Why Can't We Have Both?

Upon reading this post speculating on the ten worst hymns of all time, I have some mixed feelings.

I'm a practicing, active Catholic, and, therein, I suppose, church musician (however modestly so). I've sung in my church's choir for six years (and just had a very emotional final Sunday with them). While I'm quite liberal and ecumenical in my applications and interpretations of Catholic theology, my approach to liturgical music - its purposes, and the varying roles of the choir and the congregation - is perhaps a little stricter than most (and, paradoxically, more relaxed when it comes to quick tempos, percussion, and clapping. I was, after all, raised Protestant!).

After the Second Vatican Council, there was a huge movement to make the people active participants in the mass; responding, participating to the Word of God and the Eucharist. That movement has, I would argue, ceased to be a movement and rather become the cultural air that Catholics breathe. I do find that a thing of beauty - it creates community.

Outside of national anthems at varying gatherings, church services are one of the only places left of public, communal singing. Therefore, it is necessary that it include the people. But since it's one of the last strongholds of music education, I think it's also an exciting opportunity for musical education, exploration, and improvement.

Many of the hymns on the list are staples of my former church's musical repertoire. The songs are easy to sing, and can usually be learned (at least, I find) from one hearing. I'll admit that I like many of the songs and composers on the list. Haugen's Mass of Creation is stunning, "City of God," brings tears to my eyes, and "I am the Bread of Life" is one of my all-time favourite hymns. Many of the simple songs are beautiful in, and because of, their simplicity.

But when songs such as these - easily learned, frequently sung - are all  that is sung...I think there's a problem there. Because, in truth, I think the people we're trying to include by being simple and easy to follow, are actually bored of the repeated repertoire, the same thing week after week.

And these songs, while beautiful, only represent the last fifty years of liturgical music. It does seem foolish to ignore the hundreds upon hundreds of other years (during which were created some of the most glorious compositions in existence). And (my personal complaint) there's no Latin! Cutting out the linguistic and musical history of a celebration that, otherwise, hasn't really changed in two thousand years seems, to me, to distance post-Vatican II Catholics from their roots; their origins.

I'm not saying there should be a return to Latin polyphony as the mainstay of liturgical music - I'm a decent singer with a fair amount of education, and I'm doubtful of my ability to hack Latin polyphony at 9AM on a Sunday morning. But I think there is something to be said for stretching ourselves - in doing something a little more demanding, in singing, as Wesley put it, "lustily, and with good courage" a little higher or lower than we think we can.

This music is, after all, for God. And God deserves the best attempts we're able to give.
  

A Rant of Sorts

I grew up in a small town. This has many merits, and many demerits. On Sunday morning when I walk to church, it's rare that someone doesn't pull their car over to drive me the rest of the way. When I forget ID, clerks at the beer and wine store know me, so I get Chardonnay just the same (let me clarify: from high school, not from frequent visits!). There's some wonderful, good, hardworking people who live here, and they've taught me much about the way I want to live life.

But one thing I'm really, really struck by, having come home for the summer after creating a life-plan which involves a lot of school, is the mind-set of a lot of people.

Read: the pitying looks people give me when I tell them that I intend to get a Ph.D, a look usually followed by what I imagine is meant to be a reassuring comment of: "Don't worry, dear. Soon enough you'll find an M-A-N and forget all about a P-H-D."

While I have nothing but respect for women who do choose to marry, and be full-time wives and mothers, comments like the one above really infuriate me. The balance between work and home, or the choice to work in the home, is a choice meant to be made by each individual woman, on her own terms and conditions.

I made a decision to pursue music scholarship. While I very much hope to get married, and have children, a man that isn't willing to accept my career ambitions is not someone I see myself being with in the long-term. To reject something which is that much a part of me is to reject me, period. That's not the makings of a successful long-term relationship, and certainly not the makings of someone I would want to raise children with.

Furthermore, I hate the insinuation that I can't have both.

It's an insult - not only to me, but to all women who have successfully balanced, and who are currently balancing, both academic careers and family lives.

In Celebration of My Nerdiness

I got rather excited today upon discovering this.

A Moment of Realization

It's late at night on May long weekend. Normally I would be attempting to do something fun with friends seeing as I'm 20 and it's, well, May long weekend. Alas, my friends are currently scattered throughout the province and country. Which led to me sitting in my house. Reading the websites for varying AMS* chapters. At midnight. On a long weekend. Cause I'm cool like that.

Right about the point when I opened up the New York State/St. Lawrence Chapter site, I realized that (I apologize for my lack of better phrasing), holy shit, I actually am moving to the other end of the country to pursue music scholarship. While I imagine Nova Scotia is actually covered by the mid-Atlantic Chapter and not the NY/St. Lawrence Chapter, both Chapters share the common feature of being on the other side of the country. Where I know absolutely no one. And where, in three and a half months, I will be arriving with a suitcase full of clothes and another full of books/scores, to make a fresh start.

