The day I became a Musicologist

On October 24th, 2006, I put on my grown up clothes and traveled with Dr. Giger and Dr. Herlinger to Tulane to hear Dr. Giger give a lecture on staging in Verdi's opera "Otello". I had dreaded riding with them because I was afraid I didn't know enough music history to have a decent conversation with them, but our car ride turned out quite good. We discussed the surrounding areas (good places to bike and jog), transporation systems, news- they even asked my opinon on some things! That didn't show my importance, it showed their kindness and generosity.

After the lecture, one of the professors invited us to dinner at her house. We drove through New Orleans until we were at what seemed to be the heart and there we found Sounds cafe- the coffee shop that (Professor) Bade had opened underneath her home. Every Tuesday afternoon, two women come in and play music- one with a cello, one with a violin. This day they treated us to French waltzes in which the cellist sang in French. There we sat with the doors open to the streets of New Orleans with coffee in our hands listening to French music, letting the history blow in the open windows to teach our souls.

For dinner, we went up to her apartment- but had to we walk through her bookstore that was next door to get there. She had a balcony that overlooked the streets and reggae music playing softly in the background. I could see her study, shelves of books- up to the high ceilings. We could see the sliver of a moon as the sun set and she commented, "How beautiful!"

The rest of the night we ate crawfish etouffee and discussed the sort of things musicologists discuss...music, techonology, life. Dr. Herlinger told us about an article he had read in the NY times about a man who said having matching items in your house is unecessary, all this being said as we found every chair in the apartment to squeeze around the old wood table. That kind of information is both useful and entertaining. A musicological sort of information.

My colleagues and I were all sitting together when she asked us if we were musicologists. Yes! we all said. "All of you? Musicologists? That's wonderful!" And we beamed. Yes, we're musicologists. We're just starting out in grad school, but we can eat crawfish etouffee and discuss Verdi with the best of them.
And that is just what we did.

Yours Truly,