Note: this is the first post of a new series that I'll return to occasionally.
A couple of months ago, I was given a collection of sheet music. Not the archive, not me at work. Me, the feminist musicologist who's obsessed with turn of the 20th century ephemera. One of my mom's coworkers had been keeping her great-aunt's sheet music collection from the 1900-1920s; she heard of my research interests and thought I could use it. She graciously gave it to me in the hopes that I could use it for research, but I've found it's turned into something even more personal.
At estate sales/antique stores, I tend to buy up old pictures of anonymous women (anywhere up until the 1940s or so). I once found a scrapbook of a school teacher in rural Texas; it chronicles her journey from late high school to her first teaching gig. I'm planning on scanning the pages and putting them online-- showing the amazing life that has been forgotten.
I think that's why I keep obsessing over Etude women, clubwork, old pictures, and now Mary's sheet music. Mary died early in life-- she never married, never got to live a full life. She spent her days at the piano- playing this music, dreaming of an optimistic future in exotic places (more on that in future posts). If not for a distant relative keeping her keepsakes, she would be lost, forgotten. Maybe I make it overly personal... maybe it's my way of projecting... hoping that one day the small things I do/collect/make won't be forgotten.... that how I spend my days will be passed down and remembered. Regardless...
I want these women and what they did with their lives to be remembered. I want to highlight the [however mundane it might be] life that they led. I hate to think that women who weren't big names, who didn't win fame and fortune, are of lesser significance to their well-chronicled counterparts. (Of course I'm finding that even those who were somewhat well known are still forgotten to the "sands of time." Case in point: possible next research topic- one Dana Suesse, a Tin Pan Alley composer who wrote the music for the stage review for the 1936 Texas Centennial celebration. But that's yet again another story, another post.)
So Mary, you are not forgotten. Your sheet music helps to carry on your legacy, and I will chronicle it here. On this tiny, insignificant blog with the few readers who might accidentally read this.
Coming up: I'll look into the topics that Mary seemed to gravitate towards, and explore what little we know about her life. And then I'll get less musicological and draw conclusions about how this sheet music helps us define her identity (I feel like a fortune-teller, interpreting and reading my own story into these, but maybe there's some truth somewhere in it all).
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Monday, February 21, 2011
semantics
This post will probably seem to be a continuation of the previous post... that continuity is somewhat unintentional but allows me to reiterate my mindset that remains today.
The other day, a fellow musicologist asked me casually after class, "so how are things at the library."
... we pause now for 3 asides
Aside number 1: this musicologist has always felt an inherit battle between she and I, one that I did not ever realize until she lamented that I always "won." So when she took the "high road" by continuing full-time phd work and teaching, I'm sure she felt that she had surpassed me in our little musicological world.
Aside number 2: I try not to hierarch-ize things, but I'd like to think that what I do here is more akin to museum work than librarian duties. I'm not providing books to the masses; I'm cultivating rare materials for researchers/interested parties. Now this musicolgist was briefly a music librarian. So perhaps that was her linguistic tendency-- to ask how things were at the library. It's a small semantic thing, but the way she spoke it was a bit derogatory. As if what I'm doing must be awful and I must be really upset. Case in point: her reaction.
Aside number 3: My guess is that in asking this she was trying to put aside number 1 and 2 together. She has surpassed me and is "more" of a scholar than I am. She thus wants to ask me how things are in my little library job in order to compare our life choices: mine versus her stressful, juggle three jobs/still full time phd world. [Perhaps I over analyzed a small casual statement. But for the purposes of this blog post, I'm making it a question a true case of semantics: studying the meaning of it all.]
... end of asides
My upbeat response: "Today has been great. I've been my boss' research assistant practically all week. He brought in this collection to assist him with his dissertation topic. So we've been digging through boxes, uncovering a lost singing school tradition that happened in this area in the 1930s. We're piecing together the history artifact by artifact."
Her response, "Oh. Neat."
