like to study. I run instead, but it still isn't the same as getting pushed by a Sa Bom Nim (master teacher) at least three to four times a week.

I've studied two different types of martial arts, but the one that I really fell in love with was Soo Bahk Do Moo Duk Kwan. At my old studio in the Deep South we had a great crew to practice with, and our instructor was top knotch. You knew that he would push you as far as you were capable of going, but that he wouldn't push you far enough to seriously hurt you (when you study a martial art, some hurt is part of the deal). I miss it.....quite a bit. Hopfully wherever I end up next will include a studio to study in, but until then, here's the top 10 things I learned from studying martial arts:

"Your body will remember this."--My instructor loved to say this during an In Neh (endurance) class. The point was that you were putting your body through hell so that in a life or death situation your body, without thinking, remembers the movement required to protect itself. My mind translates this as, hard work pays off, but it has to be consistent hard work over a prolonged period of time.
"You could be at home sleeping, instead you're here becoming a better practitioner....you should be proud of that."--My instructor was never big with the praise....most martial arts instructors aren't. However, one of his favorite things to point out at 8am on a Saturday morning while making us do endless repetitions of jump kicks, was that we had made the laudable decision to get our butts out of bed to a cold studio and get our butts kicked in order to improve ourselves both physically and mentally and to follow through on the commitment we had made to study the art. Translation: When you make a commitment, you have to show up and follow through with it.
"You should do ten pushups after class for every mistake you make." Knuckle pushups that is. Not only that, but you decided what a mistake was. Translation: You're responsible for your own self-discipline.
"It's already done sir." One of the favorite in the list of Soo Bahk Do sayings. Responsibility is huge in the Soo Bahk Do world. When you're given a task by your superior, it is expected that it will be carried out to the absolute best of your ability. In addition, if you see a problem, you're expected to fix it, or take steps to fix it so that your superior doesn't have to. I take that to mean two things: If you see a problem, fix it....you might be the only one who sees it. If someone asks for a volunteer, step up and take responsibility.
"If it moves, bow." The annual testing for 4th dan (black belt) and above takes place as an eight day training and testing retreat. My studio hosted it the year before I left, and as junior members we were helping out. In Soo Bahk Do, it doesn't matter if you have uniforms on or not, if you see another practitioner you bow out of respect. The junior member initiates the bow, and the senior member returns it. Sometimes at large national meetings this means a bow-a-thon, and we weren't sure who was a practitioner at the retreat location. The advice given to us by the physical therapist they employed for the week? "If it moves, bow." Translation: It's better to show too much respect to other people than too little.
"The red belts will not be able to test until the yellow belts successfully pass their own test." One of the surprises our instructor used to pull on us--making a senior gup (anything less than a black belt) in charge of the instruction of a junior gup. Translation: You're responsible for the future of your community and your world. In addition, as you advance, you're responsible for helping those younger/less experienced than you learn and grow.
"Maybe she could bake them a cake." Testing in Soo Bahk Do is done with strict guidlines as to what is required. Our instructor hated it when standards were lowered, and commented that perhaps instead of doing a back kick at face level through an inch of wood in order to qualify for 1st Dan, the testee in question could bake the testing board a cake. Translation: Keep your standards high, achievement should mean something.
"Philosophy in action." Soo Bahk Do practitioners pride themselves on taking action. You can say, "I want a black belt," but you have to show consistent effort, improvement, and service to the art for at least four years of training (usually 6-8 though) to even qualify to test for a 1st dan. Translation: Actions speak louder than words.
"Today we're going to focus on intermediate stages of techniques." When you're performing a technique, there's the beginning and the end of the technique, but you get your power from what happens in between. Usually this was a kicking heavy class where you had to balance on one leg while the other was extended in a kicking position for minutes at a time. Meanwhile, our instructor was checking for proper body placement, foot placement, and full extension. It hurt, but those little details were what separated good technique from bad technique. Translation: Excellence is in the details.
"Fight for it." Usually this was said to us when were exhausted, sweaty, and sore, standing on one leg, and trying to stay upright. It was said to us so that we wouldn't give up, and that extra bit effort always made us feel incredibly powerful. Translation: Nothing worth having is ever easy, go the extra mile for what you want.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Freakout in 10.....9.....8....

2008-11-24T15:59:00.002-06:00

Soooooo, everything's due NOW. Apologies all around for the absence, however all you're gonna get right now is a meme.

LAYER ONE:
* Name: Mac
* Birthday: September 12--Big freaking Virgo
* Birthplace: Alabama
* Current location: Flat Dry Place
* Eye color: brown
* Hair color: brown
* Height: 5'5"-ish
* Righty or lefty: righty
* Zodiac sign: Double Virgo

LAYER TWO:
* Your heritage: Normal British Isles mutt
* The shoes you wore today: tennis shoes
* Your weakness: coffee
* Your fears: quite a few actually, the only one I'll admit to now is a fear of heights
* Your perfect pizza: Mellow Mushroom pizza (it's something to do with the dough) with portabello mushrooms, mozarella cheese, olive oil base, spinach, feta, and jalapenos for a kick
* Goals you’d like to achieve: write a book, release a trad cd and a cd of original songs, get a job, pay off my debt

LAYER THREE:
* Your most overused phrase on AIM: ummmmm.....I don't do the AIM thing
* Your first waking thoughts: coffee
* Your best physical feature: wow.....ummmm, eyes?
* Your most missed memory: mostly memories of my Mom

LAYER FOUR:
* Pepsi or Coke: neither, water, tea, coffee, or orangina
* McDonald’s or Burger King: McDonald's
* Single or group dates: single.
* Adidas or Nike: Adidas, nike is evil
* Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea: loose leaf, actually
* Chocolate or vanilla: dark chocolate
* Cappuccino or coffee: coffee

LAYER FIVE:
* Smoke: Hell, no.
* Cuss: f***, yes
* Sing: yup
* Take a shower everyday: Yeah, religiously at night, unless I conk out and then I get grumpy cause I have to wake up early.
* Do you think you’ve been in love: Nope
* Want to go to college: Ha.....still there
* Liked high school: Liked my friends and some of my teachers, hated my school
* Want to get married: Yup
* Believe in yourself: I'd like to.
* Get motion sickness: Nope
* Think you’re attractive: Sometimes yes, sometimes no; I think most women go through this
* Think you’re a health freak: not really
* Get along with your parent(s): Yes. Hi Dad.
* Like thunderstorms: Lots and lots and lots.
* Play an instrument: Have you ever read this blog before?

LAYER SIX: In the past month…
* Drank alcohol: Yes
* Smoked: No
* Done a drug: Does aspirin count?
* Made out: Nope
* Gone on a date: Nope
* Gone to the mall: Nope
* Eaten an entire box of Oreos: No, but I've eaten an entire pint of Ben & Jerry's Smore's Ice Cream
* Eaten sushi: Nope
* Been on stage: Yes
* Been dumped: Nope
* Gone skating: No
* Gone skinny dipping: No.
* Dyed your hair: No, I only do highlights.
* Stolen Anything: No.

LAYER SEVEN: Ever…
* Played a game that required removal of clothing: Nope
* Been trashed or extremely intoxicated: Yup
* Been caught “doing something”: Nope.
* Been called a tease: Nope
* Gotten beaten up: I've taken martial arts, so punched, kicked, tripped, etc.
* Shoplifted: Nope
* Changed who you were to fit in: I think every single person has, including me.

LAYER EIGHT:
* Age you hope to be married: I've never had a plan that said by this age I will do/have/be this
* Numbers and names of children: None
* Describe your dream wedding: Elope and throw a really big party with tunes instead.
* Where you want to go to college: Anywhere that'll pay for it.
* What do you want to be when you grow up: A gigging ethnomusicologist who teaches at a fabulous university, ha a significant other, a dog, and a hous.
* What country would you most like to visit: Ireland, always.

LAYER NINE:
* Number of drugs taken illegally: None....I'm a weeny.
* Number of people I could trust with my life: under 5
* Number of CDs that I own: Numbers don't go that high
* Number of piercings: 2 (ears)
* Number of tattoos: 0, but when everything gets settled for next semester I'm getting one.
* Number of times my name has appeared in the newspaper: No idea.
* Number of scars on my body: lots of little ones

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Facing the Peril

2008-11-14T11:13:00.004-06:00

Wow....so panic attacks, not so much fun.

