I’m back from my two-week conference tour. As a grad student and young assistant
professor, I frequently attended the meetings of both the American
Musicological Society and the Society for Ethnomusicology. But they are always back-to-back and with a
job, spouse, and kids, such gallivanting became difficult. The combo of travel, friends from at least
ten different phases of my life, and papers whose names I can no longer
remember has me somewhat brain-dead. But
I loved going back to SEM after many years and, especially, hanging out with
old friends. Suffice it to say that Friday nights giggle fest was worth the
trip. I have a few observations from my
comparative ethnography, but I haven’t figured out how to say them in ways that
won’t make everyone mad so for now I’ll keep most of them to myself. As a
teaser, Ethnomusicologists sport much cooler, attire but they do not drink as
much as musicologists.
I spent much of
Friday and Saturday afternoon/evening with current and former students. They suggested that I write down some of the
conference tips I gave them. I did not
come with all of these myself but gleaned many from my friends and mentors.
1) Do not go to a conference exhausted. For example, I do not recommend taking thirty
kids to see Bill T Jones and chaperoning a bus trip the night before a cross
continental flight to a conference. This
will take two weeks, at least, to recover from.
2) Read the program before the conference and try always to
go to a few papers that seem completely irrelevant to your research and that
interest you. Do this when you are young
because at a certain point you can do nothing but support students, former
students, friends, former friends etc... and intellectual interest falls
completely out of the equation.
3) Put a little thought into meals. Foraging for food can
turn into a very eighth grade affair. A
few people make plans, someone else tries to join; suddenly seven people find
themselves in a clump with an awkward five-person reservation on the
offer. If you are on the job market or a
search committee you may find yourself in the awkward position of adding the
employment power dynamic to the 8th grade social machinations. Reserve a few activities for really good
friends and keep them small! Consult
Yelp and locals.
4) If you have kids and they have either given you a manicure
or put a tattoo on you, remove. You may
feel uncomfortable with multi colored fingernails and a spider man on your
wrist.
5) Hydrate. Think of
this like a marathon. Hotels are dry,
and the air quality often resembles an airplane delayed on the runway. Drink lots of water and apply hand cream
generously. (the latter is particularly for scholars not in the early stages of
their careers, as we euphemistically say in the AMS now)
6) Speaking of hydrating… If you drink, a flask is key. Hotel bars charge a fortune for drinks and
can be full of people whom you may or may not want to see. I recommend Bourbon or Cognac. Many Universities sponsor parties with free
alcohol (and you can fill your flask if you charm the bartender) or cash
bars. The Harvard party at SEM got the
prize this year for delightful peach margaritas.
7) Bring Advil. See
above for hydrating issues. Add to that
the fact that conference hotels now frequently combine environmentally correct
slightly yellow lighting with crazy light displays, and a head ache will surely
rear its ugly head.
8) Bring Snacks, preferably protein. Any event with food will include starch and
more starch. The weekend is likely to
gyrate unpredictably between eating giant starch-infused meals to situations
with no opportunity for food for hours on end. Always have a high quality dark chocolate bar
in your bag—this can solve food and caffeine problems.
9) A very eminent and serious female musicologist who shall
remain nameless explained to me about twenty years ago that when she gets a
paper accepted she plans the outfit first and then writes the paper. And every year at least two female
musicologists asked me what to wear to AMS or SEM. This is all a little more vexed for women
than for men. My general words of wisdom are wear teaching clothes and wear
something you feel good in. I recommend
tights with glitter on them, and have them hand delivered by a fabulous friend
to sparkle up day seven of conference going in two weeks. But if that doesn’t work for you, find
something else. Don’t get too caught up
in what you are supposed to wear. There
are certainly those women who wear suits, but if you’re like me and you look
like you’re wearing your mom’s hand me downs in a suit, find something else
that works. I’m personally committed to color, and I appreciate it when people
wear it. If you don’t see well and every
third person is wearing gray or black it can be hard to locate your friends.
10) Do not speak in elevators ever. It is inevitable that you will insult the
person you are riding with directly or at least insult someone who is just like
them.
11) Introduce yourself to people if the person you know in
common fails to do so. Said person has
probably forgotten their name but can not ask because they should know. And if you’re a senior scholar wear your
nametag and introduce your students to people so that they don’t feel lonely
and awkward. (after 9 pm name tags can
probably come off.)
12) Bring a pen. Writing
snide notes is more subtle than texting the person sitting next to you. If you txt you may accidentally push a button
that makes noise or send the text to someone’s 12 year old daughter who has a
similar name.
13) Add entertaining apps to your smart phone. The Mozart
Dice game and Cat piano work especially well.
14) Stick to exercise routines. If possible get OUTSIDE the hotel. If you’re an adult who probably should have
been on ritalin as a child, the consequences of this can be dire including, for
example, accidentally kicking an extremely eminent scholar while fidgeting
during a paper. In addition to the stress
release, there’s a certain kid of hooky pleasure that comes from sneaking past
colleagues incognito in running clothes.
But if you’re meeting someone else don’t leave them stranded in the
lobby in running shorts. In order to
avoid this scenario I ended up bringing a female student up to my room while I
changed, which is probably breaking some sort of rule.
15) Do not bother bringing seven books to write that paper
you’ve been needing to write all semester.
This will only hurt your back.
Another eminent female musicologist I know spent much of her conference
time writing when her children were small, but she’s a special case.
16) Figure out whether or not you like to stay in the
conference hotel. Some people always
like to sleep away from the hoards.
Others value the convenience above all else. Another nameless scholar informed a few
friends that after walking all over San Francisco to avoid the hotel strike and
being tired and sweaty that even if the next one took place in a bordello with
a musicology prostitution ring the conference hotel was a must.
17) Make sure you are teaching something you can do in your
sleep or showing lengthy Opera video examples the day after a conference. Your brain will be completely mush from
scholarly overstimulation and will need a time out. Avoid situations where you can make a fool of
yourself or where, if it’s a promotion year, your evaluations might be
negatively affected by confusing Schubert and Shobart and or getting trapped in
a digression about Deluzian philosophy while teaching Schoenberg.
18) Above all, make sure you do at least one thing each day
that is fun for you. This could range
from solo morning coffee to wearing your favorite socks to adding mustaches to
some of the advertisements on bulletin boards.
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