Turn out the lights, the party's over

[hrj]

The DISTAFF post-conference party was its usual pleasantly unwinding self, with lots of analysis, gossip, planning, and good munchies. It looks like I'll be putting in a proposal for a paper for next year (details if/when it firms up more). After that I did an airport run (Kalamazoo airport, that is) and had dinner with another late-stayer. I've reviewed all the comment threads on my session blogs to make sure I haven't left anything dangling. Now it's just a matter of hanging out for an hour or so in the lobby (where the wireless signal is reliable) then putting in a full night's sleep. I've plotted out that getting on the road by 7am should be sufficient, but what this means in reality is that at whatever point I wake up and it's light in the morning, I'll probably go ahead and leave. Ah, and a comment in another journal indicates that I still have one more social contact I can accomplish this evening!

Comments

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I'm tempted to try for a paper on a musical topic. Don't know if there'd be a track for it, or if I could come up with something that hasn't been done before...

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

It depends--much as I enjoy the Musicology sessions, they can be shark-infested waters when it comes time for Q & A. Do you have an academic/professional background in music?

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I've just realised that two of my LJ friends were at Kalamazoo, yet you don't seem to know one another. Or perhaps you do face to face?

[hrj.livejournal.com]

I'm goig to echo Shalmestere: the various sponsoring organizations vary enormously in how open they are to participation from "outside the academy". I attended purely as a spectator before contemplating which types of sessions my work would fit into. (and I was a grad student at the time, and so theoretically an "insider")

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Haven't quite figured out a specific topic yet, but almost certainly something to do about choral music. Mind you, I'm not looking at this for presentation in 2010.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I'm not thinking so much musicology per se. My initial idea was more about practical performance topics as discussed back then. Which, admittedly, might make it interesting to find a track to fit it in. Also, as I mentioned above, I'm not thinking of presenting next year. 2011 or 2012 would be more likely.

My bachelor's degree came with minors in both theory/composition and music education; some of my early jobs had music ed as a significant component. My main academic thrust wasn't music, however; the college teaching portions of my career have been computer-related. I'm not interested in making a big career-furthering splash with this, so as long as I have the research to back up the paper, I'm not sure how much I'd care about the Q&A sharks.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Understood. If there isn't a track willing to take the paper when it's ready to be presented, that's not much skin off my nose. (And it'd be a couple of years or more before the paper's ready.)

[shalmestere.livejournal.com]

Don't know if there'd be a track for it, or if I could come up with something that hasn't been done before...

And there's the rub--I team-presented something performance-related in the early 1990s, but the opportunity hasn't presented itself since. Still biding my time, tho :-)

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

My choral interests are wide and eclectic, but my research thoughts are tending towards Italian stuff -- perhaps some of the double-choir stuff by Gabrieli and his friends... which might possibly have some cross-pollination with works written for brass choirs. (I was in the Brass Ensemble as well as the Choir in college; I got exposed to *lots* of different sorts of what they called [at the time] Early Music.)