With some emotions aside I should get into the details of what I saw heard and experienced. Overall, the conference was incredible, every presentation I attended really was impressive, some more than others, in retrospect. Seeing academics perform and present their own research is so much different than sitting in a classroom; they are gaga over this stuff, it makes them tick - therefore a different side comes out. Each and everyone of these people that were there to present spent hours on research and on a quest to find the answers to analyze and to not so much master a subject but to learn and in turn become a student once again without the classroom dynamic, more of a life-long-learner. Being one of the very few students there, nevertheless a meager undergraduate, at times I thought can I be taken seriously. Well, it was a wake up call to find that the majority of the academics that I spoke with were willing to talk and to even take me seriously within the context of a conversation. That alone was huge for me. I met and had conversations with some very interesting people who gave me insight and in some cases a whole new outlook on what I am currently pursuing in my studies. I will save this for later in the post.
Now, for my highlights of the conference. I already covered some of them in my previous post so I will start with Friday and go on from there. One of the first sessions I attended on Friday was on a composition by the name of Bridge by Andy Jaffe and Jay Allen Jackson. I walked in a couple minutes late but was highly impressed by the music I heard, I believe the majority of the strings in the composition were all computer based and programmed. The strings program was the Garritan Personal Orchestra. I was highly impressed, maybe if we get more funding for software in the lab I will push for this program; it basically had the best computer synthesized strings i've ever heard. Like the majority of the presentations I attended I would really like to follow up on this one and hear the recording again. There were two presentations right before the Musicology Open Forum that impressed me. Though I was not familiar with the works I will probably peruse them in the future. Valeria Wenderoth presented on Massenet's Thais, she made some very interesting connections interpreting the relationship between the characters in the work and how this effected the music. I spoke earlier in the day with Valeria about what I was currently studying and what I planned to do with my future. She gave me some insight which I never thought of pursuing before. I hope to keep this dialogue with her, she was one of a few exciting people I met at the conference. After this was a presentation on Faure's La Bonne Chanson. Though a highly detailed presentation, I found myself eager for what was next, the Musicology Open Forum, 2 hours of my life I will never forget.
The room filled and of course I was the only student, there was a PHd canidate, but I was the only undergrad. The first part of the forum questioned some of the ways of teaching and how musicologists should teach, it was more or less a checklist of what is important right now in the state of teaching musicology. The underlying discussion of the entire Open Forum was the question: where is the Canon right now and where should it go. How interesting I thought. Of course I thought all these people will agree that contemporary music is starting to seep into the classical studies and this was an okay thing. WAS I WRONG. Here was a group (I say this respectfully) of middle aged PHds who were trained in another time, in another state of thought and through my naivety I actually thought that this was the trend in music, in academia and was a somewhat commonplace idea. Far from, my first reaction was a high blood pressure moment of shock, I have never had my heart race like that about an academic subject. I will not state what was said, but it was an open forum and it was very interesting. It opened my somewhat closed mind to the subject completely to the point where I now understand the other side (at the time I couldn't for the life of me, of course thats very human of me to want to defend my beliefs). I might sound staunchly here being a little bias, I possibly am, until that pivotal moment of when I become un-objectable I think I will possibly hold this bias of contemporary music. AND on the flip side of things (almost mirroring the forum!) this is what I grew up with, half classical half contemporary I cannot deny the connection there is between the two. Somehow I grew up in a world where the BEST music was BOTH worlds! Heck, for example, I just went through four Radiohead albums (OKC to HTTT) and picked out what songs had a Messiaen connection. I think this topic of 'popular,' meaning anything other than classical which is alot when you think about it, music being integrated into the Classical Canon will be a hot debate for many many years to come. I am just some how surprised that I somehow landed at this period of time where as I move into my grad studies and my PHd work this will become an even heated topic, and possibly within the area of my doctoral or masters topic. Taking from RH themselves: Everything In Its Right Place.