Found out that if I want any financial aid, my PhD applications have to be in by Dec. 1. Now, I am queen of forms......but what I'm more than a little terrified about is the writing sample part of every application. It's one of those ultra nightmarish situations for me, right up there with taking a Geometry test that is suddenly in some alien language. And the scary part of the whole process isn't so much not getting in (ok, there's a little fear there....but not a lot), the truly scary part is having every school say, "Yes, please come, but we have no money for you."

As my roommate pointed out to me, you're also applying to FPU, so theoretically you should get in there. And what's the worst that could happen, you stick around at FPU, do some fieldwork get some more skills or get a full time job for awhile. Life's not over. However, as I've pointed out several times to several different people, the problem with fear is the it isn't rational. It's full of thoughts about completely tanking everything, and then living in a cardboard box for the rest of your life.

And there's alternatively the thoughts that I got so incredibly lucky with my choice at FPU. I'm afraid I used up my grad school selection karma on my Master's degrees. I've heard horror stories, and grad school is tough enough without assholes in charge of your committee trying to screw you over.

So all of that's floating around in my head, while I'm trying to finish everything up for the semester (including all of these damn applications), and unfortunately nothing's gonna fix it except to put everything in and see what happens.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Holy Crap, Where Did the Semester Go?

2008-11-11T11:25:00.008-06:00

So, quick hit between working on the thesis. I managed to get ahead in a few of my classes, so panic mode has been averted at least today.

Last week was both amazing and disheartening.

We have a new president, one that I feel I can support, and one that I think will bring about changes that are desperately needed in this country. Also, it's amazing to me that we live in a country where every four years we get a chance to peacefully overthrow the government. It fills me with pride every time it happens.

We also have an amendment to California's constitution which will deny the right of marriage to same-sex couples. From the Wikipedia article: "The official ballot title language for Proposition 8 is 'Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry.' The entirety of the text to be added to the constitution is: 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.'" One day I hope to live in a country that doesn't legalize discrimination.......unfortunately, it's not today.

Sooooo many applications to deal with for Grad School. I'm also looking at retaking the GRE as my first scores were not great, and I feel like I might do better if I retook them. The problem? Time and money.

Anyway, I need to get back to thesis land.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Vote

2008-11-04T11:11:00.001-06:00

Just Vote.

2008-11-01T12:56:00.003-05:00

Big weekend here at FPU.....Halloween, followed by massive football game. I am pleasantly surprised, however, by the level of sanity at one of the local coffee shops--my particular favorite, as I can get food with substance, a massive cup of coffee, and a water all for under $5 with good wifi and usually fairly quiet. Big weekend next weekend for most of the Musicology faculty as AMS gathering is afoot in Nashville. I am seriously looking forward to some time to get stuff done and off my desk.

As it is now a new month, I get to buy books.....ok book--singular. I was talking to Dharmonia, and I mentioned that part of my monthly budget is a book budget. Like most things, building a good library should a little bit every now and then.....with the occasional splurge if you're in some place like Hay-on-Wye. Basically I have a list of mostly scholarly books (like my own personal made-up master's reading list) and whenever the new month rolls around I get to buy one, and with Bookfinder I can occasionally get more than one because I find really cheap used books. So basically I'm sitting in the coffee shop trying to figure out what I want to get, that stays within budget. A note to new grad students out there......one of the things I have seriously discovered about living on a TA's stipend is that the budget is king....it takes the guess work out of what to spend money on. Anyway, that's a different post entirely.

I always feel slightly indulgent when I buy things like books or music. It makes no sense, because as a music scholar, I need new music and books to read on a regular basis.....and I won't necessarily always have a wonderful academic library, with wonderful ILL librarians to be associated with. So I'm buying stuff I need, but that I also want.....hence the indulgent feeling.

Not doing well this week on my time for myself (see previous post). I can always tell when I need to take a day or so off, when I wake up and it takes some serious convincing to get me out of bed. The inner dialogue that ensues involves me trying to convince myself that if I can just make it to the weekend, I can sleep without an alarm, but right now, today I have to get up and do stuff.

Also looking at PhD programs, which makes me both really excited and really freaked out at the same time. The one thought that continually surfaces in my head is, "We're doing this now, aren't we?" Mainly looking at the University of Michigan and the University of Oregon right now, but I popped over to NYU's site and it looks amazing. But I can't see a way that I would be able to afford New York.....in fact, one of the major benefits of attending FPU is the low cost of living. Who knows, maybe I'll apply and see what happens.

Lots of stuff to do, so I need to be productive now.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Boundaries

2008-10-28T12:48:00.005-05:00

I've been thinking about this for awhile. In our musicology department we talk about boundaries a lot. No, even if you're up at 2 am and you see the student's panicked email, you shouldn't answer it. But how do we set boundaries between our life and our work. As a musician, the thought of putting up a boundary between your life and art seems to be contrary to what I do. Life is art and art is life. As a graduate student on the path to being a full-time academic, setting up boundaries seems antithetical as well. Something inside me says that setting up boundaries seems to mean you're not "all in." I'm not one for the shallow end of anything. I like to be fully involved. I like to be incredibly passionate about what I do, because it's incredibly difficult for me to summon the will to work on something I'm not really into (see my HS math grades as evidence). But on the other hand, there is more to life than papers and conferences and recitals. How do we go about setting boundaries so that everything gets done, but so we still have our sanity, the energy to come back to what we love, and so we have time to remain well-rounded human beings with time for a spiritual and physical (exercise) pursuits? Suggestions greatly appreciated!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-10-26T15:48:00.002-05:00

I am completely dumbfounded by my ability to go from feeling perfectly capable to feeling like I have no friggin' clue what I'm doing......

I think I need chocolate.......now.

Namo Buddhaya, Namo Dharmaya, Namo Sanghaya

2008-10-25T12:37:00.004-05:00

Busy busy busy week. Highlight of the week was on Tuesday, when I got to hear a Nyingma lama give teachings on compassion. It was my first such experience, and was absolutely incredible. I was also able to Take Refuge which is something I've wanted to do for a long time. I'm hesitating here, because I'm not sure how much I want to say about the experience. One thing my roommate has taught me, is that sometimes the things that you have the deepest feelings about are the things you feel like you want to talk about the least. However, I will say this.....it was an incredibly profound experience that left me smiling in my bed in the dark until 2am, and then when I woke up at 7, couldn't stop smiling either. I'll leave it at that right now.

Also found out I have an invited guest artist gig in Kentucky in the Spring, doing the usual Irish trad flute masterclass and then lecture/recital. When I got to FPU in the fall of 2005, I could barely play a half-hour's worth of tunes. Occasionally, when I have time to step back and look at my journey since I got here, it absolutely stuns me that I've gone from that, to being asked and paid to travel to other places to talk about the Tradition.

Up for this weekend: gig with the Collegium, practicing, grade papers, make some more progress on final projects......and continue my effort to reclaim my apartment from the clutter gnomes.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Suffering Is

2008-10-19T12:07:00.017-05:00

One of the great truths of Buddhism is that suffering is. Not that suffering is because of something....but that suffering just is. We lost one of our number in the music community in DFP this week. I didn't know him, but the thing about community is that any loss presents a ripple effect.

For most of us, it lies in the fact that the kid in question accidentally bumped into a car at a gas station, and then the guy whose car was hit instigated a high speed chase which left the 24 year old kid dead because of road rage.

There's nothing you can say or do to soften violence. There's nothing you can say or do to take it back.

In the face of violence and hatred that strong, there are few things as comforting to me as the fact that I'm a musician and a teacher. Music gives me a voice stronger and more powerful than all the violence in the world. It gives me peace and a sense of calm in the midst of suffering, and most importantly, it keeps me in the moment. Teaching gives me hope. My freshmen drive me crazy with 3am emails, with their inability to remember that they're emailing their TA instead of their buddies; but they're all good kids. They try hard and they care about each other. What better view of the future can we hope for?

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Letting Go

2008-10-14T13:21:00.004-05:00

I submitted my Fulbright application today. I feel really good about it, even though I'm still terribly doubtful about actually going to Ireland next year. I worked pretty hard on it, and I feel proud of the work that came out. That's enough right now, because all you can do is your best, and then send it off and let the universe take care of it, because I don't have any more control over it.

School has ramped up a notch or three, as midterms are here and final project deadlines are starting to become real (instead of the, "oh that's several months away," that they seem to be in the first month or so of classes). But instead of the normal panic session, I'm feeling good about this semester (relatively speaking.....I'm still a freaking Virgo, so until everything's turned in and grades are submitted I'll still be a little worried).

Completely exhausted, but pushing through it!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,
Mac.

