Oops...

Turns out I forgot to do a post today. It's strange that we have a post due on the most momentous day of the semester, but c'est la vie.

We turned in our proposals today. That means that once I turn in a revised IRB form, per the IRB's wonderful and concise instructions, I am done with the major stuff. We have a joke final, which is often the case in these classes, and a marathon planning session left. I think that's pretty much it.

Lori and I are psyched to pick up our rad ISP backpacks, get our last shot, and get the heck out of here. I am so done with academia for a while, and so is my wife. Sure, we'll be checking in with the program and doing assignments from time to time, but the assignments seem well-designed and purposeful (not to mention fun), and we only have to talk to the interwebs  every two weeks or so. I look forward to an experience that will not be more real than what I am doing now (life is real whether or not it seems that way and regardless of whether or not you like the reality you're in), but will rather be real in a different way. It will be a step outside the usual paradigm of homework, paid work, trips to Smith's for groceries, and all these darn white people. In my Grandpa Hilton's vernacular "somethin' different" is the highest praise available ("aggravatin'" is the harshest derision available), and this will certainly be "somethin' different." It will probably be aggravatin' from time to time as well, but from what I can see from here it will be aggravatin' in a different way than I am used to experiencing, and that excites me as well.

I'll put my project proposal, all bajillion pages of it, on this blog shortly. If any of you are incredibly bored, give it a read.

Tibet, Tibet

I just finished Patrick French's wonderful, "hopeless, hopeful," book, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land. I'm still reeling.

I read the last 50 pages today (I prefer reading books in large chunks, as opposed to small bites - I lose my place in the ethos of a book if I split things too finely). The end of Tibet, Tibet is depressing on a national level but hopeful on a personal level - the strength and general goodness of the Tibetan people is reaffirmed at the same time a hopeless prognosis for Tibet's nationhood is given, unless the entire Chinese regime changes drastically.

French was able to review some documents in Dharamsala in an effort to come to a better understanding of the actual Tibetan death toll since the beginning of Chinese rule. As he realized that the "official" number (1.2 million) is built on straw-frame statistics, he wondered if he should keep his findings to himself. He then said:

"But I knew, after everything I had seen in Tibet, that truth was more important than continuing to back the cause in its present form. More realism was needed, not less, when it came to Tibet. It was a land that had suffered for to long from the well-intentioned projections of visiting foreigners."

It seems that his sad prognosis is driven from a true sense of compassion and altruism towards the Tibetan people, one that recognizes the faults and problems of the people while still cherishing them as human beings. I still believe in "the mind's Tibet," "a lasting romantic vision... of a lost land, a place of dreams, a place to feel at home," (French 300) but in the same way I still believe in the American dream and the Zion yet to come. America is screwed up, and so is the Church, and so is Tibet, but there is strength and goodness and meaning in all of these places.* The places are symbolic, but the people are real, and it's worth loving and fighting for both.

The project I am doing in Bylakuppe is apolitical, as far as parties and policies are concerned. The negotiation of culture through art is, however, part of what I believe to be a much more lasting and meaningful form of politics. As I have said before, it is indicative that the Dalai Lama set up the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts in Dharamsala before he set down plans for the rebuilding of Tibet's most sacred monasteries. You can kill the Tibetans in Tibet with some ease - even a tulku goes down with a gunshot - but the Tibet that lives in Tibetans, as romanticized as it may be, is much tougher to kill. If Tibet ever becomes its own place again, it will be due more to cultural heritage preservation and innovation than mere political posturing.




* The Church as "place" is an interesting idea, and deserves further exploration. Any takers?

Looking Ahead

It's best to live in the moment, but living peacefully in the moment usually involves at least a little bit of planning for the future. It's a peace of mind thing, yeah? I'm going to update y'all on where I'm going and what I'm doing after this field study (i.e. Fall semester), and in the process I might figure out a little more of what I actually want from the next 8 months or so.

