Well, I must say I've been having a very nice time at the Underwood/Anderson wedding. (Darn those 3-syllable last names: I've mixed them up into "Underson" at least once. I'd say one or two syllables per last name is about right.) The drive was uneventful, if long and at times (read: in going through downtown Chicago) annoying. The wedding itself was also very nice, and it's great to see some Kenyon friends again. Notably, Alaina and Mike (that is, Alaina's Mike, if you know what I mean) are here, as are Rachel and Uri, Becky and her brother Ben Pogany, Robbie Ketcham, Ginger Baran and Sean Lyons, and, most surprisingly of all, Jen Underwood. There have also been some highlights, such as when I came to the church early to practice before the wedding, and a lady was staring at me as I came in:

Lady. Oh! I thought you were Orlando Bloom.
Me. Oh! Nope, I'm just a friend of Jen's from college.
Lady. Do people tell you often that you look like him?
Me. No, not very much.
Lady. Well, you look exactly like him.
Me. Well, you know, I figured I'd drop in on my old friend Jen.

I was not only mistaken for movie stars, but also for a hired professional pianist:

Other lady (to Jen). It's nice that you had the pianist at the reception. He seems to get along with your friends well.

Anyway, a very good time so far. I'll be doing some homework and going briefly to Jen's open house today before heading back to Indiana - hopefully on emptier roads! And then I'll be looking forward even more to the next two weekends!

Ugh - what a night! I was awake for significant portions of it. I think I must have been stressed out, not only on my own account, but also about how Sherry is doing right now (though her troubles didn't show up in my dreams). I got in bed shortly before midnight, having worked on an assignment until then (unusual for me). Around 1, I suddenly inexplicably remembered that leftovers from dinner were still on the stove, and, without thinking much, staggered into the kitchen, scraped it into an old yogurt container (and the floor), and put it in the fridge. Then the sort-of-sleep-defined part of the night started, but it was largely engaged with this horrible dream that I was teaching Messiaen and Boulez (that's what I'm teaching Monday) to a class of not only my current students but several others I've taught before. Unfortunately, I had to do this in a hall slightly like Philomathesian at Kenyon, except with worse acoustics, so I had to absolutely shout to be heard at all. (To make matters worse, some Korean people outside were shouting their national anthem.) I think I'd prepared pretty badly for the class, and everything was going really slowly. Finally our class took our usual scheduled break. When I came back, it turned out that the class was being observed (and I was being evaluated) by Dr. Jan Harrington of the choral department (he's currently teaching the conductors who are conducting my ensemble). This is absolutely hilarious if you know him. Meanwhile, I had just gotten to modes of limited transposition when, thank goodness, I woke up to my alarm, extremely bleary-eyed. I never got to Boulez. I'm feeling better now, but phew - it's good to be back to reality.

I'll post more, I'm sure, when I get back from Chicago. Here's hoping for safe (and expedient, though I actually have to drive right through Chicago) travels!

If you'll excuse me a minute, I'd like to briefly complain about my Renaissance class. It's not so horrible, usually (though it has its low moments...), but today there was a student presentation. This was the first non-music theorist to present. All the other presentations have been largely structural. However, this presentation - written out in paper form! - described some guy's presentation of the self-other dichotomy and how that played out in Western history, then the Cathar movement, and then suddenly, as he ran out of time, talked briefly about Susan McClary's view of this piece. Essentially what he said was this:

0. The ideas in this presentation were largely from a guy who thinks that Christianity arose out of ideological conflicts about the self-other dichotomy in Judaism.
1. Nobody had a sense of self in the Dark Ages. When anyone did, they were considered crazy or demonic and were crushed by a Da Vinci Code-ish hegemonic "Church."
2. A sense of self began to develop during the Renaissance, and this piece, like many others, are (Da Vinci Code-ish) coded ways of expressing this idea to avoid the "Church." There's no evidence for this, but it's probably true anyway.
3. Susan McClary thinks the ionian diatessaron (he asked, "is that well-known theory talk?" to which a theorist replied, "Yeah, but, uh, we usually just say perfect fourth") that starts the piece and sets off a point of imitation at the end is a symbol for the human orgasm. There's no evidence for this, but it must be true. (It's worth noting that the text unequivocally has hidden references to sex, but these are common conventions.)
4. Arcadelt (the composer) was using this hidden references to sex to refer to religious ecstasy in a way that wouldn't get him murdered by the Da Vinci Code-ish "Church." There's no evidence for this or this kind of ideology in Arcadelt, but after all, this is the period in which this kind of thing was happening.

To be accurate, he never actually referenced the Da Vinci Code. But I had to include it in my rant anyway.

Meanwhile, I'm having a bunch of theorists over to my place for dinner tonight, so I'd better get my apartment clean so we can talk ionian diatessarons and urlinie (and the Da Vinci Code?) without distractions.

Nate really hit the nail on the head about Betty and her funeral last weekend. Check out the link to his blog on the right. To what he says, I'll just add that the look on Bill's face when he saw Nate and I had made it was worth a lot more than the plane ticket's price and hassle.