This year feels different

2008-10-09T13:10:00.006-05:00

My computer has started to die yet again. I think it's time for a new computer. I've bought a new battery to see if that might help fix it, but I'm still fairly dubious.

Fulbright interviews were intense, but went well. Now I rewrite everything, and on Tuesday I let it go. I don't know if you've guys have noticed, but I don't do really well with things I can't control. The idea of not being able to control whether or I go to Ireland next year doesn't sit well with me. Even more, the fact the I won't know anything until I'm packing up to move somewhere else (where or if....also no clue) also doesn't feel great either.

It's hard for anyone to surrender things to the universe, but I have particular problems with it. I guess it's something to work on.

This year feels different. Last year I started to accept some of the changes in my identity. In particular, I took a step back from being the "classical flutist." It was hard. I had been that person in one way or another for a good decade or so. I was comfortable with that label. This year, the labels I identify with most comfortable are ethnomusicologist, musicologist, early musician, and traditional musician. This summer immersed me in all of those contexts, and I came out believing in my ability to do all of those things. This year feels different because I came out of this summer with a clearer understanding of what I'm able to do and what I want to do, and I'm comfortable with most of the labels floating around in my head (even though they are just labels).

I guess that's the best thing about FPU, I'm starting (trying) to become more comfortable in my own skin. I'm not all the way there yet (are we ever completely comfortable with who we are, with the labels and categories people put us in.....and the prejudices that come with each of those categories......wow, that's an entirely different post), but life is a work in progress anyway, right?

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-10-05T15:22:00.002-05:00

More rain here in Dry Flat Place. I'm currently in a coffee shop, hoping to wait out the downpour, but I think I'm going to get soaked at some point. I think I should have picked up a kayak while I was in Canada this summer. Fulbright is off my desk (at least for the time being), but I have my interview tomorrow, so I've been in the midst of cramming extra info so that I don't get taken by surprise.

Three working weekends (as opposed to a non-working weekend in grad school?) in a row have left me feeling completely and utterly behind. Time to pull out the extra strength coffee and go into hyperdrive. Lots, lots, lots to get done before the end of the year. Not the least of which are getting the damn thesis done and figuring out what the hell I'm going to do next year.

Session on Friday night was fabulous. Every time I think about the fact that eventually I will leave these people, I'm struck by just how lucky I am to have found them. These people who love each other, and the music, and the teaching of the music. They make me want to be a better person, musician, and teacher.

Lots to do!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

The "F" Word

2008-10-03T11:40:00.003-05:00

Get your minds out of the gutter......I'm talking about Faith.

I've never been good at talking about my faith, what I believe. I was raised in the bible belt, brought up in the Baptist tradition, went to a Catholic school, went on mission trips......I have prostelitized in different languages. However, that never made me comfortable. One of the few things I still agree with the Baptists on, is the absolutely personal nature of faith. I have never been able to comfortably talk about faith, and sometimes I wonder why. In the christian tradition much of my reticence to talk about what I believed was the knowledge that I would spark huge arguments. That didn't always stop me. I made the news in my hometown after RU486 came out, and the local news station tramped down to the local Catholic school, and came into my religion class to film a debate. Problem was, no one was pro-choice......except me. And I had never talked about it. After 4 years of, sometimes oppressive and abusive Catholic education, I was tired of being baited and ignoring it. So I spoke up, and got labeled a "baby killer" among my more fanatic classmates. It also didn't help the fact that I knew scripture and church history better than the majority of those fanatics.

However, I promised I would talk* about the Dharma, something that's becoming more important in my life. The Dharma or the Buddha-Dharma refers to the teachings of the Buddha. There's a lot out there, but the most basic bit is called the Four Noble Truths. The most comforting part of this most basic part of the Dharma, is the acknowledgement that suffering is a part of life. Not because we're all inherently bad (the concept of original sin really pisses me off), but because of the nature of life. As a kid who lost her mom when she was 14, and learned about impermanence early on, it's a comforting thought. Better yet, WE can work to stop suffering. I've never had religion that just felt right with me. Better yet, I don't have to be a woman relating solely to male deity figures, who generally insinuate that being a woman means one is spiritually second class (women obey your husbands?!?!?!?.....screw that) or responsible for original sin (did I mention the concept of original sin pisses me off?). My current mantra connects me to Tara known by many names not the least of which is the Mother of all Buddhas. Needless to say, I feel more comfortable in Buddhism than I ever did in my Baptist or Catholic church services.

*I think I should offer a disclaimer here.....I'm a newbie to the Buddhist faith, so my knowledge isn't very complete. I am, however, trying to fix that.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Focus......I am a camera.

2008-09-30T11:51:00.004-05:00

Game on this week. Fulbright is due on Thursday, same with assignments and playing responsibilities this weekend, and guest artists in town this weekend. Monday brings interviews for Fulbright, and what I'm really worried about is making sure my transcripts get there in time. Also time to start getting stuff together for PhD applications. Holy Crap.

Nothing blasting a little trad music won't solve.

Sometimes I think grad school is like climbing a mountain with your eyes fixed on your feet. You're only concerned with not falling down, making it over that little rock, up that 20 ft climb, and occasionally you get a glimpse of the bigger picture. And suddenly one day you look up, and you've got this amazing view that you've worked your ass off for, and while it's not going to buy you a mansion, no one can ever take it away from you. I just hope I don't fall off and go splat.

Completely and utterly nervous about the interview on Monday. I know about Irish traditional music. I know what it means to me personally and I know about its history and place in society in Ireland. What I don't know is if I'll go into babble mode.

Have to get back to work, but........Game on.

Peace, love, and tunes,

Mac.

10 Small Things

2008-09-25T12:06:00.004-05:00

I've discovered that something small, seemingly inconsequential things have the ability to make you smile. Listed below are a list of 10 small things that never fail to make me smile.

Of late, my Early Music Vancouver sweatshirt: I don't think I can truly articulate the amazing experiences I had at that workshop. Wearing the sweatshirt makes me think, I hung out with some of the coolest people I've ever met, and I could hang with them musically. It also helps me think about all of the people who helped me get there by writing recommendations, teaching me how to perform, and how to combine scholarship with performance. I love my teachers.
Liam, a black fuzzy sheep bought on the way to EMV: My roomie and I have this habit of buying stuffed animals and naming them after amazing traditional players. Her large yellow elephant is named after Ed Reavy, and my big black sheep is name after Liam Kelly.
Sessions on Friday night: It's only two hours once a week, but I'm convinced it keeps me sane.
Musically goofing off with friends from the Vernacular music program here at FPU: We've all done it...and playing Ozzy Osbourne on a Tin Whistle is just great.
Flowers from my Dad: I don't usually buy myself flowers, and my dad is a huge flower sender, great giant boquets of beautiful flowers that smell really great make me smile.
The icanhascheezburger and ihasahotdog websites: have I mentioned I want a pet?
Coffee in the morning: Because I sip things really slowly, I can almost convince myself that I have some leisure time in my life.
The Codex Calixtinus Album from Sequentia......see number 1 for reasons why.
The Introduction to Pheigin Mo Chroi from the Dervish live album: Have we a language barrier?
Bookstores: For some reason, I feel a weight being lifted whenever I walk into a bookstore....weird, I know.

And a not so small thing that makes me happy that is becoming a larger presence in my life about which I'll probably write more about later......the Dharma.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Yet another reason to vote for Obama

2008-09-23T21:31:00.001-05:00

By the way Gov. Palin, Mac Tíre means wolf in Irish gaelic.

Will it ever happen?

2008-09-23T12:43:00.002-05:00

In the midst of Fulbright craziness, and coursework, and thesis stuff, and trying to figure out what the hell to do next year, I (for some stupid reason), have taken up looking at the SEM job-postings. Did anyone else ever do this in Grad School?
While it makes me happy to look at the postings and think, God that would be a fun job, about almost every single listing that I read, I have trouble convincing myself that it will ever happen. I can't imagine actually having a job, and a house, and a family, and a dog/cat......all of which I desperately want. I also can't ever actually imagine getting to the level of scholarship/performance that I want to. I know I'm getting better. I can do things now that I couldn't even dream of doing three years ago, but then you go in and you can't sing a freaking bass part.
I think grad school is rife with frustration and questioning. That's part of what makes it so hard, and it's also why you look at a lot of your professors and think, "Dear God, when do they pass out the super powers? Are they in the doctoral hood?"
I've also had the uncomfortable feeling of sitting down in front of my computer and thinking.....I don't know ANYTHING.
Or as the Russians would put it:
Yanis nayu, nichivoh, nicagdah.
I know nothing, nowhere, nohow.