SCHOOL


Here's my class schedule. It takes up the largest chunk of my time and thought, which is sometimes wonderful and sometimes tedious. It looks pretty good:

I've got the second semester of O-Chem (though if the O-Chem I'm in right now goes badly enough I might just retake it to make sure I've got the concepts down. If I had known the field studies class would function more like a 5-credit class than a 3-credit class, I would have waited to take O-Chem. 15 credits of classes that actually take the time the credits imply is hard enough, but when two of my 3-credit classes should be 5-credit classes, it feels like I'm taking 19. No sleep tonight... :) C'est la vie!). I'll be doing the post-field writing class and putting together a polished something, just to prove I didn't waste my time in India. Humanities 202 will be cool (I love modern art [so shoot me]), Hindi is always great, and Gamelan is a blast. It seems like not a lot, but there are definitely 15 credits up on that picture.

What else do I want to do with my time? Fifteen credits is too boring by itself.

JOB

I need to get a job, for one thing. I would love to work part-time on campus, preferably as a TA (if the field studies program wasn't being kaiboshed I would apply to be a facilitator). Lori is going to be working as full time as possible and taking an online class or two so we can recover from how expensive this whole thing has been and save up for tuition, kids, and maybe even a little nest egg.

NONPROFIT


I have an idea for a nonprofit organization that does crowd-sourced scholarships. I'm working out the kinks right now, and thinking through what features I want to incorporate, so I'll let you know more when I know more. I also don't want to reveal too much... But y'all will like it. It'll be the new Jumpstarter for college kids.

ACOUSTICS

Blaine, did you know there's a huge picture of your face on the interwebs? Now you do.

My acoustics guru, Dr. A, with family.

The fro is now gone, but the spirit remains.

Above are some of the wonderful people involved in BYU's Acoustics Research Group, and one of the freaking coolest rooms at BYU - the large anechoic chamber. The floor is just a wire mesh, so you feel like you're walking on the moon and like you're in Tron all at the same time.

I love Acoustics Research Group, and they love me back, so I hope I can find enough interesting things to do to stay involved with them. The ASA conference this last fall was too fun for words (but I bet you one of these guys could make an equation that gets pretty close). I would like to give service there too - they gave tours and demonstrations to something like 4000 kids this semester, and even a dummy Humanities major can help with those.

MEDICAL SCHOOL PREPARATION

I need to start shadowing doctors, pronto. Med schools like applicants to have something around 200 shadowing hours. I would love to find a reproductive endocrinologist to follow around for the rest of college. I know there are a few in the area - in LDS culture, having kids is kind of important, and it's devastating to couples when the usual method doesn't work. Utah is a great place to work in fertility medicine. I've also always had a desire to work with hospice patients, so maybe I'll find a place that takes volunteers and start getting some meaningful patient contact hours (I hate how clinical that sounds...).

FUN STUFF

As far as fun extracurriculars that probably won't look that good on a transcript but would be fun anyway (what is the deal with being "serious" all the time? Who wants that?), I would love to get more involved with Leading Edge magazine and Quark, BYU's resident clubs for sci-fi and fantasy geeks. There is also a great folk ensemble performing club that does a lot of interesting things (below is one of the groups in the club, an Irish folk band). I would probably be touring with them this summer if I was going to be in the country.

I'm in a band right now too, and we have a great time playing little shows here and there. Here's our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/This-Years-Fall-Fashion/178862797008. There are a few videos if you're interested.

So, there you go. That's something like 8-9 extracurriculars and 15 credits. The hard part is figuring out where I should allocate my time to find that magic balance between career and educational progression and personal fulfillment. I'm glad I have a wonderful wife who puts up with all her husband's craziness, what you might even call dilettante-ness (I don't really know what I'm doing in any of the things I do). Life is fun as long as you live most of it for others, non? My wife is teaching me that, and I hope the way I prioritize my time in the years and months to come reflects the life of a person who has learned well the lesson of compassion and that good ol' 13th Article of Faith.

Acho Danny

The trailer above is for the movie Namgyal: Shey Kyi Jinpa, a documentary made by musician Acho Danny to document one of the most important figures in 20th Century Tibetan music. I heard about Acho Danny a while ago, but was reminded of him today in my world music class and decided to find out more.

Here's a video of him and a few other musicians doing some traditional Tibetan songs.

It's interesting that the music of his that is online is very much in a traditional style. Some of the songs from his CD, "My Dranyen," work in a very interesting fusion framework. Here's the cover of the CD - it's a great example of intertext, and captures the refugee spirit.

It might be fun to get in touch with Acho Danny and see what his take on the whole thing is. I also want to pick his brain a bit about dranyen - the more I hear it the more I want to learn how to play it. 

