Dangerously Overeducated
Last Christmas I received a black sweatshirt with the above title emblazoned across the front: Dangerously Overeducated. I wear it proudly, and try to live up to the title as best I can.
Two years ago, my brother gave me my doctoral hood for Christmas. Most Ph.D.s don't bother to buy all the academic regalia unless they're actually IN academia and are required to don such rigamarole 2-3 times a year. But since I started singing in an Episcopal Cathedral choir, we are "allowed" to wear the academic hood for Evensong services and other special occasions.
This same cathedral choir in which I sing is going to England this summer to sing "in residence" in Windsor Chapel and then Canterbury Cathedral. Because of money and time constraints, I will not be going along - but it occurred to me yesterday that I should send the doctoral hood in my stead. I could appoint one of the singers who IS going to wear it in services - and then I could "be there" in spirit.
Ah, but I'm skirting the point - my blog today is a rant. I want to bitch and complain and stomp and scream: this comes from the very darkest pit of my stomach, Goddammit. And the problem is that without a carefully crafted well reasoned-out thesis, even a rant is just bitching and moaning. I read deathless theoretical tomes - many by my former colleagues in academia - and I get this wrenching knot in my stomach. It's all esoteric, however logical, well-ripened avant garde bullshit.
Then I woke this morning with an epiphany - of sorts: I don't want to talk about music. I just want to make the music. I don't want to analyze it to instruct - I just want to know: how does it work? and maybe why? Do you suppose the nuclear physicist feels this way? He doesn't want to actually use that bomb, he just wants to know how it works - for the pure esoteric joy of knowing? And if hypothesis become thesis becomes theory becomes revelation - all the better?
I wanted to compose a choral fanfare: the text (by Alice Corbin) began: "After the roar! After the fierce modern music!" I composed an 8-part arpeggiated vocal exclamation to fit the text - and the first time we sang it, it was wonderful; dissonant, tense and alarmingly explosive, and I blurted, "Oh, my God! What have I done?"
Red Earth - Overture.
THAT's what I mean when I say to myself: "Go home; write more music."
Two years ago, my brother gave me my doctoral hood for Christmas. Most Ph.D.s don't bother to buy all the academic regalia unless they're actually IN academia and are required to don such rigamarole 2-3 times a year. But since I started singing in an Episcopal Cathedral choir, we are "allowed" to wear the academic hood for Evensong services and other special occasions.
This same cathedral choir in which I sing is going to England this summer to sing "in residence" in Windsor Chapel and then Canterbury Cathedral. Because of money and time constraints, I will not be going along - but it occurred to me yesterday that I should send the doctoral hood in my stead. I could appoint one of the singers who IS going to wear it in services - and then I could "be there" in spirit.
Ah, but I'm skirting the point - my blog today is a rant. I want to bitch and complain and stomp and scream: this comes from the very darkest pit of my stomach, Goddammit. And the problem is that without a carefully crafted well reasoned-out thesis, even a rant is just bitching and moaning. I read deathless theoretical tomes - many by my former colleagues in academia - and I get this wrenching knot in my stomach. It's all esoteric, however logical, well-ripened avant garde bullshit.
Then I woke this morning with an epiphany - of sorts: I don't want to talk about music. I just want to make the music. I don't want to analyze it to instruct - I just want to know: how does it work? and maybe why? Do you suppose the nuclear physicist feels this way? He doesn't want to actually use that bomb, he just wants to know how it works - for the pure esoteric joy of knowing? And if hypothesis become thesis becomes theory becomes revelation - all the better?
I wanted to compose a choral fanfare: the text (by Alice Corbin) began: "After the roar! After the fierce modern music!" I composed an 8-part arpeggiated vocal exclamation to fit the text - and the first time we sang it, it was wonderful; dissonant, tense and alarmingly explosive, and I blurted, "Oh, my God! What have I done?"
Red Earth - Overture.
THAT's what I mean when I say to myself: "Go home; write more music."
posted by M. L. Place Badarak | 7:13 AM
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