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.

I neglected to mention in my last post that Sherry and I also ate lunch with Mike and Willow while we were in NYC, which was nice. And Mike Ludders' reference to "one of Mozart's Requiems" (of which, I assure you, there are as many as 1 - almost), along with the fact that my ensemble has been reading through said Requiem, brought to mind something that occurred to me long ago.

First, for those of you who don't know it (shame on you!) here's the Rex Tremendae movement's opening:

Orchestra: YOM bom. BOM! Yadum badum badum badum badum badum YOM dum YOM dum YOM dum YOM YOM bum.

Choir: REX!

Orchestra: yadum badum badum badum badum badum BOM.

Choir: REX!

Orchestra: yadum badum badum badum...

...and so on in this vein.
So my question about this is - as much as I try to avoid the "intentional fallacy" - does anyone think this sounds like Mozart shouting at his dog?

The trip to NYC went really well. Unfortunately, it was threatening to rain the whole time. Fortunately, most of the time it wasn't actually following through. Still, we spent our first day inside:

Sherry and me at the Coney Island aquarium
(sorry, that was cheap)


To be fair:

Sherry and me at the aquarium


The second day we were hoping to visit Claire in Philadelphia, but for $40 each and 4 hours of traveling for a 2 hour stay we ended up staying in the city. We decided to risk the weather and took a walking tour of the Lower East Side, a traditionally Jewish neighborhood. It rained a few times, but what are umbrellas for?


An old synagogue near the start of the tour - interestingly enough, while our tour guide mentioned that this place is likely to stop operating soon as its congregation passes away, as a NY historic landmark the Hebrew on the front will have to stay, even if it becomes, say, a church or a bar. (Interestingly, it had previously been a church.)



The Eldridge St. Synagogue. This one was built by a split-off from the congregation of the previous synagogue who were upset that they were moving into a former church. Clearly, this faction was pretty rich. However, the remaining congregation doesn't even use the space - apparently it was shut up and deteriorating for years until a researcher spearheaded an effort to restore it. It's still kind of a mess inside.



A headstone in the Shearith Israel cemetery, from a group of Jews who migrated around 1650. This was one of many Revolutionary War soldiers buried here, an area which was once swampland outside the (Dutch) city.

Today I had a bizarre conversation with a student as we were leaving class. Stan had just taught an Ives song with some terrific syncopated rhythms (General Booth Enters Into Heaven - one of the best). I was humming the easy, diatonic part:

Her: Oh, you can sing it?
Me: Oh, well, I was just humming the easy part.
Her: Ah. Are you in the jazz program?
Me (surprised): Uh, no, I'm in theory all the way.
Her: Really?? ...Did you ever study jazz at any point?
Me: Well, not really.

I suppose I just look like a guy who'd know jazz. Well, you live and you learn.

Anyway, quick update on my classes. The first is a complete joke. I actually learned a few things today. Not much, though. At least we're beyond learning to search the IU library catalog (mostly).
The other class is Renaissance music. I've already taken a Medieval and Renaissance class at Kenyon, but it's always nice to have a second time around on something you really enjoy and really want to learn. I'm trying to really carefully read the book this time, to remind myself of a bit more detail in the lives of important composers as well as to remind myself (period) of some of the ones I didn't really remember. And when the professor confessed that she's not really into the theory as much as the culture/sociology, that went on my list to learn, too. But today was pretty painful. The first 10 minutes of class were wasted trying to discuss the ratios of the note values in a certain manuscript to the note values in a modern edition of the same piece. She kept tripping over which level of pulse was the tempus (the measure level, basically) and which was the prolation (the level below that). And then about 5 of those minutes were filled with her trying to both remember and demonstrate how the breve related to the semibreve related to the minim in this particular tempus/prolation. Now, obviously, considering that most of you probably have no idea what any of that means, this is kind of esoteric stuff. But she's teaching the course. It really was painful to sit there while she stuttered and made mistakes. I know that can be painful from a teacher's point of view, but it really felt like she hadn't prepared very well.
Anyway, this is still a chance for me to spend more time with the Renaissance book and get credit for it. And who knows? Maybe things will look up as we really get into our subjects.

I'm off to New York City this weekend! That'll be fun. I'll try to remember my camera so that I can post some pictures (of Sherry and I in the rain) and hopefully some actually exciting news afterwards.

I'm proud in many ways to be (at least) the third generation of academic musician Chenettes. However, I don't always like it when people hear I'm going into music and they say, "Well, I guess it's in your genes!" I'm not entirely sure why. I suppose it wouldn't be the same if people saw me as following in Mom's shoes. After all, I think it's clear to most people that instrumentalists and singers are very individual. However, I think that to the eyes of the world, and even to the eyes of other musicians, academic musicians might as well all be the same, or at least interchangeable. But that's okay - I do feel I'm doing things that are individual, and fascinating. I think it's a large part, also, of why I love the piano so much: I don't fit simply into the "academic" side of things. (On top of the fact that it's so enjoyable, both kinetically and aurally!)