This last video was found while I was searching for the other ones in this post. This dude is pretty cool, and brings up some points I would love to explore one day regarding musical expression in modern Tibet.

Culture Shock

I told you some of my entries would still be text based.

The hardest part about this reading was convincing myself that it applies to me. I'm super stuck-up when it comes to my own estimation of my inter-cultural abilities. Mix that with unbounded optimism as to the goodness of people, and you've got yourself a guy who is in for a bit of a surprise.

As soon as I started taking the reading seriously, I found myself actually more at peace with how I hope the experience will go, because I have started to plan in and expect difficulties, especially those difficulties that are still invisible, hiding in the latent space. It feels good to know that there will be language difficulties, cultural boundaries, and moments of frustration.

For those of you who aren't in the field studies class and don't know what I'm talking about, we have to read an article called "Coping with Culture Shock" by a dude named Ferraro. I think it's a dude, anyway. Here are some of the salient points.

There are four basic stages of cultural shock:
1. The honeymoon stage - everything is great and charming
2. Irritation and hostility - everything starts to suck
3. Gradual adjustments - some things stop sucking quite so hard
4. Biculturalism - you become a fully or near-fully recovered world citizen, able to function well in the host culture as well as your native culture

The next part of the article talks about "reentry shock," or "reverse culture shock," as it is sometimes called. This happens when you get back home and have trouble readjusting. I might deal with these issues in another post, but for now I want to get to another part - techniques for minimizing culture shock. Ferraro provides 4 cognitive strategies, which are basically ways to orient yourself before going and things to keep in mind while in the foreign country, and 18 other strategies. I've picked out some that are interesting to me.

The four cognitive strategies are:
1. Understand the general concept of culture. The way Ferraro approaches this vibes with Dr. Keller's "no one believes something that is stupid" statement. Things might be different in other cultures, and they might not make sense when viewed in our own paradigm, but just recognizing that there is a logic behind foreign cultural practices that is usually just as valid as our own cultural reasoning helps tremendously in generating empathy and allowing learning to happen.
2. Become familiar with local communication - verbal and nonverbal.
3. Cultural self-awareness - opening one's mind up to the reality that we are just as encultured as anyone anywhere, and that those cultural norms we bring with us affect the ways we see and react to things. What is it about American culture that is unique that shapes the way I act and think? What about Arizona culture, Mormon culture, Hilton culture? Recognizing these various cultural influences that contribute to our own make-up helps in navigating foreign cultures as we watch ourselves with more objective eyes.
4. Obtain as much culture-specific information as possible, from as many sources as possible. Journals and scholarly publications are good, but there are other places that can be even better. Youtube, Skype, social media - on and on, the internet has provided a way to connect cross-culturally, albeit in a sanitized form, instantly. Other ideas include going to places in your own location where people from the host country will be - restaurants, religious services (where appropriate), etc. People are generally more than happy to talk about their homelands.

Other points:

• become familiar with the physical surroundings ASAP. Grab a map and wander around, or make a map if one isn't available
• become familiar with basic skills - using currency, ordering off a menu, using public transportation
• learn to live with ambiguity - don't expect answers up front, and be ok with never having answers to some questions
• be slow to act, quick to think. Understand context as much as possible, and focus on making informed decisions rather than fast decisions.
• don't evaluate yourself using your usual standards of accomplishment, at least at first. 
• don't lose your sense of humor. The article said that humor might be the most powerful coping tool available, and I like that.
• be adventurous. Look at problems as adventures and opportunities
• learn how you best manage stress. Exercise, spirituality, venting to family or friends, etc.
• stay as healthy as possible.
• let go of home (for now) - say your goodbyes and really be in the host country. This doesn't mean that maintaining communication with family or friends is bad - it can be one of the most positive things you do - but rather that pining for home should be kept to a minimum and immersion in the local culture should be maximized and appreciated.
• remember that there are no absolutes - not only is the culture unique, but the city, family, and individual you are interacting with is unique as well
• keep the faith - believe that things will go well, and it is much more likely that they will. Give yourself time and patience, and give the host culture the same luxury

Some of my blog posts are designed to give me things to read and look at when I am in the field and don't have immediate access to all my class notes and other resources. This is one of those posts. I plan to remember to look at it frequently in the field, especially on that day when the honeymoon is officially over.