Wow, long babble session, all basically to say--I want it (house/job/family/dog), but I'm beginning to wonder if it'll ever happen. Off to work on more school stuff.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Trouble Sleeping

2008-09-20T15:48:00.002-05:00

Lots and lots to do, not the least of which is two concerts this weekend (one tonight and one tomorrow). I have high hopes for both of them, and it's great music, so definitely something to look forward to.

Absolutely outstanding session last night. Sometimes everything just works, and I can't help but feel unbelievable lucky that I get to be in the middle of an atmosphere filled with good music and friends.

I've been having trouble sleeping for a while now, which leaves me feeling perpetually sluggish, except for the few days where I'm so exhausted that I collapse and sleep the whole night. Here's the problem: I go to sleep fine, but for the past 3 months or so, I wake up after about 3 1/2 hours of sleep, and have serious problems going back to sleep. I don't do sleep medication (it freaks me out a little bit), so I haven't gone directly to the pharmacy looking for a solution. I did grab an herbal tea that helps a little bit, or at least I felt a little better the two days I drank it last week. The problem? I keep forgetting to drink the damn stuff at night. I will attempt to remember this week, but I really want to know the reason behind the problem in the first place.

Anyway, Fulbright revisions are going well. Interviews should happen in October. Feel like a complete and utter slug today because I have yet to accomplish anything useful today, mostly because I've been trying to nap on and off for several hours. Finally just got up and decided to try and get stuff done (the perpetual push in grad school).

Anyway, off to try and be productive before the concert tonight!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,
Mac.

Reasons to Hate you Bibliography Teacher (JK)

2008-09-18T10:19:00.003-05:00

Apparently there is a site called Bookfinder, which links together tons of new/used/rare book sites together, lists them by price (with shipping already added), and gives discounts.

And now.......I can find pretty much any book that I want, click on it, and it comes to me.

Crap.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Getting Stuff Done

2008-09-17T12:25:00.002-05:00

Not much time to blog today--larger projects looming that I need to work on and the Fulbright is back on my desk, to be revised and then shipped off for more review. And as several people have pointed out to me...I should stop being so damn negative about actually getting the Fulbright. To those people, I still point out the Herculean odds against me actually going to Ireland for a full year on someone else's dime.

Anyway, I have finally given up one more bit of my flute performance major identity.....my altieri bag. You know....the little black gig bag all flute players have? It doesn't cut it anymore for me. I need to bring my laptop and not have it killed midway between home and school. I also need to bring massive amounts of books to and from school, and papers.....and my altieri bag tends to squash them. So thanks to a sale a Best Buy I have now gotten a Swiss Gear laptop bag. Today was the first day I've used it so far, and I have to say I'm a fan, but I still feel a little lost without my altieri bag (keep in mind I've carried one since I was a Junior in high school).

Anyway, off to (attempt to) be productive!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

From One of My Good Friends on Facebook

2008-09-15T12:04:00.002-05:00

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Listserv fights and Guest Artist Trouble

2008-09-11T10:42:00.003-05:00

Lots to blog about today.

The Fulbright rough draft is due today to FPU's campus Fulbright moderator (I don't actually know what her title is, but needless to say, she's amazing and in charge of the Fulbright process for us). So I'll ship it off to her, as well as to anyone who will look at it for me. It'll be nice to get it off my desk for at least a few days.

I played a traditional concert this summer where a certain bigger name Boehm flute player was trying to sell his new book of arranged tunes, complete with overdone piano accompaniment and staccato markings everywhere. The guy could play, and he was Irish, but he couldn't play the music. He even called Danny Boy the "unofficial national anthem of Northern Ireland." At which point I just sank into my chair even further.

Sidenote: I haven't ranted up to this point, because I sort of figure that's going to be the standard at an event like this--and that's why I go. Coyotebanjo once said, "This music saved my life." I know what he means when he says that. I go to the uber classical festivals because I think they need to know there are other musics to play, and I know somehwere there's other people like me thinking, "That. I want to play that.....but how do I learn to do it?"

Anyway, I belong to two of the more popular flute listservs. I mostly lurk, because I think these guys get hung up on insanely minute details about the music, and they rehash the same conversations year after year. Occasionally I will post something because I know more about classical flutes/flute playing than your average traditional player, and I know more about world flutes/irish traditional flutes than 95% of the people on the classical flute listserv. Well, recently a classical flutist posted a rather positive review of above book to both listservs. There are a couple of things you never want to bring up on the woodenflute listserv: 1) articulation and 2) classical arrangements of traditional tunes. Thus ensued the back and forth the same old fight. I agree with most of what the traditional players said, yet my name got brough up by another flute player and the insinuation was that I approved of the book, and that at said event, I played in a very traditional way, so that must mean traditional players should approve. I've thought about replying, but I've done what I usually do, and let it just go by.

Frankly, I wish we'd just all spend the time learning to play more tunes, or sharing tunes with our classical friends, intead of trying to beat them into being traditionalists or rehashing the same old arguments.

So there's that. Then there's the fact that five of us have been asked to play a masterclass/concert for a nearby university, and while we do stuff like that for free, I have gotten to a point where I don't want to lose money if I can help it (conference gigs aside). Unfortunately the person on the other side keeps going back and forth on if they're going to cover gas money or not. She's more worried about housing, when she has a house that we can crash in if necessary. Anyway, I bluntly told we had several people who couldn't afford to pay for gas to get there and back, so either gas money had to get covered or a large portion of us weren't going to come. Blah.

Anyway, this post is coming out late, but it's been a crazy week.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Writing a Fulbright is just soooooo much fun.....

2008-09-10T14:34:00.005-05:00

Insert sarcasm *here*.

Sooooo.......

Reasons to hate the Fulbright application process:

Your "CV"--a single page of typed text covering your life story, why going to a far away country is important to your psyche, and why the hell these people should give you a large amount of money to follow your bliss.
Your "Project Proposal"--2 pages of typed text explaining what you want to do, how you're going to do it, how this will benefit your career, how it will benefit future generations, and again why the hell these people should give you a large amount of money to follow your bliss.
You'll spend a large part of your fall semester writing the damn thing, getting recommendations, putting together recordings, getting letters of affiliation, etc., and more than likely they'll come back and say, "No thanks."

And while I know that it's absolutely necessary to jump through all of the hoops, it'd be infinitely better to just be able to say, "Hi....my name is Mac. I REALLY like Irish music. Please give me a big pile of money?"

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Two Weeks In

2008-09-07T23:23:00.003-05:00

Lots to blog about, but I'll probably end up crashing before I write too much.

I cannot watch politics anymore. The more I read or hear about Sarah Palin the more depressed I get.

She is staunchly anti-abortion, opposing exceptions for rape and incest, and opposes gay marriage and spousal rights for gay couples.

Still trying to get everything done for the Fulbright. Lots more to do.

Trying to get everything jump started for the semester (classes, thesis, practicing).

I don't know if it's just the fact that the summer was extremely busy, but I really just want to curl up and go to sleep and ignore the incredibly large, looming to-do pile in the corner.

Been having trouble sleeping lately, hopefully that'll fix itself in time.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Why I love Facebook

2008-09-04T13:20:00.002-05:00

One of Facebook's newest groups:

My Pet Rock Is More Qualified Than Sarah Palin To Be Vice President

Still in the throes of trying to get the Fulbright done, along with not lagging behind in coursework. Hopefully more to come later!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Why does my to do pile never get smaller?

2008-09-03T15:45:00.002-05:00

Taking some time out so that I can go back to my Fulbright application with a little more coherency.

I sometimes have problems getting things written down for applications. I think most of this has to do with the fact that I feel that I come off better in person than on paper.....that and the fact, that if I'm applying for it, I probably want it.....a lot. And the very fact that it takes an application, means that I don't control the outcome.

So I'm staring at a map of Ireland, thinking, "I could spend a month here and here and here. And study with this person....and holy crap, can you imagine what you would sound like if you played a session every night for a whole year? And if you only focused on playing the damn irish flute for an entire year......Oh....my.....god."

But the evil little voice in the back of my head says, "They only give out two grants every year to Ireland, and they usually get about 60-70 applicants....what the hell do you think your chances will be?"