End of conversation.
I think it surprises people that I get to do musicological work on a daily basis, while at the same time learning preservation techniques, uncovering new nooks & crannies of musical history, and teaching my student workers random musical knowledge. Oh and I'm getting paid to do so. I think if you're looking for a low stress but rewarding job, I don't know if you can find a better one. Especially if you're a historic preservationist nut like I am. True, I'm still not creating the scholarly tomes I once churned out daily. But at least I am not in a job that makes me forget the techniques I've developed completely.
This week still holds more digging, perhaps almost more enjoyable digging at that. We're going through the 6 boxes of photographs hoping captions and iconographic study can answer more questions raised about this gospel music groups/singing school education/early radio entertainment tradition.
And in a couple of months, I'll be out in the field (and in a town very close to my hometown at that!) trying to piece together yet another musical tradition of this area: conducting oral history interviews, soliciting memorabilia, and visiting landmark sites.
This may not have been my initial intention when singing up for graduate school, and the world of musicology, and it may not pay quite as well as a full-time tenure track teaching position would possibly bring me in 5 years time. But it is quite enjoyable nevertheless. As the farmer said to Babe, "that'll do.... that'll do."
The other day, a fellow musicologist asked me casually after class, "so how are things at the library."
... we pause now for 3 asides
Aside number 1: this musicologist has always felt an inherit battle between she and I, one that I did not ever realize until she lamented that I always "won." So when she took the "high road" by continuing full-time phd work and teaching, I'm sure she felt that she had surpassed me in our little musicological world.
Aside number 2: I try not to hierarch-ize things, but I'd like to think that what I do here is more akin to museum work than librarian duties. I'm not providing books to the masses; I'm cultivating rare materials for researchers/interested parties. Now this musicolgist was briefly a music librarian. So perhaps that was her linguistic tendency-- to ask how things were at the library. It's a small semantic thing, but the way she spoke it was a bit derogatory. As if what I'm doing must be awful and I must be really upset. Case in point: her reaction.
Aside number 3: My guess is that in asking this she was trying to put aside number 1 and 2 together. She has surpassed me and is "more" of a scholar than I am. She thus wants to ask me how things are in my little library job in order to compare our life choices: mine versus her stressful, juggle three jobs/still full time phd world. [Perhaps I over analyzed a small casual statement. But for the purposes of this blog post, I'm making it a question a true case of semantics: studying the meaning of it all.]
... end of asides
My upbeat response: "Today has been great. I've been my boss' research assistant practically all week. He brought in this collection to assist him with his dissertation topic. So we've been digging through boxes, uncovering a lost singing school tradition that happened in this area in the 1930s. We're piecing together the history artifact by artifact."
Her response, "Oh. Neat."
End of conversation.
I think it surprises people that I get to do musicological work on a daily basis, while at the same time learning preservation techniques, uncovering new nooks & crannies of musical history, and teaching my student workers random musical knowledge. Oh and I'm getting paid to do so. I think if you're looking for a low stress but rewarding job, I don't know if you can find a better one. Especially if you're a historic preservationist nut like I am. True, I'm still not creating the scholarly tomes I once churned out daily. But at least I am not in a job that makes me forget the techniques I've developed completely.
This week still holds more digging, perhaps almost more enjoyable digging at that. We're going through the 6 boxes of photographs hoping captions and iconographic study can answer more questions raised about this gospel music groups/singing school education/early radio entertainment tradition.
And in a couple of months, I'll be out in the field (and in a town very close to my hometown at that!) trying to piece together yet another musical tradition of this area: conducting oral history interviews, soliciting memorabilia, and visiting landmark sites.
This may not have been my initial intention when singing up for graduate school, and the world of musicology, and it may not pay quite as well as a full-time tenure track teaching position would possibly bring me in 5 years time. But it is quite enjoyable nevertheless. As the farmer said to Babe, "that'll do.... that'll do."
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