Aural Project in a Visual Virtual Space

I've been struggling to figure out what to write about for these last few learning journals. This is weird. I usually have too much to say, and my posts are generally much too long. I was thinking about where the difficulty is coming from, and I realized that my project is mainly aural - having to do with sound - and presenting the ideas in a visual format, including text under the umbrella of "visual content," is therefore problematic.

I've always thought the idea of a "music publication" to be kind of a funny thing. We take an aural phenomenon that exists in a liminal and temporal form, continually being recreated, and talk about it using printed words and figures. It's self-imposed synesthesia (not that there is necessarily anything wrong with that - synesthetes have made some freakin' cool stuff). The decision, based on this type of reasoning, is to write less and provide more music for my bloggy friends to peruse. I'll still have blog entries that are long and full of text, but to better serve the project I am making a switch. Frankly, more work goes into the posts that are full of music - I have to listen to it through to make sure it goes in the direction I want it to, and finding good material takes at least as much time and skill, not to mention personal background and history, as it does to find good articles in journals or books in a library.

Here goes. You don't really have to watch the videos, especially if you want to get all aural up in here. Feel free to psychoanalyze me. I'm kinda feeling all this right now.

My favorite version of the last song is on youtube, but it's terrible quality (this version is great too, though). Check it out here: http://grooveshark.com/s/Henehene+Kou+Aka/1TRG1T?src=5. I love it when messing up lyrics makes them better, a la Louis Armstrong. Satchmo never knew the words, and it was great.

Dranyen

སྒྲ་སྙན་

I found an instrument I really want to learn (and maybe even purchase - that would be cool). This is it:

It's a Tibetan lute called a dranyen. Other spellings include dramyin and dramnyen, and I've seen some other strange spellings scattered around. Here's a sweet video of some dranyen players singing and dancing.

The second one is a musician named Nawakyipo doing a concert. He talks about the subject matter of the lyrics, and has a beautiful voice.

This is a Bhutanese player. The dranyen is very popular in Bhutan, and even factors into the monastic music.
More of this guy: http://media.smithsonianfolkways.org/audio/podcasts/sound_sessions/sound_sessions_11.mp3

I don't really have much else to say about the dranyen - just listen to it! It's beautiful, simple, and Keila Diehl says it's easy to learn, at least to start (most instruments are easy to learn at first, but hard to master, yeah?). Hopefully there is a dranyen player or two kicking around Bylakuppe that will impart some wisdom to me.

Nearing the end...

This is what I'm listening to - don't read this without listening to it too. http://grooveshark.com/#!/artist/Onra/576480
And here's the video that hipped me to this dude: http://lifeandtimes.com/love-on-the-beat

It's that time again. Registration picks up in a few days, and we start looking to the next semester at the same time we're tripping over finals. I love it.

The homework load usually drops in deference to a few final projects and a load of for-serious studying, and most of us try to catch up on all the stuff we never understood about those SN2 RXNs and Boudelaires.

For me, this part of the semester sees a huge increase in listening to music, walking to school barefoot (good morning, starshine), and having fun with family and friends. I hate homework, but I love studying. Homework is almost always, in my experience, so much busy work mixed with the barest bit of useful practice. I'm a junior/senior credit-wise (because of the near dual major and non-applicable credits I got in high-school and community college, I'm a sophomore in reality) with a nearly perfect GPA, so I've played this game successfully for a while now, and I stand by the statement. Students like myself learn best by assigning themselves homework, and I for damn sure don't take classes I don't care about where the teachers have to force me into learning the material. Micromanaging tastes bad. I'm not into it.

Do you know what he's drinking? That's right, a big cup of micromanagement. 

Back to the end-times discussion (eschatology, non?), I am psyched-out-of-my-mind, and have more than a little bit of excited nervousness about getting out of this place and into Bylakuppe. For all the research and communication I've had, I still don't know what to expect, and that is wonderful. I feel like Indiana stepping out onto that invisible bridge in Raiders. I'm excited to be done with all the science and homework for a while (the field studies in-field homework is sissy and actually seems useful, and the rest of what I have assigned for myself is very organic), and to get paid in credits for living with a vibrant Tibetan community and writing about it. Another project proposal is due today, and I'm excited to get that in and on the editing table.