Of course that's not a constructive thought, but it's still what comes up. Anyway, back to the writing of said grant.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Going Tharn

2008-09-01T11:49:00.003-05:00

So, I don't know about everyone else, but usually at the beginning of the semester sometime after the first week or two I go tharn. As in Watership Down rabbits in the headlights. Usually it comes from looking too much at the big picture. Looking at what the final product of the semester is going to be, instead of looking at the smaller projects that'll get me there. And it's usually at that point that I sit down and go, "Holy Crap, why am I doing this to myself?"

I go tharn.

Anyway, I've learned over the last few years that the thing to do is to make a schedule and chip away bit by bit......it's the only way to keep your sanity and get everything done. So today is dedicated to getting part of the Fulbright done and looking at the semester's schedule to try and get it squared away.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

And we're back

2008-08-31T13:38:00.001-05:00

Wow....I really was planning to blog a little this first week of classes, but that obviously didn't get done. The part of the picnic I saw was absolutely fabulous. The music makes so much more sense now that I've seen it in its original context. Unfortunately, they didn't allow pictures or recordings, which means that the intensity and "authenticity" of the performance remained undisturbed.....but it also means I've only got one or two pictures that I managed to take before they politely asked me to put the camera away. The energy of the place changed dramatically when the fife and drum band came out. People flooded out to surround them in a giant moving circle and yelled, "Bang that drum." And the only thing that I could really think, standing there, was how visceral this music was, and while it had changed for the more commercial picnics, here at the Turner family picnic it remained unchanged. Complete with dancing Alan Lomax wished he could have captured on film. There's something important there, about the instant change in the energy of the performance space that I've been trying to articulate for about a week, but I still haven't gotten there yet.

So I drove back to FPU after the picnic, and it rained the entire way back. That was fun. Anyway, came back completely exhausted, but excited about the year. This summer was completely exhausting. I've driven all over North America by myself and with a great friend/roomie who put up with me, when about 4 hours from home I said, "We have to stop and get a hotel room cause I'm about to die from sleep depravation." But everywhere I went, I sang and played either traditional music or early music, and I was completely happy with both. I went to the NFA convention and heard jazzers (holy crap Holly Hoffman!!!) and some great Venezuelan players, and for once I didn't think, "I should learn that." I thought, "That's really cool, but I'm happy with where I'm living musically." I finally feel like I know exactly what I want to do, and that feels completely satisfying but completely terrifying at the same time. This summer has also done quite a bit for my confidence. I went to Zoukfest and played guitar (holy crap) and flute in front of a room full of incredibly talented and diverse musicians, and I got compliments. I sang originals for people like Chipper Thompson and Moira Smiley, and they liked them (can I just say how absolutely impossible that seems to me?). I went to Medieval Music boot camp and hung out with some of the coolest, most talented people I've had the good fortune to play with (we'll call them, "The Future of Early Music"). These guys are gigging at BEMF and with the Concord Ensemble, and really all over the world, and after a fashion, I could hang with them musically (not leading the pack, but in the good solid middle). I played flute for Norbert Rodenkirchen, and he couldn't get over my traditional playing (yeah I know....ever-present threat of Irish music.....) or the fact that I could make up parts with very little direction (thanks go to Coyotebanjo and Dharmonia for teaching me that skill). Ben Bagby, Mr. Beowulf himself, even complimented me on my playing. I got to present and play at NFA, and I think I might have actually gotten a gig out of it.....we're seeing if they'll pay for travel expenses.

So what is all that, besides a list of things to stroke my ego? I have confidence problems. I love to play, but I'm usually not sure if the product that comes out is really worth listening to. This summer, a lot of different people who don't really have anything emotionally invested in me, told me really great things about my music (playing, singing, writing). I'm not really sure how long the confidence will last, but I feel capable, even if there are goals that I feel like I still need to meet (recording, actually playing in a professional band/ensemble, etc.). I feel like those aren't things that I'll wish for and never have.

Anyway, I'm hoping to blog fairly regularly, but this semester is looking to be pretty intense, so if I go off the radar for awhile, you'll know I'm waist deep in grad school.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-08-20T11:40:00.002-05:00

Last bit of traveling for awhile. Out to Mississippi for a huge picnic Friday and Saturday. Since classes start on Monday (with rehearsals and stuff on Sunday), I'll probably see the majority of the picnic Friday night into Saturday day, and then head off and see how far I can get until I collapse. Then up early on Sunday and back to FPU. Really looking forward to seeing this picnic, but really looking forward to being in one place for a little while.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Back Home

2008-08-13T21:47:00.002-05:00

For a little while at least......

God it's been a great summer. Incredibly busy, filled with quite a few different experiences, but overall fabulous. In some ways I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation, but in other ways I feel incredibly inspired and energized to just push forward. I went off this summer thinking, " I want to study traditional music and medieval music.....period." And for the first time I came back thinking the same thing. I'm good with traditional music and medieval music. Took me long enough to find the music(s) that I wanted to study full time and stick with them, but there you go.

NFA went well enough. To tell you the truth, I was so sleep deprived by that point, that I didn't really have a legitimate opinion on how things went, but the Flute Prof seemed to be pretty happy with both the performance and the workshop, and that's always a good sign.

Even as tired as I am, I'm really looking forward to next year and how things are going to shape up. Anyway.......back to trying to rest/watching olympic swimming.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-08-07T21:59:00.000-05:00

At the convention. Concert tomorrow and presentation on the following day. Trying to make it through so that I can then SLEEP.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-08-05T10:56:00.001-05:00

Almost home. Another 3 or so hours of driving and we'll be back to FPU. Wash clothes, meet up with friends, practice, and then off to the NFA convention tomorrow.....driving again. Will update for real as time allows.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Vancouver

2008-07-29T16:07:00.002-05:00

Yesterday:

Got to play trad flute for people at the flute talk yesterday afternoon. Norbert had wanted to look at my trad flute earlier in the day, so I brought it to one of our instrumental sessions later in the afternoon. He had me play a few tunes just to see what the flute sounded like, and he evidently was very impressed, because then he decided that I needed to talk during the flute lecture (joint for the Baroque and Medieval camps) about the idea that the older flutes migrated into different traditions.

Today:

EMV's medieval workshop is structured so that in the morning everyone sings, and everyone learns the chant by ear. The vocalists however are the only ones who get singled out to sing by themselves or to try discantus improvisation. That, however, changed this morning. Singing a melody we learned a few day ago, with Eric picking people singularly to sing each line.

"The next line, Mac."

Me stunned: "Me?"

And on we went.....including improvising discantus lines above the sopranos. Holy freaking crap it's high. :) After the open season on instrumentalists ;), we went to our instrumental section, where Norbert and I worked on my solo piece (Beata Viscera by Perotin), and added Roomie on Rebec as accompaniment. Sooooooo incredibly cool.

Loving every single minute of getting my ass kicked!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Vancouver

2008-07-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

Back to classes today after a restful (not) weekend in Vancouver. Session on Friday night was nice and welcoming, although the drunk to musician quotient was rather high. Most of the rest of the group tracked out to see us, which was really cool. Even got to sing, as it was a tune/song alternating session. Sung/played my version of Arthur McBride and Three Fishers (it was too loud to do anything lower in my range, unfortunately, high carries). Anyway, spent most of the weekend hanging out with new friends in Vancouver.....including several different restaurants and thrifting ( I managed not to buy any used books....congratulate me.... ;) ). Specifically The Naam could be my favorite place in Vancouver......24 hr gourmet Vegetarian/Vegan food. I think most of us are planning on visiting once more before the end of the trip (which scarily enough is Friday). Saw the American portion of the International Fireworks competition which was nice and laid back (we chose a beach that was nice and AWAY from downtown). Absolutely mind-blowing concert last night, followed by a long wine/chat session that relocated several times after being thrown out of certain buildings on the UBC campus. And this morning leads us to the second and last week of the camp. I think most of us are shell shocked about the fact that in 5 or so days we go back to our own lives without 14 other people who GET the medieval music thing. Roomie and I are extremely lucky to have people who get it and can (and do) teach it all year long, but there's something about being completely surrounded by people who geek out just as much as you do. I'll leave you with this:

We're studying the Codex Calixtinus, which is all about St. James the Apostle. James and John were called sons of thunder by Christ, which is a repeating theme in a lot of the chant we're singing. One piece specifically called Dum Esset starts with a big Latin flourish basically saying Christ came down from the mountains. Which in my head turned into:
Christ'll be comin' round the mountain when he comes.

