The Pleasures of Organization

As I've written elsewhere, tonight I took six sheets of 20 x 23 inch paper (made by the good Post-it people) and wrote down all my professional obligations (plus a couple of personal goals and side-projects, not strictly professional), along with the date it needs to be complete or an estimation of such a date. This took me up to February, 2015, when my projected song cycle, Loss and Magic, will be premiered at UNH.

Strangely enough, this process gave me an unbelievable amount of comfort. Yes, the list is ridiculously long, and if I can get through what I have, I am going to have to learn to say no more often in the future; but somehow it looks oddly manageable.

Next task--more arduous: break down each obligation into a series of manageable tasks, estimate how long each task will take, and plug these tasks into a weekly or semi-weekly schedule, depending on all the known deadlines. Starting that project tomorrow. Much of this way of thinking owes to my reading Eviatar Zerubavel's The Clockwork Muse, and my memories of those wonderful days when I was working a full-time job and coursework for two doctorates at Eastman. I had every minute scheduled and I was more productive than I've ever been. I recommend The Clockwork Muse to anyone that feels overwhelmed by their ambitions.

On Music Appreciation

I've pretty much given up on the notion of a good textbook for music appreciation. I've looked at them all--indeed, my first experience with music history was with Charles Hoffer's Music Listening Today. But things have changed a lot since I was 10. For one thing, we ignore pop music (not to mention indie, world, and all sorts of other little sub-subgenres) at our peril. Non-music majors simply are not going to drop that music and embrace classical music anymore. Why not lead them to a deeper, richer experience of that non-classical music?

That's my plan, anyway, for this semester's class in appreciation, good old MUSI401 at UNH. Fortunately, this is an honors section, so the students are very motivated and very smart. I think they'll be able to help me find out exactly how best to teach this class. And I'm videotaping every class meeting so they (and I) are going to have a record. I'm also keeping a record of what I did, which I might make available for their use and which, I hope, will serve me when I try to organize this material further.