This is my first blog post. Had I actually kept up with them like I was supposed to (I’m sorry) I could have given you (and me) a more fluid and clearer image of my process these past…well, this whole semester. Once I missed the first one, the big one, I kind of slipped and didn’t know how or where to pick back up. I continued my work with my fellow Hearts, but the website became this foggy intangible element that I was scared to approach. In fact, the whole researching/attacking a theme and direction process was foggy. Were any of these notes and findings actually applicable? Am I branching too far away from our decided central theme? Do I even have a firm grasp on what that theme is? Nothing felt solid or accomplished, in our group and in my own understanding of our individual and collective voice/role. Without that solid evidence and feeling, I had no idea what I could possibly write. Obviously, it would’ve helped had I just reached out immediately, but I didn’t. And here we are. So while I’d like to dump all those notes, feels, conflicts, and mini breakthroughs onto this entry now, I’ll allow this post to be a platform of moving forward: addressing the present as it is, and the hopes and goals to come.
Today was actually perfect for regaining my momentum with this project. Gavin Douglas (the professor of Ethnomusicology at UNCG who presented in class) reignited my confidence and excitement as he basically walked us through exactly what my group and I have been trying to attack. Our original idea having been following an instrument’s development and use across time and land, Gavin provided the foundation of a concrete history and narrative to easily follow. I was almost pissed sitting there thinking: yup, yup that’s what we’ve been looking for. No, don’t show the class the horse-head fiddle! That’s OUR thing. I’m pretty sure Emma and Emily, (who were sitting next to me, and definitely maybe sharing my thoughts), and I were ready to invite Gavin then and there into our group. Maybe interviewing him could actually be a helpful tool for us. We’ve already decided to use today and the contemporary use of musical performance as our vantage point of time to work backwards from. What if we used here, in Greensboro as the locale we’re traveling back from? Gavin even mentioned that the banjos we use in North Carolina are directly linked to movement from West Africa. Our narrative could be not only easier and more accessible for people stateside to comprehend, but it would be that much more intimate and personal to our own journey academically and physically. Musical tradition has moved and shifted a lot, and music also moves us. That’s something we should and can embody in the story and map we weave.