Which someone went further with:

He will call you sons of thunder when he comes.
He will call you sons of thunder
He will call you sons of thunder
He will call you sons of thunder when he comes.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Vancouver

2008-07-25T16:13:00.000-05:00

Many many technology issues. Sorry if anyone has emailed the FPU address and I haven't responded.....it doesn't work at the public computers here at UBC. Great stuff going on. Early music boot camp rocks! :) Much intensive work on chant and learning by ear (I would have been dead by now had I not been used to learning things by ear). Aside from that, bonding with other musicians who are into the same things I am. Great discussions and geek outs aplenty. Basically we'll go to afternoon classes and then we're off until Sunday night (Sequentia concert!!!!!!!!!). Roomie and I are attempting to find a session tonight, which the rest of the crew decided would be fun to watch. I think we found one at the Wolf and Hound in Vancouver, but it's not really clear as to whether it's an open or closed session. The Session.org makes it seem to be an open session, while the website makes it out to be a gig, and the manager that I talked to was completely unclear.

Mac: "Do you have any live music tonight?"

Manager: "Yes, we have an Irish traditional music session going on that starts about 8:30pm."

Me, feeling encouraged by the fact that she called it an Irish traditional music session instead of spouting off about celtic music: "So it's an open session then?"

Manager: "Well, I'm not sure if it's an open session. A bunch of the same people play here every week, but if there's a chair open you might be able to squeeze in."

So....I'm using the normal trick......which is to ask the musicians if it's ok to sit in. Supposedly Mary Brunner (pro fiddler) runs the session, and they did specify that no beginners were supposed to come, so I'm thinking the level of musicianship should be fairly high even if we don't get to play. There's definitely an open session on Wed.....but that's in the middle of early music boot camp's last week, and China's fireworks portion of the international fireworks competition is that night. Hopefully we'll get some tunes!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Vancouver

2008-07-22T16:41:00.000-05:00

Finally made it to Vancouver. Had a good meetup with friends in Seattle, one of whom let me borrow some of his flutes in the hopes that at least one of them would work. Finally made it and met up with everyone. Still a little dazed and trying to get my bearings....that's just the way I work at really intense workshops. Everyone's really nice, and Dharmonia was right, everyone bonds here really quickly. I think it took us all of 15 min into dinner to decide that we should declare war on the Baroque camp when they get here. The first day of actual classes (there was just a meet and greet and dinner the first night) was really intense. Lots of learning by ear (thank God I'm used to it) and a lot of communicating what we want out of the course to some of the instructors. This morning started out well, with a trip to the library to see an AMAZING copy of the Codex Calixtinus, and a great class of chant and learning by ear. The instrumental class is this afternoon. There are only 4 of us instrumentalists. Myself (flute), Roomie (vielle/rebec), 19-year-old recorder phenom, and Aussie studying at IU (vielle). What's truly amazing is the calliber of musicianship here. It makes you really want to work on your craft, plus it's nice to be with people you have to make sure you keep up with. Last class of the day coming up, and I'm hoping to snatch some coffee before our instrumental class.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-07-19T00:24:00.002-05:00

Another long day of traveling. Much better road food karma today. Breakfast was at a nice local place called Connor's Cafe. This is what Cracker Barrel wishes it could be. Great hash browns, eggs, and sourdough toast with good diner coffee. Finally make it to Oregon. Lunch was a great place off the road called The Hungry Redneck Cafe. Roomie had fabulous french toast, and I opted for grilled cheese (again on sourdough), french fries, and coffee to go. The owner, Bo, greeted us as we sat down. "My name is Bozhou, but everyone calls me Bo." As for the Pacific Northwest? I may not go home......of course if I lived here I'd probably have to migrate during the winter. Anyway, made is through to Ellensburg, WA tonight, and had great chinese food at a local place about a block from the hotel. Tomorrow into Seattle to see some of the sights and rest up for Vancouver!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Arches National Park

2008-07-17T23:42:00.003-05:00

Woke up this morning, played a little. Grabbed some coffee and started to drive off. Roomie and I were sufficiently impressed with our time yesterday, so we decided that we had enough time to relax a little today. So what did we do? We took a detour to Arches National Park. Now for the Rock Hound (aka me) this place was amazing.

Drove for the rest of the day.....Utah has an insane amount of construction going on....not to mention that we hit Salt Lake City exactly at 5 pm rush hour. Needless to say, we made it Idaho, but not quite as far as planned. Below is Roomie playing amongst the scenery.....we played our estampie out amongst nature this morning.....if roomie gets her picture of me playing, I'll make sure to post it.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

On the way to Vancouver

2008-07-17T09:39:00.002-05:00

Long day yesterday. Roomie and I drove about 12 hours and made it all the way to Utah. Relatively uneventful trip. Roomie got attacked by large beetle like bug in the car (he tried to stow away), she freaked out while on the phone with mom, and about gave her a heart attack, because said mom didn't know we were stopped at a gas station and was convinced we had careened headlong into a mountain. Also spent a decent part of the morning talking over the phone (until my reception gave out) to various parties about a flute appropriate for the workshop. About three weeks ago I got the word that none of the flutes that I own are really appropriate for this workshop.....to which I said, "Great.....what do I do now?" Which led to me trying to find a relatively inexpensive but workable instrument at Mid-east music. Ordered a bansuri in an appropriate key, but unfortunately when I got back to FPU to check it out, discovered that the flute is about the length of the floor to right above my knee.....and while my right hand can handle the stretch, my left hand isn't really cooperating (aka I can play half notes and then eventually my hand cramps). So I'm trying to find another flute that will work and mid-east has nothing. So I'm actually ordering a small cheapy from Lark in the Morning, plus trying out some (awesome) flutes I might be able to borrow once roomie and I get to Seattle! I love looking at weird and quirky flutes! After the bug fiasco, and the finding a flute project, the only other memorable thing was trying to find food for dinner. I'm a vegetarian, and roomie is a vegan, so road food is a bit difficult for us.....easier for me than it is for her. Once we decided we should probably eat dinner....we sort of ran out of civilization. With the exception of a small restaurant called Lamp Light, which evidently is THE place to go in Monticello, UT. So we walked in, and things looked like a weird blend between fancy and normal off the road diner. We sat down, and the cheapest thing on the menu was 14.99......for a salad. While I might spend that much for an awesome meal in either Seattle or Vancouver, I'm not gonna waste money for a salad in Utah. So, basically we got up, muttered at the waitress and left. Other than that, really fairly uneventful drive.

I am obsessed with mountains, or really any type of large rocks that in my head seems to approach a mountain, so the drive was great. Really looking forward to getting further north and seeing lots and lots of mountain-like stuff.

More driving today, and pictures to come!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Rule #1

2008-07-13T12:53:00.002-05:00

Yeah, Rule #1 of blogging should be something like:

Thou shalt not blog when thou art grumpy and tired.

Notice me breaking rule #1.

Fairly uneventful drive back from MS. Arkansas was freaking scary though, with crazy clouds and torrential downpour and lightning striking where I could see it hit the ground from the Interstate. Ended up grabbing a hotel room, because I forgot to set the alarm (like a moron) and ended up sleeping until 11 am (holy crap I haven't done that in forever), at which time I still had to pack and straighten up the apartment I was crashing in. So yeah, stopped on the side of the road in random town and proceeded to basically not sleep the rest of the night. Got up Friday and drove the rest of the way back to FPU, went to session, and then got back home and crashed.

Trying basically not only to get things ready for Vancouver (we leave on Wed.), but for NFA as well, and doing work on the thesis as usual. Got in some good practice yesterday, and ended up finishing a song I was working on (although "finishing" is a concept that doesn't really apply to songwriting I think, because most of the stuff I have is continually in flux). Anyway, I'm going back to the apartment and see if I can reclaim my good mood!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Holy Crap, It's Hot Out Here

2008-07-08T20:33:00.002-05:00

Yeah.

Today went really well. Not a big information day, but a huge day for interpersonal connection. Met up with one of the local artists who's huge into blues and hung out with her the rest of the day. We headed over to the only real restaurant in town, and met up with major informant. We got to talking about what she was going to do now that she had graduated high school, and what her life plans were. Interestingly enough she wants to do something I already have a degree in (Music Ed), so we talked a little bit about that. They all wanted to see the trad flute, so that got dragged out, and she tried it out, which was really cool. Then she said she need some more cane (bamboo) for making fifes, so she asked me if I wanted to come with her. Off we go with local artist, main informant, and me to a local house where MI and I cut bamboo cane for the next hour or so....occasionally with me interspersing questions like, "How often do you do this?" and "What are you looking for when you cut this stuff?" She had to leave after that, but we're meet up again tomorrow to head out to another "have to talk to" person. Anyway, if I can figure out how to post the pictures from today (my cell phone), they'll be up soon!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-07-07T13:52:00.002-05:00

Everything's going really well.

