Practicality

Yes I realize this blog makes it seem as if my life revolves around food. In a way it does, but here is a little bit about some other fun things happening in my life that are not food related.

I can't remember if I have mentioned this before, but I was accepted into the musicology internship here under Dr. Morten Solvik and for the first time I am getting a real look into legitimate musicology. So far, I am working on transcribing and translating a handwritten letter from Arthur Seidl, written in the late 1800s, meaning it is written in Frakture, a cursive-esque handwriting that looks nothing like modern handwriting. Fortunately, my handwriting is weirdly similar in a lot of ways. I am not sure what that says about my handwriting, but my roommate claims it means I am a genius. I wholeheartedly agree. But really, the letter is very difficult to read, his Es, Ns, and Ms, all look the same and sometimes he gets lazy and will write the same letter 5 different ways. But by now I've gotten pretty good at reading it, that said I am only half way through the first page.

Another project is a transcription of a setting of "Wanderers Nachtlied" by Hans Rott, which my colleagues and I finished a basic copy of and got into Finale. Then today in class, Dr. Solvik ripped our edition apart! We made several silly mistakes and a few Finale ones, but major props to Daniel, who put it all in for us, and we cannot figure out where the postlude is. Rott simply wrote down what looks like "hehe" and "Aß" and left a measure blank. Where is the missing postlude? I have no clue and have to find it before next week.

Third project: choose a concert, write programs notes for the concert, attend the concert, and then write a newspaper critic. I chose the Wiener Staatsoper production of Richard Strauss' "Salome," since I am thinking about doing the operas of Strauss for my honors thesis and I plan to begin my research while I am here. I began my research and have probably about 8 million books out from the library, each contributing about 2 pages worth of info, except one very large book taking apart all of Strauss' operas. I bought my tickets for the performance already and got two box seat, partial views for 10 euro!

We also have a bit of intern-esque work, just things that need to get done, but it isn't too bad and I am learning a lot from the experience!