Yesterday afternoon, I sat through several boring faculty meetings prior to the start of the semester. To summarize them: we have to cover our butts in case of litigation and tell you these things you already know, contact us if you need anything else. However, the reason I decided to make this post was based off of many conversations I heard around me before and after those meetings. Many of the people there were discussing their classes, research, scholarly articles, performances they had attended or were participating in, the quirks of George Crumb versus Philip Glass (to name one conversation I heard), and even the merits of attending one conference this summer on Topic A versus another one on Topic B. Really, I just wanted to pull my hair out, get in my car, and crank up whatever top 40 music was on to drown it all out.
Am I normal in terms of the typical "music faculty?" The above conversations, to me, are pretty typical of what most music faculty want to talk about with me, or I hear them discussing with each other. To be honest, I could give a rat's ass about any of those topics. I spent six years in college and graduate school learning everything under the sun about classical music (theory, aural skills, history, performance, special topics, etc.) and piano (performance, teaching, repertoire, etc.). Do I care about any of it? Well, sure, it has its uses. Do I talk about it all the time? Um, no. I don't think about it all the time either, and *gasp and horror* I don't live it 24/7. When I was in school, I used to sit and listen to other people live it 24/7 and thought to myself "when I'm out of school, I'm going to make sure I have outside interests that don't involve music so that I can have an intelligent conversation with someone that doesn't know anything about music." That's just what I did. Now, I'll admit that my biggest interest in graduate school was Lord of the Rings, but that was something outside of music, right? (well, Howard Shore did an AWESOME job with the music in LOTR, but I digress...) I also decided that, should I ever marry someone, I'd make sure that person was not a musician. Then, my husband came along. Here was a guy that had taken piano lessons as a child, so he understood basic music ideas, but had a degree in mathematics. Yay, a different field! I'd rather be doing things not related to music in my non-professional life more than anything else, like spending time with family, reading a good mystery book (or trashy romance novel, your pick), running, catching up with friends online, or even laundry. Does this sound like the typical music faculty person to you?!?
My typical day does not even involve touching my instrument (whoa, that sounded kinky, but it's not meant to be). If I play piano once a week, that's outstanding. When I do play, it tends to be with E in my lap and L standing next to me pounding on the keys. Very 20th-Century of us, no? ;) That being said, I don't understand how other musicians can let music be their living and breathing drive in life when there are so many other things out there for them to experience. Case in point: there is a person in the local music teachers association that I'll call P. P is unmarried and about 60, and P blames the fact that P is still single on caller ID. P constantly talks about P's music teaching, performances attended, P's college days, strategies for teaching students (even when it's isn't asked for), and just generally being the world's most socially incompetent person. I never want to end up like P. I'm not saying that all musicians are like this, but many are like P to a varying degree. How is this living? I can't figure it out.
I'd rather spend my days focused on non-music-related things then become so wrapped up in that world again that it's like walking around with blinders on to the rest of the world. I love being married into a family of engineers because they talk about scientific things all the time that make zero sense to me (and then? when they experiment on this stuff? that leads to hilarity), but it's not music 24/7! I like listening to my husband's punk rock music while I work out, and to the children's CDs we have at home when E and L are around. In all honest truth, I love sharing music with my college students and teaching them to play the piano, but that's about as far as I think I'd ever want to go. Does that make me a little odd when it comes to musicians? Probably, but I'm okay with that. Isn't everyone just a little bit odd?
It's fine to have an interest in your work, especially when you've achieved a doctorate in your field. Of the conversations you mentioned, I can see SOME of them having some merit - discussing their classes if there are multiple professors teaching sections of a course, and maybe conferences/articles if they're trying to improve a tenure portfolio. But I've found it to be far more common in the arts world, and especially the music world, that people devote their entire lives to only things within that bubble. I have a decent amount of contact with people in music, and the percentage of them who are socially awkward or socially inept, compared to those outside of music who have social difficulties, is staggering. There are certain acquaintances of mine would would take the story of you and the girls playing the piano, and only be able to relate to it by comparing the resulting sound to a particular realm of music theory and its devoted composers. These people drive me insane. I've found it to be far worse in academia, especially for grad students. They're ignorant of anything outside the music building and the closest Starbucks. Congrats on being halfway normal.
ReplyDeleteLol! Thanks, glad I'm not the only one (and for me in grad school, it was the music building and the Bruegger's Bagels across the street!).
ReplyDeleteIn undergrad, you were in that music-only bubble.
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