indulge me

Indulge me today, this is a story I just feel like telling.

So we’ve established that getting my masters was the most difficult 2 years of my life.  I’ve let go of most of it emotionally, but this one story comes to me every so often and all the emotions come flooding back.

My last semester, I took an ethnomusicology class from an eccentric prof, Dr.  Solis.  I just looked him up on the ASU website, and I have to share the official picture he has on the school website:

Classic.  It was my favorite class of my entire masters.  We studied music from all over the world, how people study said music and the consequences of an outsider studying music and seeing it through their own Western understanding of music theory and such.  It was fascinating - and to prove his point, once a week we all had to meet up and learn to play all the instruments in an actual Javanese gamelan without benefit of written music.  Very humbling and eye opening, and one of the only hours a week I actually enjoyed myself.

And then he announced the coolest assignment ever - we were going to write ethnographies on another student in the class and present how different influences in their lives had shaped the musician they were.  How cool!  I couldn’t wait to hear what someone came up with my odd musical past.  One girl in class approached me and asked to be my partner, and her ethnography was really wild -she’d trained in musical theater but after traveling as a humanitarian all over the far east, she was actually about to move to Nepal to be a radio DJ.  It was a blast to study and write.  But when I offered to give her an interview to study my side, she cheerfully informed me that she was only auditing the class and was not required to do the assignments.  Total buzzkill.

The day we presented, we all had a blast learning about the different influences of our classmates, but I had to fight back tears.  One, because I’m overly emotional, but two, because it perfectly illustrated my tenure as a graduate student - always the odd man out.  I was too alternative for the other string players (including my professor), never anywhere as good as any of them, and never fit in with any of the people at church.  No one ever talked to me at institute.  I was just too… different.  And here I was, in my favorite class, the only one missing out on this assignment.  I didn’t think anyone would notice, but at the end of the class, Dr. Solis asked my partner to present her paper on me, and she told him she didn’t do one.  He looked honestly horrified, and found me later to apologize over and over.  Of course, being me, I went home to cry, but it made me feel so much better to know that he’d noticed and cared.

A few weeks later, I had my comprehensive exams, where all my professors submitted questions and I had 4 hours to write answers that proved to them I knew enough to graduate.  They were arguably the toughest 4 hours of my life - I didn’t stop typing for a second, terrified I would forget the name of a technique or composer and I’d be denied my degree.  It took me 2 hours to answer the question “Give the history of the violin concerto, citing specific works, years and techniques introduced.”  My tendonitis was screaming in my arms, but I didn’t stop typing - until I got to my last question in the last 15 minutes.  It was the only one submitted by Dr. Solis, and it was this: “Write your ethnography.”  I actually cried with relief when I saw it.  My history is crazy interesting - I was a classical violinist that began studying jazz and other styles and traveled all over the world to learn from different masters of their craft - heck, one year of my undergrad, I exasperated my professor by only being able to play a bow techique I’d mastered for jazz that emulated the breathy sound of a saxophone.  Great for Coltrane, not so good for the Bruch concerto.

It was so kind of him.  And weeks later when I found out the results, my violin professor told me how I’d “barely passed,” what with me just not fitting in as the perfect violin student or being as good as I should have been.. at anything.  I didn’t care - because the word “barely” was nowhere near as important as “PASSED.”  Something tells me that last question and his scoring may have been what pushed me over the top.

She was actually out of town for graduation, and so I asked Dr. Solis to hood me in the official ceremony.  I’m so glad that’s how it turned out.  I’ll always love him for showing concern for me and caring enough to give me that question.

Every now and then, I think of that experience and feel sad I never got to have anyone do a report on me.  Those 2 years really broke my spirit, ug.  You know what put it back together again?  Joining the BorderCollies.  Playing in a celtic band with a motley crew of musicians, some of us who had no business playing celtic music, but going ahead and being AWESOME anyway.  The members of that band are the best musicians I have ever worked with, and it was such an honor and delight.  And all the people who bought our CDs, that came to our gigs and supported us, were the bandaid my musical self needed.

I wonder what my ethnography would be now?  Classical Suzuki trained violinist, turned jazz fiddler, turned electric rock violinist, add a dash of Latin, Klezmer and Indian music, then a 4 year stint as a celtic violinist who now does nothing but change diapers all day.  I wish someone had written a paper on me before I had to close that chapter of my life.  But I have that 15 minute ethnography that Dr. Solis gave me, and I’ll forever love that crazy professor for that tender mercy.