Awesome? Absolutely.

Terrifying? Um. Yeah.

It's not like I hadn't thought about it before. My move is well-documented in the social networking grapevine, I spent most of the days after I got my acceptance letter in a state of ecstatic bliss, I've started thinking about non-Pacific Coast winter-wear, my parents are getting Air Miles cards. I thought about it when I persevered (only crying once!) through my last day at UVic (which, by the way, shall receive some over-due kudos in a later post).

And yet, I think tonight is the first time that it hit me. That's not to say I'm scared or having second thoughts. It's just that now, it's so undeniably real.

Moving on, in other news, in consideration of my friends who don't have blogger IDs, I have opened my comments section to all. Feel free to say hi and let me know that you're reading!

Tonight, for whatever reason, I am also feeling the need to express (a likely obvious statement) that this is not an academic blog. It's a blog about music, and academia, and music academia. But it's my blog on music/academia/the two combined. So it's also a blog about spirituality, philosophy, writing, books, life, events, people, places, community, issues, ideas, and other topics. Academic blogs undoubtedly discuss these things, but I want to feel free from time to time to write, unapologetically, without academic protocol (other than citing/attributing sources, of course), about some things that simply matter to me, and to the people and communities, musical and otherwise, around me.

Also, come on, I'm a second-year undergrad! Claiming to write an academic blog would be foolish. When push comes to shove, I'm not an academic.

Well, not yet, anyway...

*AMS stands for the American Musicological Society, which also covers most of (if not all) the Canadian provinces (possibly the territories as well; I'll admit to my own ignorance as far as that's concerned). It's an academic society devoted to promoting musicological scholarship through presentations of research at varying conferences, providing grants, et cetera.

This Made Me Happy

Being as I'm in an academic program that requires the ability to write really, really well, this made me giggle. I can't quite say "been there, done that," but the copious amount of type-speak I'm forced to endure as a member of the texting generation does make me somewhat sympathetic:

From Quick Study

A Study of Contradiction

Today I had an amazing conversation with Nancy, my piano teacher. We were talking about the balance of musicologist and performer, and how music itself is ultimately a series of contradictions.

Playing the piano is my life's joy and passion. My keyboard (whose name is Oscar, after O. Peterson) is my truest, oldest friend - and that's saying something, because I have really good friends, who mean the world to me. At my keyboard, however, select few other things exist. It's me, the notes, and peace/God/love/call it what you will.

I feel much the same way about singing, but my hands are more dependable than my voice, and so the piano has been my constant in moments when my voice is too weak or my asthma is too severe to make music that way.

That passion for music led me to study it. Yet one thing I've struggled with throughout my studies it is holding onto what brought me to music in the first place: I was a 17, and I knew nothing about Western Classical Music, other than the fact that I was crazily and passionately in love with it. Before I knew that augmented and diminished chords existed, before I knew of counterpoint or perfect pitch or Bach chorales or any of the other countless things my time as a music student has taught me...I already had music. Music is innately within me; innately within all of us.

And before I began music scholarship, I brought musicality to the piano. I brought an ability to play with passion, wild abandon; I had a performer's spirit. Yet somewhere, I misplaced that and traded it in for theoretical knowledge. I can analyze the pieces I play now - but at what cost? From sometime around October until present, the intention, the spirit, the magic I used to have behind and between the notes went away, and was replaced with fact, style; with good grammar, so to speak.

It's through the union, the marriage of my scholarly training and my innate performer that I create the greatest music. Great teaching, great research, and great performance are all born from the union of mind and heart, creativity and knowledge.

Music scholarship requires a concentrated, academic mind, but it also requires that you be a musician first, and forever. In becoming Rena the musicologist, I can't lose sight or understanding of Rena the pianist and vocalist.

And, indeed, combining the two will doubtlessly lead to better research, better playing/singing, and, eventually, more effective teaching.

Now I just have to do it, instead of writing about it. No challenge there, no sir, none at all... ;-)

The Last Academic Year in Natural Highs

Early morning sunrises.

Music History class.

Getting choir folders full of new music.

Arriving on campus at 7AM, leaving at 11:30PM.

Haydn.

London Fogs and Croissants with Chelsey.

Watching opera clips in Music History Class.

Overcoming my pathological fear of blank manuscript paper to realize that I love composing.

Breakfast, when I actually ate it.

The incredibly nerd conversations my roommate and I would have about politics.

Good cups of coffee.

Long chats with Tyler about Wagner.

Call me crazy, but, theory class.

Acing Musicianship tests!

Wrapping my brain around Don Giovanni and Mozart's Requiem.

Singing high notes.

Baking sugar cookies and cupcakes and chocolate chip banana bread.

The Madama Butterfly party!

Chats with Tori and Eryn.

The Rankins.

Halloween.

Concert after concert after concert. How I miss them.

Discovering new music.

Morning mass and brunch.

All my visits to old bookstores.

Late nights and early mornings at my piano.