I'm also excited for Conference this next weekend - apart from the wndrfl (see, told ya I don't need vwls) experience that listening to the prophets provides, I get to see my family and hang out in the most idyllic little town in AZ. Yes'm, the last month of school is a good one.

I just wanted to catch y'all up on where I am and what I'm thinking, so there is a bit of it. Peace.

Now that the IRB is done...

It seems that the most difficult part of the field studies prep class is over. The IRB was a bit of (read: a ginormous) pain, made worse by its inanity. But, hey, it's behind us now! Most of us will have a minor editing session when we get it back, and then we are good to go.

The nice thing about the IRB and its deadline is that we were forced to finish the most difficult parts of the study proposal for the prep class early, and only a few of the easier sections remain. The thing I am excited for now is the chance we have to work on our projects without as much pressure hanging over our heads. As I am sure is the case with most of the other students, I actually care about the subjects I am dealing with in my project, and I would do much of the research even if a grade wasn't riding on it. The class has actually been a wonderful excuse to read cool things about music and the Tibetan people, and to listen to cool music and catch up on and become versed in the musical cultures I have always wanted to learn more about. I get to listen to Jay-Z and pick up hip-hop magazines for school - how boss is that?!

So, anywho, I just wanted to post about how excited I am to have that shizz (mostly) over with. I'll be even more zen when the final paper is done and o-chem grades are finished, but this is the most peaceful the semester has been since the first week, and I am grateful.

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” (1936)

…For the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. To an ever greater degree the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility. From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for the "authentic" print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice--politics.

To a degree, I agree with Benjamin's thoughts on art and reproducibility in the "machine age," and even more so now that we are in the full swing of the digital age. Photographs are incredibly reproducible, and digital prints even more so. We read this article for my world music class, and the concept relates in a nearly 1-1 kind of way - recordings of music are easy to come by. The little hand recorder I bought for $100 produces beautiful 96/24 stereo recordings. Fidelity in photography and sound recording goes up and up as prices plummet - I remember looking at a digital camera add from the 90s showcasing a brand new state-of-the-art Hasselblad digital back that cost the same as a car, and now an iPhone comes with a better camera. For the vast majority of consumed artistic media, "authenticity" is a rather silly concept.

I think, though, that Benjamin overshot his vision. The pictures I included above are from artists who were at the artistic forefront at the time Benjamin was writing, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. I have quite a bit of experience (for a 23 year-old) in fine art photography, and I have used the same processes Ansel and Edward used to make photographs, right down to the selenium toning. I know for absolute fact that there are aspects of photography at this level that are not reproducible, at least not any more than an original oil painting is exactly reproducible. The exact exposure times may be recorded, the precise concentrations of chemical might be marked, and the time in the bath might be timed down to the second, but there are still parts that come down to artistic decisions, backgrounded by experience, made on the fly. Things change from day to day, and every piece of fiber paper you use has its own slightly unique characteristics, even if they all came from the same pack. There are also techniques that are simply too difficult for amateur photographers to pull off without years of experience, and the stepwise process of photography involves decisions as to which techniques to use in each of the three major stages (producing the negative, processing the film, and printing the image). The final result in fine art photography is a print as unique as any painting. Even high quality digital scans fail to capture the vibrancy and beauty of the originals - look at high quality digital reproductions, and then go take a close look at an original. There is an almost spiritual presence. I spent years looking at Ansel Adams photographs online and in coffee-table books, and then I went and saw the real things. It's like listening to vinyl on a high-fi system versus listening to the same track on an iPod with Skullcandy headphones, though maybe less extreme. There is a reason original oil paintings and silver gelatin or platinum photographs sell for so much at Sotheby's, and there is a reason people still go to concerts. I argue that there is still value in the "authentic," and that is a substantial reason I and others go places to do fieldwork as opposed to just listening to recordings, watching YouTube videos, and looking at pictures. I will be reproducing material for people to look at and listen to, and I am extremely grateful for the recording devices of the digital age, but I know I will have most of the most moving and meaningful musical experiences in person, with the sounds coming straight from their source to my ears without any middle-men or processing. There is power in the ritual of performance, whether that performance is musical, visual, or otherwise. That power will be reproducible only in part, as if through a glass darkly, through descriptions and recordings. 