In any case, it's going to be hard to get away from this "legacy" this summer! The professor I'm working with in teaching was active with Dad on the Iowa Composers' Forum board, and currently teaches at Butler, where Grandpa used to teach (and administrate). Actually, he didn't just have contact with my relatives, but also with me: he's pretty sure he saw me at an ICF competition, playing one of my own pieces, however many long years ago!

Meanwhile, I was going into my morning class and walked past the teacher coming out from the previous class. She paused and said, "You must be Tim Chenette." I agreed. She said that I'm in her afternoon class. I said it was good to meet her. She mentioned that she knows Dad (I forget how: her name's Mary Paquett-Abt, I believe, and she's a musicologist - Dad, any ideas?) and that she just recently met Grandpa, I think at AMS. She also mentioned that I look just like Dad.

Well, I guess no one should be ashamed of their heritage. And of course I have absolutely no reason to be! But sometimes I wish my relatives were a little less famous (just kidding, Dad!).

I thought my Music Bibliography class was boring: today we learned, essentially, how to search IU's card catalog. But it could always be worse. Right after class, I saw a friend and asked her what class she was going to. It turned out to be Graduate Aural Skills Review. "And you know what we've learned?" she asked. "In a minor key, four is minor!" Considering she spent all of first semester explaining this to freshpeople, I think my class is (ever-so-slightly) better.

Last night I was enjoying some mulberries from a neighbor's yard and thought, "I wonder if I could find other ripe berries somewhere." Whether I wanted them to make a pie, or to put on ice cream, or just to eat, I knew I wanted to go berry-pickin'. So I looked online at McCormick's Creek and Brown County State Parks. Unfortunately, both have entrance fees. However, I noticed on the websites that bikers could get in much cheaper. I had no idea whether or not there was a place to park near the, uh, park, but I figured it was worth a shot. Also, noticing that it was supposed to get up above 90 today, I decided to start plenty early.
So at around 8:20/30, I headed out, bike in the backseat, various containers sitting optimistically in my backpack (along with several bottles of water). I reached the park pretty quickly, pulled up to the gate, and was told I could park just up the road. I did so, and rode my bike in, insisting on paying the $2 charge when the guy wasn't going to make me. (You might as well support a good cause.)
I guess I didn't really go in with a plan, so pretty soon I hopped off my bike and got out my trusty map. "Well, trail 9 looks nice," I said to myself. "Too bad it's on the opposite end of this road. Well, heck. It's short. I'll ride there." And so I started to do.

At this point it may be informative to refer to the map above. Since the colors I had originally painted my route in have disappeared into File Incompatibility Land, I will go into a brief elucidation:
1. The X marked "1" is where I entered the park.
2. The X marked "2" is where I intended to go.
3. The X marked "3" is approximately where I saw a sign saying "wrong way."
"Wrong way to what?" I thought to myself. At this point I will mention that between "CCC Shelter" and X number 3 there had been over 400 feet of elevation loss, including one particularly spectacular drop marked:

WARNING: STEEP GRADE
USE EXTREME CAUTION
BIKER [sic] DISMOUNT BEFORE ENTRY

Well, at the time, I had assumed that the biker they were talking to wasn't me, so I'd just gone down with my brakes on almost all the way, thinking, "whoa, this is gonna be bad on the way back up."
So back to the "wrong way." It turned out that this sign was intended for some huge bicycling group that was congregating at the Horsemen's Campground. However, it is probably fairly obvious that I, too, had been going the wrong way.

Hoping to avoid the "STEEP GRADE", I continued around that loop, taking a short hike at Strahl Lake. Unfortunately, while the lake trail did run past some berries, they were nowhere near ripe. Ah well.

Then I got back on the road. Unfortunately, now all the elevation gain was packed between Strahl Lake and Camp Store. There was indeed another WARNING: STEEP GRADE etc. sign (although only at the top of the hill) and one much longer stretch where I was forced to get off the bike and walk up (which was still amazingly difficult), labeled by a sign at the top simply:

HILL

Which was, of course, true enough. I had to admit that. It elicited a short, winded chuckle.

Anyway, I got home before 11:30, which is not bad. Thank goodness this was mostly in the shade: otherwise I would have been toast!

Which is a long way of going about saying, I actually have something worth blogging about, so I'm creating a new blog. Sweet.

One more note: dinner was a salad of mixed greens from the farmer's market, butternut squash also from said market, homemade bread, and fish that had "just" been flown up from Louisiana covered in, among other things, paprika. And this was not just any paprika: it was Hungarian paprika.
Sweet.