Some Stuff

I addressed this to my classmates in my seminar on improvised musics,
but I thought it worth posting to others:

This is going to be long winded, but I feel like i need to say it. It also
has very much to do with the music major, and explains why you should, if
you're thinking about it, pursue it.

I understand where you're all coming from. But just to put things in
perspective, if we didn't understand Western Classical music theory period,
we wouldn't have been able to play Julian's  piece last night.
The music department is trying. Next year, they're offering an alternative
to music 33 and 34 (the upper-level repertoire and analysis classes) that
will analyze music modally (taught by Jeffers Engelhardt), and I'm pretty
sure they're looking for an alternative to the Western classical music
history and culture classes (21-23).

It's nowhere near perfect, and it's people like Jason (Robinson) and Jeffers
who are just what we need. But we don't have the resources that other
schools have. We don't have the numbers as far as class offerings are
concerned. And we, like other departments, have class requirements, two of
which (31 and 32) revolve around classical theory and one of which revolves
around history and culture (21, 22, or 23). That's 3 classes. You don't have
to take the repertoire and analysis classes to be a major, only to write a
thesis. And your other upper-level seminar can be any seminar (definitely
including Jeffers's seminar in the Anthropology of Music and seemingly
including Jason's seminar in Popular Music). Taking that one seminar means
that you have to take Comps, which includes choosing a piece of music
(probably of substantial length and probably in a genre of your choice,
though I'm not sure how many people have pursued the music major and not did
Comps on a classical piece simply because it seems that people who have
studied somewhat outside of the realm of Western Classical music tend to
write theses or take another seminar that will remove the Comp requirement)
and writing extensively about it. Period. I couldn't stand music 32 (form in
tonal music), but I took it because music, in some form, is all that I ever
see myself doing to earn a living for the rest of my life, and it is a
requirement for this major.

If you want to be a music major, then do it (if it's not too late). You take
three classes and then basically do what you want. And if you are someone
who is pursuing a music major and looks to concentrate in something outside
of what is offered, they will look to accommodate you to some extent. David
Schneider hired a trombone teacher my first semester here because I was the
first student they'd had in a long time who was serious about pursuing a
future in trombone. This class in modal analysis is being offered because
there are more (any) students looking to study Ethnomusicology and they see
that it's silly to make students whose majors have very little to do with
music theory and who are studying music that often cannot be notated with
Western notation. I told Jeffers that I didn't want to take 33 and he said
that I shouldn't have to. From what I know, there are two of us who are
writing music theses that have anything to do with Ethno-, and now they're
going to be offering a class.

They cater to you if you don't just assume that they won't. Right now, it's
3 classes on classical form and theory. Soon it will be 2. We need Jason or
someone like him, certainly, to keep this process going, for pluralism's
sake. But I just thought it needed to be pointed out that many of the people
in the music department are good guys (and I think it's especially important
thet Eric Sawyer is chair) and are taking our advice and our criticisms to
heart and making attempts at getting with the program. That's why this
position came up in the first place.

So not to potentially jeopardize anyone’s job, I have decided against writing extensively about my commencement week experiences gardening at the Emily Dickinson House and–far more scandalously–a certain president’s house (where we had to use the bathroom on the bottom floor. Ahem).

But I will say these things, because they are certainly positive:
I drank from his spigot (which just happens to be one of my favorite words).
I ran through his sprinklers.
I played with his amazing dog.
I picked lots of maple trees.
I learned how to identify Creeping Susans/Jennys.
The flowers were BEAUTIFUL.

And I got to work with Carl and Seguin, both of whom are wonderful.

la la la la la la
la la la la smurf