Annotated Source

Practice Makes Perfect: Lessons in Active Ethnomusicology

Author(s): Bess Lomax Hawes

Source: Ethnomusicology, Vol. 36, No. 3, Special Issue: Music and the Public Interest (Autumn,1992), pp. 337-343

Published by: University of Illinois Press on behalf of Society for EthnomusicologyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/851867 .

Accessed: 07/03/2012 17:53

Hawes' article in Ethnomusicology is mostly about what constitutes "success" or "value" in an ethnomusicological undertaking, especially as it concerns board reviews and external funding. She uses a case study to explore the issue and make a few points. The basic story is that a passionate scholar of black quartet music from the middle part of last century wanted to put together a concert of all the living singers from the era he studied. He received funding, had positive responses from all the performers, and booked a hall. The hall's capacity was 3000 souls, and only about 200 people showed up. By this figure, the performance seemed to be a failure. But, to the performers and their families, it was a complete success. Later on, the booklet that had been distributed to the attendees took on a life of its own and became an introductory text to black quartet music for many in the area, and, to make a long story short, five years of percolation after the initial concert saw a dramatically increased general interest in the music and the performers, and a whole tradition was revived. Hawes stresses the point that an initial failure was the starting point for a very successful venture. 

Example of "Birmingham Sound" Quartet Music - skip to 26:00 or so.

Here is a copy of five main points she made:

1. The tradition celebrated had real historical depth and real cultural significance and meaning-and it was intrinsically gorgeous. It was important.

2. The research into the tradition had been done with great thorough-ness and scholarly care, resulting-among other things-in the logical selection of Birmingham, Alabama, a major center in the development of quartet singing, as the concert site. (Other centers could have been chosen, of course, but this was one of theimportant ones. The concert was not staged in Hollywood, Washington, DC, New York City, or other more fashionable venues.)

3. Again, as the result of intensive research, the right singers had been invited, the right ones in this case being allthe groups that had participated in the development of the Birmingham style. Not everyone was still alive or could participate, but all the singers present knew that a serious attempt had been made to include everybody who should have been included. And that made for an atmosphere of joyful relaxation amongst the singers. They were having a reunion-who cared about anything else?

4. The actual research was presented back to the researched community in an inexpensive, profusely illustrated, interesting, verifiable form. It is impossible to look at that program booklet and not be impressed by the extraordinary story of the development of quartet singing in Birmingham. The availability of solid, painstaking scholarship empowers the community studied, allowing the development of legitimate pride. It can form a bridge, too, for contact across caste and class lines. But it has to be made available, and that requires major effort.

5. And then there was a concert. The living singers came together, and they opened their throats and poured their passion and skill and liveliness and humor out over the empty hall, and no one who heard them could ever be convinced that this was a dying art. I am in favor of books, publications of all kinds, musical transcriptions, tapes, records, and films, but in spite of all the technological and electronic gadgetry in the world, the primary gestating act of music, I believe, only happens when musicians and listeners assemble.

From the standpoint of someone who had sought funding and also been involved with committees who decide what gets funded, she described what she saw as important and impactful. She ends with a plea for all ethnomusicologists and funding board members to be simultaneously more critical and more generous when evaluating projects, especially when those projects are one's own. In a world where money issues are real, but where passion for art, beauty, and people is more important, the onus rests squarely on the researchers and funding committees to make sure that activities of true value happen.

My big takeaway were the factors for success that she defined. I will summarize (if you haven't noticed by now, the long quotes I put on the blog are for my benefit only, so I don't have to go and find the quotes again when I want to use them in a paper).

1. The research was on an important topic. Importance includes historical depth, cultural significance and meaning, and intrinsic beauty.

2. The background research was thorough and careful.

3. The right people were invited to be involved.

4. The research was made easily available for consumption and dissemination. 

5. The musical event/goal of the research was carried out.

Because all of these were in place, it was only a matter of time before the fruits of the project came into being, no matter the initial "failure." This makes me feel good and, again, puts me in the mind of re-evaluating parts of my project. If I can get 1-4 solid, and make 5 happen, then I will be successful. I like her definition, and hope to focus on her points in the future more than on GPA or paper scores.

Hanging out in Bylakuppe

I decided that, for today's journal, I would spend a little time in virtual Bylakuppe. YouTube has quite a few videos taken in the settlement. Here are a few of the interesting ones:

This guy is the host of a show that does a gastronomic tour of India, and he ends up in Bylakuppe to try out some Tibetan/Tibetan-fusion food. I'm kinda starving right now. Mmmm... Thukpa sounds good.

