... wait a second, that doesn't look like spring! At least it still being cold, grey, icy, miserable outside will force me to stay inside and do some reading and writing this week. I have a long spring break "to do" list, but we will get to that in a bit. Let me recap last week first.
Remember how I talked about how disgusting it is getting in my office? How the humidity is so high that when I put on my jacket at the end of the day, the insides of the sleeves are wet? Well, it is starting to smell mildewy in there and is getting worse. So, I elected to take my contra home and use the school's contra until the conditions reach a point where I feel comfortable leaving my horn at school again. I have to be honest; I didn't want to play the school's instruments because I didn't want to discover that their instruments were better than mine and want to play them instead of mine. Well, this week I spent some time on the school's contra. Holy crap, people. I love my instrument more than ever now! Aside from the fact that the school's contra has keywork in places that mine doesn't, causing me to play wrong notes and to not be able to play technical passages, the horn is in some serious need of repair. It is missing screws, the bell is falling off, the peg doesn't reach the right height and slips on the floor, the bocals are bent, and more! Additionally, it is so out of tune! This week was the first time that Dr. T. gave me some critical feedback. You know how I roll: contrabassoon awesomeness at all times. But, I am fighting through this horn and am unable to be awesome. So, she made comments about my volume, intonation, and articulation: things I never have issues with on my horn, but which I cannot seem to make work in my favor on the school horn. I am sending emails to a variety of school employees to get the situation resolved because I shouldn't have to sacrifice my musical output because of poor environmental conditions in the building!
A couple weeks ago, when we had the incident with the screw on my contra, I toyed with the idea of taking my horn out to the Fox factory to be serviced, something I have not yet done and the horn is almost 10 years old! I have been turning the idea over in my head for the past couple weeks and I have decided to make it happen. So, I contacted Chip at Fox (he is the contrabassoon guy there) and am setting up a time at the beginning of May to drive my horn out for servicing. It is going to cost $500.00, which is a lot of money, but they are going to treat all the wood, reseal all the joints, replace all the pads, shine the silver, and pretty much get it back to the condition it was in the day it left the factory. I feel like I am willing to pay the money and take the time to drive to Indiana to have my horn worked on by people who work on contrabassons every day rather than give it to a local repairman, who might see a contrabassoon once or twice a year. Since the school's contra is also a Fox, I offered to take their instrument out with me. Temple offered to give me some money in exchange for the courier services! The catch is that Chip told me that the Temple contra hasn't seen the factory since it was built in April, 1981 (yes, it is older than me!). He said that, based on my assessment of the instrument and its age, it will probably be $1,800.00 to do a complete overhaul on the instrument. I don't know if Temple will want to go in for all that money. But, in my professional opinion, the horn needs it. Either way, I will be heading out to South Bend, Indiana in May. Anyone want to go on a road trip?
I got an email from Dr. C. early in the week. It just said, "Are you in the building right now? I have something I want to run by you." So, I went down to her office to talk. She told me that her schedule has become ridiculously busy and that she had to pull out of her speaking engagement at the Pennsylvania Music Educators Association conference this spring. She offered me the opportunity to present a session in her place. Wow! I felt really great that she had enough faith in me that she would offer me that kind of opportunity. I really wanted to accept... except that the conference is the same weekend that I will be in Nashville with the Wind Symphony for the CBDNA performance. Dammit! Oh, well. I hope that since I have reached this level with her that she will toss some more opportunities my way in the future. Well, after I had to turn down the opportunity, we got to talking about the research study I am working on for her, my pending research, and future research we might do at Temple and she mentioned that she would like me to be her second author on some of the future research we will do at Temple. The whole conversation with her that day made me really feel like she has taken me on as something of a protege. I can't wait to see what future opportunities come my way!
I learned a new word this week that I really like. Elucidate: to make something clear, or to explain something.
My midterm paper for Measurement and Evaluation in Music was due this week. As you know, I have been interested in the issue of educational tracking and grouping of students by ability, and their implications on music education. So, I wrote a paper on it. I struggled with this paper a little bit. It it such a wide topic that I had trouble finding a concise voice in the paper (5 page maximum) and I felt like my thoughts were a little schizophrenic and not as well organized or strung together as I would have liked. Nevertheless, here is the paper. You can read it for yourself!
Rethinking Seating Auditions: the Place of Norm-Referenced Rankings in Ensembles of Developing Musicians
Despite my not feeling super confident in this paper, my professor seemed to really like it! He made a point of telling me how much he liked it when I saw him on Friday.
And now it is spring break. Over the course of the week, I am going to:
- Write my Statistics midterm paper
- Write the outline for my NAfME session
- Do my taxes
- Finish reading the creativity book
- Write a research proposal for my research project
- Buy a tablet
- Sleep
Well, that is all for now. Have a great week!
Future Doctor Mitch, out!
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