You Study Long,…
Monday, March 7 I woke up in a hotel bed in Bloomington, Indiana. I had one purpose for my stop-through there: to begin filling the holes in the information I had gathered on recordings of Negro Spirituals. At this point, I’ve identified more than 4,000 entries that met my criteria for the project, but quite a few are missing data that I believe are critical to making the results useful to the singers and voice teachers I hope to inform. Although a very early start would have given me more time to study, I decided not to push it since I was still tired from the MLA conference I’d just attended. Still, I was pulling into the parking lot a block away from the School of Music at the Indiana University at around 11:15. (Two things here: one, the students seem unconcerned about the potential of being run over by…
Look Out, Cincinnati… The Music Librarians Are Here! (Part 2)
Saturday, March 5 Over the many years that I have either presented or attended a lecture, I have learned that you have to allow time for setup, especially if you are depending upon the available technology to work properly. Well, for this lecture, I was heavily depending upon not only whatever equipment was available in the room, but my own computer–a two-in-one I had fairly recently purchased for occasions just like that. Let’s just say I was unnerved and not a little pissed that my computer decided to do a 20-minute-long update only 25 minutes before my presentation was scheduled to start without asking me if that was okay. IT WASN’T!!!! The MLA American Music Roundtable had invited me to give a demonstration of my nearly one-year-old online resource, The Spirituals Database. I talked about how the site was organized and who the primary audience was–voice teachers and singers–plus how…
Look Out, Cincinnati… The Music Librarians Are Here! (Part 1)
So, let me start by saying “I missed RB!” Since the trip for the Music Library Association conference was work-related, I decided to get a rental. They gave me this monstrous six-passenger mini-van that I had to get used to driving. Discovered halfway there that I had put the van into S4, which is better suited for mountain driving and burns gas like crazy. The vehicle was okay, but I just didn’t have fun driving it like I normally do with RB. This is, basically, the trip route: Anyway, the conference was headquartered at the Hilton Netherland Plaza in the middle of Cincinnati. Arrived much later than I’d planned–partially due to missing my I-74 exit in Indianapolis and taking a much longer trip around their beltway than expected, so I missed visiting the Underground Railroad museum (will have to make a later trip to get it done). Thursday, March 3…
2016-On the Road Again,… I hope
My travel plans for 2015 kept changing, which forced me to postpone adding my last three of the contiguous 48 states to this year. Had my 35th college class reunion–the official photo to the left, traveled to visit family, and I saw some sites around Iowa (covered on my Iowa?!? blog). Otherwise, a pretty quiet travel year. Hopefully, that will change in 2016. First driving trip on the agenda is for the annual Music Library Association conference. This year’s conference is in Cincinnati. Northern climes in early March, oh joy!! Forecast is for rain and highs in the 40’s. Not great when I’d love to go somewhere warmer this time of year, but it could’ve been colder and snow. This looks like a busy conference for me. I’m scheduled to perform Margaret Bonds’ Five Creek-Freedmen Spirituals on Thursday, coordinate the Paraprofessional Interest Round table and host a dinner at a…
Denver Goes to the Spirituals
Missed most of Friday’s conference. Really wanted to catch the afternoon presentations, but events prevented that from happening. C’est la vie… Saturday, though, was stupendous. As usual, waited until the last moment to put together my Powerpoint presentation, even added two slides less than an hour before the session started. Still, gave the presentation on singing dialect twice to enthusiastic audiences. Mainly talked about why dialect should be considered in performance of spiritual art songs and resources–especially recordings–where its use can be studied. The lecture included musical excerpts performed by historical and contemporary singers such as Marian Anderson, Roland Hayes, Robert McFerrin and Jessye Norman. I was even daring enough to compare the incomparable Donnie Ray Albert’s recording of the Hale Smith setting of “I’m Going to Die Easy,” which he sang without dialect, with mine–which is pretty heavily spiced with dialect. For the recital part of my lecture-recital, I…
Greetings from Denver!!