Of special interest to Lori and B. Landrum, here is a video from the SOS Children's Village, a school in the settlement. I dig the songs they sing - that might be an interesting area for research. Again, they taunt me with food.

This Indian beggar chants Tibetan mantras for his supper, which is cool. The amount of Hindi I was able to understand is also cool (if it was indeed Hindi - I don't know how much Telugu or the other southern Indian languages and Hindi share, and Bylakuppe is in the south...) - shukriya, Shrimati Carroll! 

Now, THIS is very interesting. The video is terrible, and you can't see much, but is worth listening to to see what musical selection a DJ in Bylakuppe at a Losar party would have. There's some Ke$ha, then Bob Marley, then some house trance. Cool beans.

The world is certainly a much smaller place then it used to be, and at Techung's suggestion I have taken part in what he says is probably one of the most used methods by Tibetans to connect and communicate - YouTube. I had no idea that Bylakuppe had any kind of presence on the internet, but here it is. I'll let you know what else I find!

Service

The readings for Monday's field studies class were some of the best things I have ever read, period. They are by Lee, "Eating Christmas in the Kalahari" and Remen, "Helping, Fixing or Serving?" I've been thinking lately about how my life, not to mention my field study, will provide service. My chosen professional field, medicine, is in theory a great form of service (though we all know doctors who serve no one but themselves). The likely direction at the moment is reproductive endocrinology, better known (and perhaps more accurately described) as fertility medicine. There are so many folks in this world of ours who hope and dream to have children, only to have biological difficulties get in the way. I would love to be the guy whose service is to couples who need a little help bringing children into the world. What a wonderful way to spend a day.

But that is something like eight years away! What are things I could do now that would be useful to humankind and make use of the things God has blessed me with?

I've thought a lot about hospice over the last few years. I love old people, for one thing. I'm always amazed by what seventy-plus years of living brings in the realm of wisdom and knowledge. More than that (not all hospice patients have their wits about them, and not all are all that old), I do not have a problem with death or with the uncomfortable situations surrounding it. So many people spend their last months and days in solitude, simply because their family and friends are too uncomfortable seeing these loved ones slipping out of mortality. I like giving people a chance to be cared for, a chance to say the last things they want to say, or simply a chance to be around another person as they finish their sojourn. I have had several opportunities to be close to people with terminal illnesses, and its a scary, eventful, beautiful, confusing time. People get so real in their last days. Serving these people would be so fulfilling, and is needed desperately.

Some of you might know this, but for those of you who don't, I play drums. I used to play drums a lot, before organic chemistry and work came along and harshed my mellow. I'm pretty good. I have had some incredible teachers, who not only taught me technique, but who got me into Music. Kids coming into musicianship deserve teachers like I had, who will dig on and vibe with whatever reason you have for picking up an instrument, who will respect your musical tastes, and who will cultivate something bigger and more global. I like the idea of giving free drum lessons, or (because people don't always trust teachers who don't think their lessons are worth paying for) charging only a nominal fee - gas money or something like that. I play enough styles well enough that I can go to pretty much any student and have something to contribute, and my technique is well grounded enough that hopefully I can prevent cases of carpal tunnel and get people quickly expressing themselves on the kit.  

In the meantime, since this semester is nuts and setting up free drum lessons/hospice service takes a little bit of breaking into, I think I'm going to get into doing tours with BYU ARG (Acoustics Research Group, or, alternately, Space Odyssey Pirate Club). They always need folks to do tours for kids from elementary and high schools, and the tours are geekin' sweet. The anechoic chamber (pictured above) is a zero-reverb room, which is freaky. They also have a reverb chamber, which gets all kinds of nuts with room modes, nodes, and antinodes. Occasionally we get to play with flame tubes as well.

I'll hopefully start doing these tours in a few weeks.

Alrighty, that's enough for now! Adios.