Okay so after that long explanation I am going to reiterate a little more of what I was talking about as well as adding more depth. The topic of the Open Forum: What kind of Teaching is Music History Teaching. This topic well can go over my head very easily just for the fact that I am not a teacher, and my teaching experience is rather limited. What I find here is me going back to my claims in the original (and now you might be saying broken record... just hold that thought) Is it necessarily right in this day of age to teach just the canon within a survey class? I am really not sure of this. I question that sure popular music and its emotional meanings to people could possibly get in the way of a full understanding or connection to a piece in the canon. I must say that it is a very innovative teaching style though that is probably sparsely used throughout the music educational system in america. Its either a history of rock or jazz course and then the survey. Now, in todays society would it work with students of a relatively mixed background going into the survey I would question that actually slanting the classes perspective might indeed cloud the view of the canon. This is very interesting after this conference I find myself questioning my very own strong beliefs.
Saturday marked an absolutely wonderful day that was topped by Greg Sandow and the Slipknot/As I Lay Dying/Unearth concert. I had been waiting all conference for Sandows presentation and by chance in talking about it he came up to us while waiting for an elevator. The Sandow presentation was on The Future of Classical Music and was that the place that I wanted to be. After being stunned by the Musicology Lecture I finally found some camaraderie on the subject of the future of music. Though Sandow came through an orchestral perspective the point was crystal clear, the lines needed to be broken and let the dance begin! What I am trying to say is let classical and popular genres intertwine and interact, they can both learn from each other! They need each other! I was highly impressed with Sandow (and his blog as well for a while now) and his ideas. After I decided to personally commend him on the brilliant presentation. This then turned into a lengthy discussion of the integration of classical and popular and how there shouldn't be barriers etc. One of the highlights of the weekend. Later on that night Jennie, Steve, and I attended the Slipknot/As I Lay Dying/Unearth concert. For two people who have never been to a rock show they had a great time. As did I, giving myself severe whiplash in my neck and almost losing my voice screaming... Oh well... It was a blast.
Overall, I have changed grown and learned. If there is anything your supposed to do in college and for the rest of your life it must be those three things (and a number of other things as well but I can't list them all!). We trekked and dined, wined and skated, ran in the sleet and discovered new things. Any GREAT EXPEDITION or ADVENTURE should have those elements and they were met on this trip to the fine city of Quebec. The CMS Conference was an invaluable pivot point to my future. Through my experiences I have started seeing both sides of the story to some topics which is something that has been lacking in my perspective (not a bad thing I just wasn't there yet!). Though I have attempted to try to express this past weekend in words here it has been a limited attempt, and has hopefully gotten my experience across a little. All I keep on saying is it was amazing, and it simply was.
Steve's Blog said...
Hi Meg,
Nice post. I'd like to pose a question inspired by the discussion at the "Teaching Music History" session. There's a strong possibility that, as a grad student, you will be teaching a 100-level history course in a few years. Assuming you have the freedom to design your own syllabus, what would you like your students to learn about music? I'll give you a decent size class (say 25 students) with a mixture of general education students and majors. The majority of the class are first year students.
Meg said...
Well, if I did have the liberty to design my own syllabus I would utilize the canon as well as modern music but use it as a gateway. I really don't want to steal the idea of your Contemporary Music: connections to the past course but (its really good!) I would like to engage the students, especially gen-ed students, with music they are familiar with and use this as a springboard into music from the canon. Obviously this would be a little hard with some pop artists and the students would be limited with their amount of musical knowledge. Somehow if together the class was able to analyze their pop (i use that in the same meaning as I used earlier in the post where I pose that this is all music besides the canon minus world music and a few other genres) music and relate it to the music from the canon they are studying then that would be wonderful. I just don't want to throw terms and listening out to them its such a pre-packaged format (though if the class was like 75+ pre packaged might be the way?) It seems like a big final project would be cool however in 5 groups all cutting up the cannon and each of the students do a little part of it - composer, style, time. I would even open it up for one or two of the students in each group to cover whats happening at that period of time since that is so essental. Each group would have some sort of forum - Blogs (I say forum cause in a few years who knows where technology will go!) Going to performances is also huge, not knowing where I would be or the availibility of performances I would try to open that up to them as much as possible. It might be hard as a grad student to have a command over the class but making a positive connection to each student is what counts, if any way through the music that is possible I would try to do that as well.