Yesterday's thing was basically a picnic hosted by one of the families in Marshall County, MS. Some really good music, much more like what Alan Lomax saw than the big huge HCP thing on Friday and Saturday. The family hosting it was really nice, and promised to hook me up with a few people they think I need to talk to.

Spent most of the morning hooking up with people and scheduling interviews in town. Hooked up with a really nice local artist (she does castings of the local blues musicians in the area). I'm meeting her for lunch tomorrow, and staying overnight with her. She's gonna basically take me around town and introduce me to people, including some of the ones that are harder to get in contact with. Interestingly enough, she's a flute player who's just getting into Irish music, so we bonded over that, and I'm bringing instruments over so that we can share some music back and forth.

Definitely staying until Thursday, but coming back in August for the Gravel Springs picnic (which I have housing for as well, thanks to the nice people in the area). Will be offline for awhile, but getting good info!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Good Day Yesterday

2008-07-06T12:57:00.002-05:00

Yesterday was great. Good music, even if it was hot as hell. Some interesting things I noticed about the crowd demographics vs. the performer demographics. Going out for my small once a week splurge at Bottletree (bagel and the GOOD coffee), I found a flier for blues stuff this afternoon and tonight, featuring some of the same performers as the HC Picnic, so I'm gonna go off and see what I can see. If nothing else, it'll be good music, and while it's outside.....there's _shade_ and places to sit. I'm really happy with the media I got (pictures, video, and audio). I was right up front, so I got to see without anybody (except the big burly backstage guys) in front of me. The only downside was that I didn't hook up with my informant, but I think overall it was a fairly positive experience. I'm still planning on trying to hook up with her, but if it doesn't happen this trip, that's ok (I'm still trying to convice myself of that fact, but at least I'm not at the "If I don't get to interview this person in the next week, my entire thesis is gonna go down the drain."). Interviews and tracking people down on Monday and Tuesday. I'm supposed to leave on Wed to head back to FPU, but if I'm making good progress, I might put it off until Thursday. Either way I'm looking to drive straight through as I want to save some money by not staying in a hotel. Anyway, I need to go grab my camera and recorder before I head off to this thing at 2. I'll try and post some more videos and pictures later on tonight or tomorrow!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Fieldwork

2008-07-05T21:21:00.001-05:00

Tired after standing out in the 800% humidity for several hours with no shade.....got rained on AGAIN, but at least the sun was out for the set I needed to see:

:)

Do I really have time to look forward right now?

2008-07-03T16:09:00.004-05:00

So, I'm starting to look at various programs/things to do after next year (assuming I finish the damn master's degree of course). I tend to freak every time this happens. My motto since undergrad has pretty much been fill it out and see what happens. Inevitably I've been put in pretty good places, that have given me skills that I needed. FPU is a perfect example. The professors, community, and colleagues were exactly what I needed at this point in my life. Unfortunately I don't really do the whole change thing well, so the idea of leaving the wonderful people at FPU scares the crap out of me.

However I'm a little better situated than I was after my undergrad studies. I know what degree I want, all I have to do is find somewhere that offers ethnomusicology and early music (medieval please god), hopefully has a decent trad Irish music community, and is financially feasible to complete it. No biggie, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiight (insert sarcasm here).

As if that weren't enough, I have been overrun by the sense that I'm a little more than egotistical in assuming that I'm going to finish the master's in ethno by the end of the year. Is that bizarre? Has anyone else felt that? It's hard for me to believe that this time next year I'll have THE THESIS written and defended, and a shiny piece of paper with my name and Master of Musicology plastered all over it. I guess the biggest thing for me to remember is that I don't have to write the Norton Guide to Blues F & D. I do feel that I have some good and important things to say about this music that haven't been said before, which is something that not everyone can say about their thesis topics. But I want to do it well, and sometimes when I get caught up in the "Oh God don't screw it up," like sometimes in papers/presentations, that I can't get what I want to say out in a coherent presentation (either spoken or written). Something to work on.

Right now, it's look for programs and do the fieldwork time, so I guess the other worries will just have to be pushed to the side right now.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

100th Post

2008-07-03T12:59:00.002-05:00

Yep....this is the 100th post. I don't really have anything to say about that, so on to more stories about fieldwork.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had an early morning meeting with one of the churches in the area. The minister hooked me up with this nice woman who gave me names and addresses of people she thought I should talk to. All of this over a very southern lunch of fried chicken, peas, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, rolls, and sweet tea. So much for being a vegetarian. Also got the dates of one of the big picnics at the end of August, so that should be good. Tomorrow and Saturday are the big days for fieldwork with the musicians.....I'm ready to talk to those guys, and get some musical information. Although some of the people I talked to had great stories about Napoleon Strickland (the other fifer that people don't talk about as much as Othar Turner). I've scheduled some interviews with people in town on Monday and Tuesday, and then back to FPU on Wednesday so that I can get a few coachings in with Dharmonia before roomie and I truck on up to Vancouver.

On the upside, another coffee shop opened up last week in Oxford, and it has a much calmer vibe to it......I guess it helps that it's only me and the staff in the place. Anyway, I don't have to worry about 2 hour parking and the wifi seems to be flawless.

Small comment from the broadway field......

Holy crap, Patti Lupone!

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

If the humidity doesn't kill you, the Kudzu will

2008-06-30T21:51:00.007-05:00

Drive.

If you cruise long enough, ignoring the newer interstates in favor of highways that branch off into dirt roads, you'll eventually find Como, MS. Trees, houses, dirt, fields and kudzu. Kudzu that'll swallow trees hundreds of years old, and make what I used to think were leafy tree monsters (I read about Ents one too many times as a kid). Closer to the interstate among properties dotted with hydrangeas and majestic old trees with tire swings hanging from them are huge southern houses and shiny SUVs, at least two per house. Kids play in the yards.....all white.

Drive further down the road. To Main street. Most of the buildings closed and run down, with paint chipping off brick. City Hall, the police station, and the volunteer fire department sit on one side of the road. The buildings are small, maybe two offices inside each building. On the other side of the road, the only building that has any life coming from it at all is the barbershop. Doors swung wide open, fans going full blast. You can hear the laughter clear across the street.

Take a left on Church St. and you start to see the other residential part of Como. Kids on bikes. Houses of a more normal size. Ms. B's Cafe, closed either permanently or after the lunch crowd, run out of buildings and bits pieced together and fading. These neighborhoods are a mass of twisting roads that eventually dead end into a school with one rusty basketball hoop in the middle of an overgrown field. In almost every yard, entire families sit on plastic lawn chairs underneath small trees and talk.

Como has a population around 1,600, with an average income less than half that of the national average, and appears to be completely segregated along economic and racial lines.

************************************************************************

On another note.....I'm ready to go back to FPU. It's one of those moments where you're tired and frustrated, and all you really want is decent cell phone/wifi reception, the ability to stay somewhere that has those things past 10pm, a decent reasonably priced cup of coffee, a hunk of tofu, and friends you can play tunes with.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Back in MS

2008-06-30T09:09:00.002-05:00

Yup......back in the backwaters of MS. Out to deal with the archives this morning and drive to one of a couple of cities where Blues F & D happens. Hopefully will see some cool stuff. Also set up to visit some the church leaders in the area (tomorrow), and see if they know if any of their congregation has stories about Blues F & D. Will blog more later today.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Shifting the Model

2008-06-25T18:14:00.003-05:00

Planning on making a quick trip home to see Dad and rehearse with former teacher for a conference performance in August. Quick as in, spend tomorrow morning/early afternoon doing more research, scoping towns out (more about that later), and then driving home. Spend Friday with Dad......wake up on Saturday and rehearse, and then drive back so that I can do more scoping on Sunday.

I spent the majority of last night and this morning thinking about the fieldwork situation. I AM actually getting a lot of good information from the Archives, specifically about and from people I can't talk to anymore. I'm still REALLY anxious about getting to actually talk to the people in the tradition as of now.......but I will definitely get a chance to during the NMS Hill Country picnic July 4-5. What I am planning to do in the meantime is to drive to certain really small towns that I know the music happens in, and see what I can find.....either by asking around or just listening out for the F & D (you can hear it for a good 5/6 miles). I've also identified a few other early semester picnics that I can sneak away from FPU for. It just proves that you shouldn't enter a fieldwork situation with any idea of how you think it should go.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,
Mac.

It's a 12 step process......

2008-06-24T18:48:00.002-05:00

Getting over yourself that is......

