9.19.2003
Goodness me, how busy I am. My email inbox had 52 messages when I went to check it today (for the first time in about a week and a half). Sorry to those of you who are avid fans of the site and haven't found anything new on this portion as you've been checking in (I'm referring specifically to my mother, but I'm sure there are others of you out there). Things are up and running in my new life as a wannabe scholar. I could call myself a scholar now, but then what use would five or six years of graduate work be to me? I jest.
My first two assignments for different professors have yielded me A-minuses, which is fine, but not quite as splendid as I might have hoped. Apparently I need to learn yet another way of composing a bibliography, because the one I got back today as part of my topic proposal for my Symphony class (I'm writing on Tchaikovsky's Sixth) looked a bit like the professor had begun to projectile bleed as he was grading it. MLA doesn't cut it in music scholarship. Who knew? Well, all the music scholars knew, but besides them? Oh well.
Patti and I are enjoying our lazy Friday afternoon by doing laundry. Of course, we'll have lots of time tomorrow as well to hang out. I came home after getting my hair cut this afternoon rather than going back to the library, because I planned to go to the library tomorrow (Jack will be at work, and I have quite a few things to keep me busy in the library). Anyway, I checked my email (luckily), and amongst everything else was a friendly reminder from the music library that they'd be closed tomorrow since there's a game. I think the entire campus except for the stadium shuts down when there's a game. These people are insane. I'd like to go to one... maybe I'll see if Jack wants to go tomorrow since I don't have much else to do, and Sunday will become my library day. I have several freshmen in my aural skills classes who march, and I'd love to see them perform. That's what I REALLY go to football games for, even though I understand the game pretty well and will certainly be motivated by the crowd... my friends in high school and I used to joke that the football team opened for us. Of course, we also referred to halftime as "intermission"... but I digress. Marching band is the coolest, and I want to see this monstrosity that is the LSU Tiger Band do their thing on the field.
Jack and I went to Virginia last weekend for the wedding of BJ (Jack's best friend) and Mandy Eskew at BJ's parents' gorgeous home... it was lots of fun, even though it was raining all day and everyone rushed around for a little bit trying to figure out how to have an outdoor wedding in the rain. (The solution was to have it under the tents they had set up for the reception, which worked just fine.) I had a nice time, and I got to meet more of Jack's friends from high school, most of whom I had heard about but never met. We also stopped in Winston-Salem for Saturday night and spent the night with my grandmother, which was fun but all too brief.
Some of you know that I'm a member of an email list-serve for members of the Society for Music Theory (see link to the left if you're interested). This is where the bulk of my email comes from any more! The debate over the last few days has been over why crowds at a basketball game will start chanting "Airball" on the same pitch, almost always an F. Various music people from throughout the world have pounced, as they love to do when given a topic, and what has ensued has been a really cool discussion to read. Someone pointed out that telephone dial tones are in the key of F (an F and an A), so perhaps that F is ingrained in people from hearing it all their lives. Others said that the two pitches of the "Airball" chant, usually F and D, are possibly a collective memory from the first two notes of the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of the game, usually played in the key of Bb. Now, I may have just lost some of you, but for those who are still following me, isn't that cool? It never would have occurred to me. These people are neat. I wish I could go to the SMT conference in November in Wisconsin, but alas, despite the cheap registration fee for students, I'd still have to fly there, which is something that's not really in the budget right now. I'll go next year, but I'd have loved to be able to kick off my "professional development" now! There's a smaller conference on Milton Babbitt (composer, great 20th-century musical mind) in Jackson, Mississippi, that I might be attending--I could ride with some of my professors--so I may be doing that around Halloween. Fun stuff. I'm thrilled to be learning so much and having so much fun at the same time. Music theory is neat.
My first two assignments for different professors have yielded me A-minuses, which is fine, but not quite as splendid as I might have hoped. Apparently I need to learn yet another way of composing a bibliography, because the one I got back today as part of my topic proposal for my Symphony class (I'm writing on Tchaikovsky's Sixth) looked a bit like the professor had begun to projectile bleed as he was grading it. MLA doesn't cut it in music scholarship. Who knew? Well, all the music scholars knew, but besides them? Oh well.
Patti and I are enjoying our lazy Friday afternoon by doing laundry. Of course, we'll have lots of time tomorrow as well to hang out. I came home after getting my hair cut this afternoon rather than going back to the library, because I planned to go to the library tomorrow (Jack will be at work, and I have quite a few things to keep me busy in the library). Anyway, I checked my email (luckily), and amongst everything else was a friendly reminder from the music library that they'd be closed tomorrow since there's a game. I think the entire campus except for the stadium shuts down when there's a game. These people are insane. I'd like to go to one... maybe I'll see if Jack wants to go tomorrow since I don't have much else to do, and Sunday will become my library day. I have several freshmen in my aural skills classes who march, and I'd love to see them perform. That's what I REALLY go to football games for, even though I understand the game pretty well and will certainly be motivated by the crowd... my friends in high school and I used to joke that the football team opened for us. Of course, we also referred to halftime as "intermission"... but I digress. Marching band is the coolest, and I want to see this monstrosity that is the LSU Tiger Band do their thing on the field.
Jack and I went to Virginia last weekend for the wedding of BJ (Jack's best friend) and Mandy Eskew at BJ's parents' gorgeous home... it was lots of fun, even though it was raining all day and everyone rushed around for a little bit trying to figure out how to have an outdoor wedding in the rain. (The solution was to have it under the tents they had set up for the reception, which worked just fine.) I had a nice time, and I got to meet more of Jack's friends from high school, most of whom I had heard about but never met. We also stopped in Winston-Salem for Saturday night and spent the night with my grandmother, which was fun but all too brief.
Some of you know that I'm a member of an email list-serve for members of the Society for Music Theory (see link to the left if you're interested). This is where the bulk of my email comes from any more! The debate over the last few days has been over why crowds at a basketball game will start chanting "Airball" on the same pitch, almost always an F. Various music people from throughout the world have pounced, as they love to do when given a topic, and what has ensued has been a really cool discussion to read. Someone pointed out that telephone dial tones are in the key of F (an F and an A), so perhaps that F is ingrained in people from hearing it all their lives. Others said that the two pitches of the "Airball" chant, usually F and D, are possibly a collective memory from the first two notes of the Star-Spangled Banner at the beginning of the game, usually played in the key of Bb. Now, I may have just lost some of you, but for those who are still following me, isn't that cool? It never would have occurred to me. These people are neat. I wish I could go to the SMT conference in November in Wisconsin, but alas, despite the cheap registration fee for students, I'd still have to fly there, which is something that's not really in the budget right now. I'll go next year, but I'd have loved to be able to kick off my "professional development" now! There's a smaller conference on Milton Babbitt (composer, great 20th-century musical mind) in Jackson, Mississippi, that I might be attending--I could ride with some of my professors--so I may be doing that around Halloween. Fun stuff. I'm thrilled to be learning so much and having so much fun at the same time. Music theory is neat.
Labels: friends, Louisiana, school, travel
- posted by erica 9/19/2003 06:25:00 PM
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