Classes Under Consideration

I just took a tour through BYU's entire course list, and I found some classes that might work for the other three credits of the field study (I've got 3 from IAS and 3 from music pretty much locked up). I'm not planning on necessarily taking any of these below, but the fact that they are taught means that there are some professors out there with expertise in areas that relate to my project. Here's the master list:


ANTHR 343 - Chinese Culture and Society
GEOG 272 - East Asia
GEOG 130 - Intro to Human Geography
HIST 347 - Chinese Cultural History
HIST 342 - 20th Century China
HIST 341 - Modern China since 1500
HIST 349 - Asian Religion and Thought
IHUM 240 - Intro to Humanities of Asia
IHUM 290R - Special Study in the Humanities
IAS 201R - Asia, China studies
PHIL 320R - Buddhism

I figure the Chinese scholars probably know a thing or two about Tibet, and the Asian Religion/Buddhism folks know something about Tibetan Buddhism. I'm having a hard time finding who does what by just using the internet, so I'll have to make some visits in the next few days. If organic chemistry would just leave me alone, I could work on it much sooner... Alas, organic chemistry is here to stay (for at least the rest of my college education!). If any of you out there know any professors at BYU interested in Tibet, ethnomusicology, musical geographies, or anything even tangentially related, let me know!

Methods Practice III

General Notes

Pipe organ used for instrumental accompaniment for congregational hymns. Piano used for choir number.

Female conducting the music. 30s, black dress with red belt and large necklace.

During sacrament hymn – 3 men at altar to left of rostrum, breaking bread. Sacrament prayer chant-like in recitation. Somewhat standardized oratory style – localized tradition?

Little boy walking quickly along hardwood floor behind last row of seats.

Choir – 7 men in back row, 7 women in front row. Conductor faces choir. All use sheet music. Male/female alternate verses, join on third voice for full harmony. All white performers, ages ~12 to 50, concentration of 20-to-30-somethings. No uniform worn, except that all were in the same kind of formal attire worn by majority of congregation.

Speaker after choir piece commented “What a beautiful hymn.” No comment on choir – just the hymn itself.

Most of congregation singing on congregational hymns. Less singing in the back – lack of hymnals?

Most singing melody. Some take harmony parts. Lack of musical training, laziness, preference for melody line?

Organization of organ pipes – three large clusters, center cluster tallest. In between, small pipes grow from center to meet either end. Symbolic of Trinity, or simply aesthetic choice?

Board on right for showing what hymn numbers will be sung. Empty. Why?

Hymnals green, numbered. Copyright 1985. 341 hymns.

Text and music of sung hymns follows. Four hymns in sacrament meeting, one by choir. One hymn sung in priesthood opening exercises, accompanied by piano (organ too powerful for smaller group? Or lack of an organist in the smaller priesthood body?)

Themes:

Scatter Sunshine – Christian living, attitude

While of These Emblems We Partake – Sacrifice of Jesus, ordinance of communion, the life to come

Lead, Kindly Light – supplication, repentance

More Holiness Give Me – supplication, Christian living and values

Redeemer of Israel – praise, supplication (only in v. 4), the Christian condition and cause

Opening Hymn – Scatter Sunshine

Sacrament Hymn – While of These Emblems We Partake

Choir Hymn – Lead, Kindly Light

Closing Hymn – More Holiness Give Me

Priesthood Hymn - Redeemer of Israel

Omitted verses 5 and 6.

Analysis: The choices of hymns were very balanced. The core doctrines of the gospel were preached, and the opening hymn was a practical application typical of Mormon conceptions of how religion should be lived. In such a large ward, the back section having to go without hymnals is sad and rather expected, but many I noticed simply pulled up the words on their smartphones. The hymns remind me of the South Indian bhajan song form - the focus is in no way on musical performance, but rather on communal praise and solidarity. The choir song moved a little more toward being about perfection of performance, but was still focused on devotion through participation rather than devotion through technical perfection. Elders quorums usually just pick a song that everybody has memorized, which I actually appreciate because the elders sing out more, especially if it's a hymn they sang often in the mission field. The tempos are usually a little quicker, and using a piano rather than an organ contributes to the wonderful percussiveness of amateur all-male choirs. It would be nice to have a little more vocal training among the general membership - a 500 voice choir should be deafening, but experience in this and other sacrament meetings shows that many 25 voice choirs could easily out-decibel the typical sacrament meeting congregation. It is so interesting to watch the different degrees of obvious emotion displayed by singers of hymns, and even more interesting to realize that many who are being most touched by the sermons preached in that little green bible are not showing their involvement at all. It definitely made me more conscious of how I sound and look when singing the hymns, and also made me more emotionally connected to the beautiful words, melodies, and harmonies.