Well not really.

Attachment is a bitch. Attachment to things, to people, to the way you think things should go. I had a concrete view in my head of how my fieldwork was/is supposed to go. It's obviously not going the way I imagined it, and yes it's frustrating and disheartening, but it just means I need to modify my methods. Take a breath, step back, and get some freaking perspective.

Anyway, at the wifi coffee shop.......coffee is expensive (although really good), so I'm opting for the free water.

Back to grind.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

You Can't Plan Fieldwork

2008-06-24T13:16:00.002-05:00

See header. Oh....you can try. But sure enough if everything you planned doesn't go right out of the window. Feeling really frustrated right now about the inability to actually connect with my informants other than brief phone conversations. Unfortunately they're in and out of town gigging during the summer, and as my main (target) informant just graduated from high school, I'm guessing she's also getting ready for college. So basically I'm archiving and youtubing it (a lot of their recent performances are on youtube), and feeling really freaking useless/dumb sitting in the midst of rural MS.

The good news.....I will get some fieldwork in because of the North MS Hill Country picnic July 4-5. I'm also planning to stay several days after that to hopefully cram as much into this trip as possible.

The bad news......I probably could have stayed in Lubbock and gotten a job and come out for two weeks or so and get the same amount of contact I'll end up getting.....although the archives have tons of stuff that does take time to go through. But I'll probably have to end up coming back out here on breaks and stuff during the fall semester to get a decent amount of fieldwork in so that I'll be able to have something to actually say in the damn thesis.

Right now I'm going to drink more coffee and attempt to think around the problem and see if there's a solution.....other than beating my head against a wall repeatedly.....

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

Taken from Coyotebanjo

2008-06-24T12:56:00.001-05:00

Top 107/108 ish artists according to playcount on my iTunes:

1776 Revival Recording, Alison Krauss, Altan, Altramar, Andy Irvine, Andy Irvine & Dick Gaughan, Andy Irvine & Paul Brady, Angie Mariani & Chris Smith, Annie Get Your Gun - 1999 Broadway Cast, Antigone Rising, Ashley Hutchings, Avenue Q OBC, Betsy McGovern, Beethoven, Bothy Band, Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Camelot OBC, Carole King, Cathal McConnell, Craobh Rua, A Chorus Line OBC, Chris Smith With Roger Landes And Randal Bays, Christy Moore, Chulrua, Comas, David Wilcox, Dervish, Dolores Keane, Dufay Collective, The Duhks, Ella Fitzgerald, Fine Friday, Flook, Franz Ferdinand, Garry Shannon, George Strait, Green Day, Green Fields of America, Grey Larsen & Andre Marchand, Goo Goo Dolls, Idinal Menzel, Indigo Girls, Into the Woods Original Broadway Cast Recording, James Taylor, Jekyll & Hyde OBC, Jeannie Robertson, Joanie Madden, John Doyle, John Mayer, John Skelton & Kieran O'Hare, Joni Mitchell, Joss Stone and Melissa Etheridge (Live from the Grammy’s tribute to Janis Joplin….best live TV moment EVER), Judy Collins, June Ní Chormaic - w/Micheál O'Ruanaigh (harp), June Tabor, Kevin Crawford, The Kinks, Kornog, Len Graham, Linda Thompson & Richard Thompson, Little Big Town, Live at Mona’s, Lunasa, Martin Carthy, Matt Molloy, Melissa Etheridge, Mick O’Brien, Mick O'Brien & Caoimhín Ó Raghallaigh, Mozaik, Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh, Music at Matt Molloy’s, Newberry Consort, Niall and Cillian Vallely, Nic Jones, Nickel Creek, Patrick Street, Patsy Cline, Patty Griffin, Planxty, Pierre Bensusan, Pink Featuring the Indigo Girls (Dear Mr. President), Radney Foster, Rent Original Broadway Cast Recording, Ricky Skaggs, Robin Williamson And His Merry Band, Rose Cousins, Sam Phillips, Scarlet Pimpernel OBC, See What I Wanna See OBC, Sheryl Crow, Solas, Spring Awakening Original Broadway Cast Recording, Stan Rogers, Stravinsky, Sugarland, Sweeney’s Men, Sylvain Barou - w/Philip Masure (guitar), Erwan Volant (acoustic bass), Tara Diamond, Three Dog Night, Tommy Carew (Behind the Mist), Victor/Victoria, The Voice Squad, The Whites, The White Stripes, Wicked Original Broadway Cast Recording, Willie Clancy, You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown 1999 Revival

Hurry Up and Wait

2008-06-19T16:35:00.002-05:00

I got kicked out of the only local coffee shop/free wifi place at 10pm last night. Welcome back to the Deep South. It is nice, however, to not have your hands crack and bleed.....or feel so thirsty you're going to die. Ended up buying an extremely cheap coffee maker yesterday on my sojourn to Walmart, because lets face it.....I can spend a small fortune on coffee in a month if I don't have the ability to make it for myself......figure I'll leave it for my friend as partial thanks for letting me crash in her apartment for free.

Managed to find one of the local "Celtic" bands in town, and have asked about a session (because I'm going crazy here with no tunes), and they have graciously agreed to see if they can get one together. No matter how awesome I think the music is, the community it creates and the boundaries it crosses are the most amazing thing in the world to me.

Contacted my major informant again today, she was very nice and told me that she would call me back about actually getting together to talk/play. I'm hoping (frantically) that she doesn't just never call me back. I know how that goes sometimes. My head calmly tells me that I'll cross that bridge if I come to it, the rest of me is going......"Oh please God don't screw up." That, so I've been told, is the nature of field work. Planning on hitting the archives tomorrow (and every other day after that) in order to go through all of the data they have left over from Alan Lomax. I'm also rereading a lot of the background info I've read over the past year. Probably my favorite historical ethnography: Roll, Jordan, Roll.

Currently I'm also trying to write (part of) an estampie based on the Dum Pater Familias from the Codex Calixtinus, so that myself and roomie can play it at the Medieval Music Workshop in a month. Also.....I'm trying to find a decent place to run while I'm here. Otherwise the stress from hoping everything works out is going to eat me alive. Anyway, off to work some more.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

A Real Update

2008-06-18T14:15:00.002-05:00

Made it back to MS yesterday afternoon. Oxford feels like the absolute ends of the earth after Zoukfest. I know maybe two people in town, which is both nice and disconcerting. I feel away from everything, which seriously encourages work and productivity, if not sanity.

Zoukfest.....what to say about Zoukfest. Holy freaking crap? It's yet another affirmation.......THAT......I want to do THAT. The Irish trad....the songwriting....the ability to multi-task WELL.......the level of scholarship. I've only ever been to two other traditional music workshops, and they were all flute oriented. I guess flute people are the same no matter what music they play.....they tend to be really narrowly focused. And while my lens is a bit too wide for my own good, I like a variety of different things. It's awesome to see all of those people doing all of those things at an incredibly high level. It's incredibly heartening and disheartening at the same time.....on the one hand you say, "See....it's possible. That's awesome." On the other hand you say, "See....it's possible. Oh crap." Got to play the flute at the Friday night concert with my dear roomie on fiddle and voice, which rocked. Also got the opportunity to play two of my original songs, and it seemed like they had positive responses.

The Andy Irvine concert was remarkable. I realized about halfway through one spiel that he was going to play "My Heart's Tonight in Ireland," and I couldn't stop from crying. I never thought I would actually get a chance to see Andy Irvine play live....more than that....to sit two feet away from him while he was playing.

Now away from all of that music, and a deep feeling of belonging, I'm trying to do good work on this thesis and get ready for the mind-blowing experience of Ben Bagby and Norbert Rodenkirchen.

Practicing, writing (scholarly and song), and throwing myself into the fieldwork sure to dominate my life for the next three/four weeks......and hoping that eventually I'll get to the level of teaching at some place like Zoukfest one day.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

On the Road Again......

2008-06-16T10:33:00.001-05:00

Back to MS......hopefully will make it in one hit, but not really likely as I'm still pretty tired from Zoukfest. More to come about everything tonight.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.

2008-06-15T14:15:00.003-05:00

Back in FPU for a day or so to decompress after Zoukfest. Won't blog about it completely until I'm a little more coherent. A little depressed because this wonderful experience is over, but I guess that's what makes it so great. It's only a moment in time.....like Ireland, like recitals, like the best and worst times in your life....only a passing, changing patch in your life. More later....heading back to MS here in a day or so.

Peace, Love, and Tunes,

Mac.