Got into Denver about 9:15 p.m. MDT. Pushed to get in with enough time to get (for me) a full night’s sleep before attending tomorrow’s conference activities. Glad my mother’s flying in to meet me here rather than in Iowa because I made the drive with only one 15-minute stop once I left Des Moines–where the hair stylist did an herculean job of bringing my hair under control–and I wouldn’t have put her through that. The trip included an extremely heavy rain with winds strong enough that even I decided I needed to slow down. Just hope most of that rain took out the fires ravaging Colorado. Speaking of flying, RB and I were pleasantly surprised to see the speed limit from west of Omaha into the Denver suburbs rise to 75 mph. Except for the aforementioned rain and the many construction sites, we made very good time, shaving over…
Ease on Down the Road (Day Five–the Home Stretch)
Got started at 5 a.m. Monday because I knew I had a medical procedure sometime that day in Iowa City and couldn’t remember what time I’d set the appointment. I also really wanted to avoid the morning rush hour in Indianapolis that, combined with all of the eternally ongoing road construction, was a fate I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Made excellent time through Indiana and Illinois. Reached Iowa City at 10:30 (got an hour back crossing into Illinois). Called the hospital and learned I had nearly three hours before my appointment, so I spent the time getting both me and the RB cleaned up and then had some lunch. At the appointment, the doctor told me that while the growth on my face appeared benign, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to remove it. So, after a shot of Novocaine, the doctor took less than 30 seconds to…
Ease on Down the Road (Day 4)
Nearly bit off more than I could chew today. I’d spent several hours in the gracious company of Eugene Simpson, with whom I discussed several research approaches to Hall Johnson’s compositional philosophy and ways I should prepare for a much more extended visit and study of the Johnson collection. I then visited and got a tour of the home of my host daughter, Tianhan. We went out for an enjoyable dinner of shrimp (me) and grilled octopus (Tianhan) at an uptown restaurant in Philadelphia. (BTW, if you know of a dignified way to eat corn-on-the-cob and take the head off of shrimp, please let me know.) I am so proud of how well she is adapting to her new surroundings, which are so very different than Iowa. Since she’s now graduated from the college, I guess I’m not technically her host mother any more, but I hate giving up the…
Ease on Down the Road (Day 2 & 3)
No post on Friday because I didn’t really stop long enough to do one. RB and I went from Port aux Basques, Newfoundland, to the outskirts of Philly (1284 miles) in about 36 hours. See the route at http://mapq.st/q2Puzi. Along the way, I had to stop at an Esso gas station, a holdover from years before it became Exxon? Was pretty much out-of-touch from 1 a.m. Friday morning when we left the ferry’s WiFi access until my cellphone finally ended its week-long “looking for signal” mantra somewhere around Bangor, Maine. As much as I appreciated the hospitality of the Canadians I met, I must admit I was happy to see the gates of home at the border. It was certainly much faster to cross there than it was crossing in either direction at Niagara Falls. Hmmm… wonder why? The lady who gave me a history of St. John’s on Monday…
Ease on Down the Road (Day 1)
Since I got in so late last night, it was after one a.m. before everything other than what would be needed to dress in the morning was packed. I concluded that I didn’t have a snowball’s chance of dragging myself out of bed at 3:30 a,m., which I’d need to do to allow enough time to complete the 10-hour drive around Newfoundland and arrive in time to get the 4:30 p.m. ferry back to the mainland. Plus, I probably wouldn’t be a safe driver if I did pull it off. Actually beat the cellphone’s 7 a.m. alarm–one of the few things that’s currently working on the phone while I’m in Canada–by four minutes. Showered, dressed, checked out and was on the road by 8:30 a.m. While the weather was foggy and chilly (nearly noon before the temps rose above 50), thankfully it only rained sporadically throughout the day. In the afternoon,…