I apologize for not having any pictures of anything to post up here: not a whole lot exciting is going on around here. I have a "normal" weekend this weekend (actually, at this point, sticking around for a weekend with no plans is definitely not normal). The next weekend I play for Jen's wedding, then the weekend following Sherry visits, and finally on the 11th or 12th of August I head home. Other than all that, there's very little going one (outside the ordinary). In big projects, I'm hoping to work with someone at UPenn on a performance of a cantata by Georg Benda that I edited last year, and perhaps to get that in publishable condition. (Though unfortunately that may not be possible, depending on Prof. Sanders' usage agreement about the microfilm I used.) I also really need to get the course packet for the course I'm teaching in the fall finished and ordered, and to start looking at the curriculum. Finally, I'm really looking forward to spending some time with our Rare Books Collection's copy of Thomas Morley's 1597 Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, which I'm hoping to get some insight out of.

Betty McKibben, a wonderful friend of my whole family, passed away late last week, so I went home for the funeral on Saturday. It was a wonderful service, and it was nice to see the community again. Anyway, I'll post more later, but I'm pretty tired and busy right now.

Wow! I just came from a performance of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony by the IU Festival Orchestra. It was terrific! Shostakovich is definitely rock music for classical lovers. It was one of those occasions that makes me very proud to attend this school. I was particularly proud because I saw in the orchestra four current students (violin 2, viola, trombone, and french horn - solo!), two former students (viola and bassoon), two colleague/friends (piccolo and cello), and two classmate/acquaintances (percussion and trumpet).

For what it's worth, from last semester, here's a recording of me (and some other people...) trying to sing some music in just intonation. The composer (Eric Knechtes, friend and colleague) claims that it has some "11-limit" chords in it, and that it's "cheesy and sentimental," but anyway it's really fun to listen to. We're out of tune sometimes (I mean, out of just tune... well, and out of equal temperament too, for that matter) but parts sounds great - I especially love the bass and soprano sounds (thank you Paul Pisano and Arwen Myers - the latter an aural skills student of mine, thank you very much), and there are parts where you'd think it's more than 12 singers. Anyway, enjoy.
(Oh, and sorry it's on Myspace... not my fault!)

link

I forgot to mention! Today my Renaissance class went to the IU Lilly Library of Rare Books. It was extremely cool. They have a Gutenberg Bible on permanent display there. But the presentation by the curator was even neater: he showed us not only music manuscripts and prints (the highlight was a 2.5 foot tall choirbook with illuminations) but Andreas Vesalius' anatomy book, The Courtier (I forget the exact title and author), an original printing Book of Common Prayer, and an original King James Bible, many of which I got to touch and hold. There was also a lavishly illuminated Book of Hours which he explained probably was worth about the same, adjusting for inflation, both when it was sold and today (about $150,000). All of these were of course on sheep's skin or calf's skin parchment, paper being the "cheap" alternative (which didn't survive as consistently). Which in turn was sobering: it must have taken at least 100 animals to make that choirbook! Anyway, this was very special.
Then just now I heard a great concert. It was a nice change - most of the summer concerts are Summer Festival concerts, which I'd have to pay for, and which are fewer and farther between than during the year (which, of course, isn't saying much). But I saw this doctoral piano recital advertised and noticed that she was playing Berg's Op. 1 (Sonata), which I'm trying to work up, and decided to go. It was terrific. The Berg was excellently played (though I noticed some mistakes! But somehow I don't think too many other people picked up on them...), followed by a wonderful Beethoven Variations and Fugue, and then a really neat piece Claude Baker, who's on the faculty here, that quoted Ives and Messiaen, and finally Schumann's Symphonic Etudes. (Which reminds me, I really need to get a recording of Schumann's Symphonies.) A really fun concert.

BERRY-PICKING II: REVENGE OF THE HUCKLEBERRY
I've been quite busy lately! This past weekend I went to Indianapolis to visit Grandma and Grandpa Chenette and to relax. It was great: I did very little work. I did, however, make bread, which was well-received. We went fishing and had a dinner of freshly-caught croppie and bass (especially good!). And we went swimming:


I came home on Monday for one class, which was especially excruciating because no one wanted to be there during this otherwise 4-day-weekend. (It would have been another thing altogether if this was a particularly enjoyable class.)
On the 4th, I went berry-picking. I biked out to Griffy Lake under threatening clouds and hiked along Huckleberry Ridge - only to find not one single huckleberry within sight of the trail! You can imagine my disappointment. So I biked back into town and went on with plan B: mulberries. I checked out the trees by the music school first, which were both high and relatively dried up. So finally I came back and picked two cups' worth within one block of my apartment. As I've mentioned to several people, I'm sure there's some moral here about how far one needs to go simply to realize what one already had, but I'll leave that one to the philosophers. I am not a philosopher, but I am fortunately a chef and a baker. Thus, rather than morals, I made mulberry cobbler:

Mm. I'm off to have a bit of that and enjoy the gorgeous weather.